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THE DESERT MUSIC OF JILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS:
THE ACHIEVEMENT OF AU'l1HENTIC EXFHESSION
A thesis presented in partial fulfilmGnt of the requirc:.:,__nts for the d ... gr,::e of E.:i.ster of ~rts in English at Massey University,
MURRAY
R.
BRAMWELL1971 ,
- To
r:y
P;u cnts -CONTENTS
PlIBF.1-,CE
Chapter 1 n ,,E LU.'.3T LOOSEN \VHAT vvE i~ANT11
2
"HO ,::
SHALL ,{[' GET SAID ";HAT MUSTB~ SAID17
3 4
5
11 A. NEi.; '.'JORLD IS ONLY il. NEVI EIND"
HTBE FE~!ININE PRINCIPLE"
11 AND ThI.S TH:S FII~,ST (AND Lf.\.EiT) Di,Y OF THE ·IORLD"
11.PPENDD .. I
APl-ENDIX II
FOOTNOTLS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Page i i
1
31
53
115
129
134
148
ii.
PREFACE
It is the purpose of this essay to study the poetical works of Wi l l iam Carlos Williams
(1883-1963)
that are contained in The Desert Music collection in addition to a study of one poem "Asphodel, That Greeny Fl ower1' , included in tho collection entitled Journey to Love. The Desert Music poems were first published in1954 ,
Journe~ t o Love appeared one year l at er.Both these sel ections were subsequently published in
1962
in a cumulative volume enti tled Pictures from Brueghel which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in1963 .
It is this latter volume from which my textual quotations come.It hels been my conc":rn to consider these poems from a particular viewpoint, one which::/\vill be mo.de clear in this essay, was of enduring interest to the poet hi mself. Thr ough- out his long writing career ~illiams was deeply concerned to establish a distinct and significant l i terary tradition in the United States. Much of the literature t hR t was written by Americans Wi l l inms fel t to be, if not irrelevant, then only bearing partial rel ation to the people, events and peculiar experience of the United States. Literature written in the United States, he maintained, was to be authentic, i t must teflect and explore the American experience. This work is an effort to ~ocument and examine William Carlos Wi l l iams' achieve- ment of identity and genuine expression as an American poet.
This is not a study of a mere r egional poet. Williams
·.
i i i .
himself stressed that to be a regional po8t alone was insuff- icient. He had, however, to under stand and contain the area from which he came. The approach ~dopted has been to commence with a consideration of a variety of prose works by Wi l l iams that express his intentions and hopes as a writer. The most significant of these is In the American Grain
(1925)
but ofimportance also are the Prologue to Kora in Hell
(1920)
and a wide range of essays and l etters . These writings establish clearly Wil l iams' particular concept of ~uthenticity and Jlso reveal the poet's attitude towards poets such as T.S. Eliot, whose values and expression he vehemently opposed.A general discussi on of Wi l l inms ' sprawling manifestos occupies the first chapter with a view to showing their
application in poems in Pictures from Brucghel. Th0se poems ar e peak works i n ~illiams' career . Kenneth Rexroth saw
The Desert Music as the beginning of a new e.-c:. of Rccomplishment for Wi l l iRm CArlos ~illiams, then nearing seventy:
••• from now on, as ·~iilli:-.ms e;rows older, he wi l l rise as far above his contemporaries as Yeats did above his in his l ntter years. The fruit has ripened on the tree. 1
Indeed i n l etters, quoted below, Wi l l iams himself fel t that in theme and prosody these poems embody authentically attitudes and experiences he wanted to convey.
The following three chapters analyse these poems, grouping them thematically. The first of these deals with the descent, which I wish to establish as a key motif, in addition to a discussion of his triadic "va.riable foot"~ The next chapter
iv.
is concerned with poems stressing synthesis and hcrmony and Chapter Four which focus.2;:> mainly on "Asphodel , That Greeny Flower" is concerned with love and its significance for the poet's craft.
Whil e t he poems selected for study are all late ones written in a very short span of his long l i terary car eer, I feel justified in concentrating on them. They are evidence not only, as :rtcxroth says, that 11the fruit has ripened on the tree'' but they also epitomise the consistency and devotion that Wi ll i ams displayed in the 1950s to principles that he stressed initinlly in the 1920s and earl i er.
The opening chc..pt er deals with i·Ji l l iams' hopes as a wri t2r. The following three chapt ers deal with the t ransfer of these precepts to some of his poems. The conclusion attempts to define and evaluate his achievement and exa~ine the peculi arity and quality of j i l l iams' search for genuine stateccnt.
Included as appendices ar e two extr~cts from Williams' writingJ too l engthy for inclusion in the text but too relevant t o be excluded. They are the chapter 'Descent' from In the American Grain and the final section, "St. James' Grove)' of the early and seminal poem "The \.Vanderer11•
For their assistance and gui dance in the preparation of this essay my thanks are due to the following people:
~Mr. Peter Alcock, my supervisor, for his generosity with both time and suggestions, and for creating my initial interest in what proved an absorbing study.
~to Professor R.G. Frean and other members of the English
Department of Massey University, particularly Dr. Mary Chan.
v.
- to f'iiss E.M. Green, Mrs. M.D. Gwynn and Miss L. Marsden of the Massey University Librnry.
- to Mrs . M~rgaret Brogden, secretary of the English Department ~t Massey University, for typing the MS and for her unstinting kindness throughout its pr0paration.
- and finally, to my wife, Meryl for patience and encourageQent when it was most needed.