Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Semester of Degree Completion
1994
Thesis Director
Michael Loudon
Abstract
The present study serves as a thematic, critical perspective on William Carlos Williams' poetry on the poor; specifically, I address his representation of the poor in his poetry and his attitude towards them. From 1914-38, his attitude towards the poor goes through three significant stages of change. Roughly, the stage boundaries can be marked by decade: the 1910s, the 1920s and the 1930s.
In the first stage, Williams recognizes his empathetic and aesthetic distance from the poor, since his aesthetics rest primarily on his youthful fascination with Keats. The poet desires to reflect properly the lives of the poor. The long poem "The Wanderer," originally published in 1914, establishes this interested, but alienated, perception of the poor; however, the poem contains, in the last section, a remarkable realization of Williams' need to be more immersed in what is foreign to him.
The second stage, which actually begins in 1917, serves as Williams' focal period in which he moves toward relaying empathy powerfully in his verse, though occasionally his own subjectivity weakens his presentation of his subject. "Pastoral [When I was younger]" and "Pastoral [The little sparrows]" from Al Que Quiere contain a romantic view of poverty: one that attempts to represent and to speak for the poor as they would themselves but, in so doing, exposes Williams' sentimentality. This stage is also partially distinguished by verse, such as "To Elsie," which furthers Williams' concept of the local and the poverty caused by isolation from the locality, the mainstream of community life.
Poems of the third stage portray the poet escaping past inabilities to give voice to the poor in such a way that confirms Williams' genuine contact with his local environment and its poor. The poems of this period both discuss the poor as a class ("Proletariat Portrait" and "The Yachts") and as individuals ("Proletariat Portrait," "To a Poor Old Woman" and "The Poor [It's the anarchy of poverty]"). Viewing the poor in both of these ways balances Williams' need to present the poor as products of the local and to discuss his own growing concern for the class, as his connection, his empathy, with the poor becomes increasingly tied to his own developing self-identity.
Recommended Citation
Montgomery, Jon, "The Concept of the Local in Williams' Developing Poetics: The Poet's Perception and Representation of the Poor" (1994). Masters Theses. 2037.
https://thekeep.eiu.edu/theses/2037
