Year: 2004
Type: article
Abstract: Williams's Lyric "These": His Deepest Descent* Williams's poem "These" (1938) is much admired, if we can judge by the frequency of its reprintings in anthologies.It has been a part of the canon of Williams's most important work since 1949, when Randall Jarrell included it in his influential The Selected Poems of William Carlos Williams.Yet critical commentary on the poem is slight, despite the rapid recent growth of Williams scholarship and Wil liams's ascent into the front rank of American poets.Why is "These" read but not discussed?Perhaps it is the poem's contorted syntax, double negatives, and gnomic riddling -all apparent deviations from the no-ideas-but-in-plain-style aesthetic for which Williams is most celebrated.Perhaps it is the poem's severe depiction of nature.Its wintry scenes are resolutely barren, no sprig of wildcarrot survives its wasteland, and even the wind -whose violent energy Williams releases in so many other winter and early spring poems -is strangely silent, making the harsh landscape much more foreboding than when it rages.Williams wrote many angry, des pondent poems, but until "These" he never published a poem so despairing of nature's ability to renew itself or cure the stupidity of man.The poem's cold helplessness is finally more chilling than the rage and satire we usually see when Williams is angry.Unlike poems written in that mood, which radiate energy even as they attack their targets, "These" shows us the darkest and bleakest part of Williams's soul.It is a heartrending cry of loneliness, pain, and impotence.Of all the poems that Williams wrote, "These" is perhaps the most difficult to reconcile with those qualities of his character and his art that we rightly praise -his sympathy, generosity, good humor, and optimism.
Author: Peter Schmidt
Language: English
Subfield: Literature and Literary Theory
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W823532346