"Among the
poets of his own illustrious generation, William Carlos Williams was the man on
the margin, the incorrigible maverick, the embattled messiah." (Unger 402)
Throughout his career, Williams has always been known as an
experimenter, an innovator, and a revolutionary figure in American poetry. He is regarded as an important and
influential poet because of his unique and unusually plain style. Living a life that was rather conventional,
using a writing style that was essentially breaking the mold, and having a
style that most critics were unsure about, Williams established a new genre to
the poetic world.
THE SIMPLE THINGS
IN LIFE
William Carlos
Williams; born on September seventeenth, 1883, in Rutherford, New Jersey; was
the first of two sons born to the middle class status of George and Raquel
(Helene) Williams. Having an English
father and a Puerto Rican mother, with ancestry from the French, Dutch,
Spanish, and Jewish sides, Williams had an interesting mix of culture from
birth (Bloom 4338). As he grew older in
his middle class household, his father provided him with a fertile background in
the arts and literature, introducing him to Shakespeare, Dante, and the Bible
(DISC 1). To further elevate his level
of knowledge, Williams attended the University of Pennsylvania, where he was
awarded a Doctorate in Medicine, and later visited the University of Leipzig,
for post-graduate study (Bloom 4338).
Williams fulfilled his parents' lofty standards by becoming a general
practitioner with his degree from Pennsylvania.
Their standards, unfortunately, did not match up with those of Williams
himself. He did not wish to become a
doctor, but found himself becoming infatuated with poetry. He often found himself torn between what he
wanted to do, and what his parents wished for him to do. He was caught, because his love was not as
promising a career as becoming a doctor.
However, as made evident out by Gale Research in their DISCovering
Authors series, a career in medicine could actually assist Williams in his
writing passion. From his medical
practice, he was able to earn enough money to give him the financial freedom to
experiment with his writing dream (3).
Williams carried
on with his medical practice for forty-one years in the same town, until he
retired to writing full-time in 1951(Bloom 4338). This shows that Williams was happy with the
simple things. He found what he liked,
pursued it, and eventually ended up doing what he wished - he wrote poetry.
Williams spent the vast majority of his life in
the small town of Rutherford, New Jersey, leaving only to attend college. He established a small medical practice in
Rutherford in 1910 and, shortly after, married a young woman, whom he met at
the University of Pennsylvania, by the name of Florence Herman in 1912. Following his marriage, he had two children,
namely William-Eric and Paul-Herman (Bloom 4338).
As Williams' writings ultimately became
acknowledged, he began to produce works which received positive feedback. He received a myriad of awards and honors
from all parts of the country. Locher
itemized these decorations as ranging from honors within the community, to
awards from major universities, all the way up to the Pulitzer Prize which he
received in 1963 (575). Although
Williams viewed his work as somewhat conventional, it is apparent that others
had finally begun to realize his unique flavor and recognize that the topics
which he wrote were true.
William Carlos Williams passed away on March 4,
1963, a man who lived a life so plain, yet his early stages were spoon-fed with
nothing but knowledge for the mind. He
seemed to accomplish all he was on this planet for except for one thing, his
final and most lengthy poem - a poem that was never completed, but maybe was
never meant to be.
THE POEM WILL
LAST FOREVER
After one reads a
selection of poems by Williams, he might think that Williams could be mentally
disturbed. This notion could easily be
proven false by a thorough analyzation of his poems. Williams is actually quite the opposite. The following selection is entitled "The
Rose Fades...":
The rose fades
and is renewed
again
by its seed,
naturally
but where
save in the poem
shall it go
to suffer do
diminution
of its
splendor (Williams 195)
In the poem "The Rose Fades..."
Williams discusses the issue of life's fading away. Life is symbolized by the "rose" and
seems to be the main theme on which he builds.
However, the "poem" is another topic. Each symbol, in its own sense, represents a
larger picture from which is comes. The
"rose" gives the picture of nature, while the "poem" is a
representation of the arts. The whole issue of the "rose" fading
shows that Williams can see that life, no matter of what form, eventually fades
away. On the other hand, the
"poem" does not even fade in the first place, it "suffer[s] no
diminution of its splendor." It
seems that what Williams is trying to say is that from all of the hardships
that people have in life, they will
return; and the arts will always be there to guide their path.
OUT WITH THE OLD,
IN WITH THE NEW
William Carlos Williams brought a style to poetry
that had never before been seen. Along
with his work, came a long line of critics who were in disbelief -- some saying
his poetry was un-American, and others who were not sure why his work was even
regarded at all (DISC 3). Like all
people who are leaders and set trends, Williams encountered his fair share of
disbelievers, but in the end they were all proven wrong.
Williams' writings were about real life -- the
simple things, the things that people thought about and dealt with every
day. As Alan Ostrom wrote,
"Flowers, says the romantic young man, are the subject of William Carlos
Williams' poems; familiar ordinary things, says the critic" (3).
Many readers looked for lofty poetry laced with symbolism and gorgeous
thoughts. Because this great fairy-tale
style poetry was the main product of the time, Williams' works were often
misunderstood and overlooked. The people
expected a glamorous type of writing, but what he gave them was a plain style
rebelling from all that was standard, and aimed at expressing the feelings of
the average American.
Williams seemed to love controversy and the
idea of being different. Perhaps this
can be linked back to his ethnic variety and early education in the arts by his
parents. Unger illustrates his dare to
be different in the following:
Williams,
ignoring the shapes in which poetry had been cast, sought always to rediscover
poetry itself. And yet his dismissal of
entrenched forms of English poetry -- his lifelong crusade against the iambic
pentameter, and his endlessly burning scorn for the sonnet - should not blind
his readers to the fact that his searchings and concerns were exclusively
directed toward formal solutions. (403)
Contrary to those who believed that Williams
was writing nonsense, he took those steps to make a statement. He wanted poetry not only to be mystical and
magical in the mind, but also to be mystical and magical in the heart -
something real, not a dream.
To the poetry
readers of the time, the idea of change was completely outrageous and out of
line. For anyone to take a step as bold
as to redesign the essence of the poem from the ground up was unheard of. But Williams did it. He threw out all of the rules, disregarded
the verbal bashings he received, and picked himself up from the countless times
he was knocked down - from childhood through adulthood, and ultimately
death. His thoughts, willingness, and
competitive spirits will live on forever in the hearts of those who always seek
the truth.
WORKS CITED
Bloom, Harold,
ed. The Chelsea House Library of Literary Criticism: Twentieth-Century American
Literature, Volume 7. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1988.
DISCovering
Authors, "William Carlos Williams."
Ostrom, Alan. The
Poetic World of William Carlos Williams. Carbondale: Southern Illinois
University Press, 1966.
Paul, Sherman.
The Music of Survival: A Biography of a Poem By William Carlos Williams.
Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1968.
Unger, Leonard,
ed. American Writers: A Collection of Literary Biographies, Volume IV. New
York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1974.
Williams, William
Carlos. The Collected Later Works of William Carlos Williams. New York: New
Directions Books, 1950.
OUTLINE
· INTRO
· MOTIVATOR:
(QUOTE)
· THESIS
· BIOGRAPHY
· EARLY LIFE
RAISING
· EDUCATION
· AWARDS AND
PRIZES
· LATE LIFE
· STYLE
* ANALYZE POEM:
"THE ROSE FADES..."
· SYMBOLS
· MEANING
· GENERAL IDEA OF
POEM - DIRECTION IT TAKES
· CRITICS
· ESTABLISH HIS
STYLE
· STATE HIS
REBELLIOUSNESS
· WHY HE WANTED
CHANGE
· HOW DID PEOPLE
REACT TO THE CHANGE
· CONCLUSION
· CLINCHER
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