William Carlos Williams (1883-1963) was a leading poet of the imagist movement. He was a doctor, poet, novelist, essayist and playwright. His poetry is remarkable for its empathy, sympathy and emotional identity with his subjects.” He wrote about the lives of everyday people and the beauty of simple, seemingly unimportant objects in simple American language used by common people.
According to Randall Jarrell, “there is no optimistic blindness in Williams…. though there is a fresh gaiety, a stubborn or invincible joyousness.” He wrote on American subjects and themes using the living colloquial American language. As a doctor he moved closely with patients and understood the real conditions of his neighborhood and derived inspiration for his poetry and other literary writings. He became an inspiration to the Beat generation poets in 1950s and 60s. Instead of being frank and straightforward with his words, he adopted a suggestive approach as he said “show, don’t tell”. In his poems he portrayed urban landscape, ordinary scenes and conditions of working class and poor people using typical American rhythm and simple language. His focus on imagery and simple language without irrelevant decorations makes his work emblematic of modernism. His poem “Red Wheel Barrow” is considered a typical example of imagism and his style.
William
Carlos Williams was born on 17th September,1883 in Rutherford, New
Jersey. His father, George Williams was born in England and from the age of
five he was raised in the Dominican Republic. He introduced his sons to
Shakespeare, Dante and the Bible. His
father’s mother was a lover of the theater.
His mother, Helene was from Puerto Rico and was of French origin. She
was very much interested in painting.
The Caribbean
culture of the home had an important influence on Williams. His parents spoke
Spanish, and this was his prime means of communication. Till he was a
teenager English was not his primary means of communication. He did his primary
and secondary schooling in Rutherford till 1897. Later he continued his
education in a school near Geneva, in Paris and Horace Mann School in New York.
He took interest in mathematics and science. Later when he was in High School,
he took interest in languages.
But his
parents tried to instill rigid idealism and moral perfection in his sons. They wished that Williams should study
medicine. So, in 1902 he joined the medical school of the university of
Pennsylvania and graduated in 1906. He went to Leipzig for advanced study of
Pediatrics. In 1909 he published his first book “Poems”. After his return from
Germany, he married Florence Herman (1891-1976). He stayed in Rutherford with
his family and practiced as a doctor in Pediatrics and General Medicine in
Passaic general Hospital (later called St. Mary’s General Hospital) for more
than four decades. He worked as Chief of Pediatrics from 1924 till death.
According to his wife, Flossie, “William loved being a doctor, making house calls and talking to people.” He was impressed by poetry of Keats and Walt Whitman. His first major work was modelled on Keats’ “Endymion”. Whitman’s free verse offered ‘an impulse toward freedom and release of the self.” Later he found his mentor Ezra Pound, leaving the influence of the studied elegance of Keats and the raw vigor of Whitman. Through Pound he was introduced to a group of friends of the poet, Hilda Doolittle (H.D.) and painter, Charles Demuth. He found a sense of liberation from rigid and ordered poetry of his time in Imagist Movement which influenced other genres of art such as in painting (Cezanne), music (Stravinsky) and fiction (Stein).
The imagists broke from the conventional poetic forms by stressing a verse form of “swift, uncluttered, functional phrasing.” Imagism is an early twentieth reactionary movement against Romanticism and Victorian poetry. The essential purpose is to re-create the physical experience of an object through words unlike Victorian poetry which tended to be narrative in its content. It emphasized simplicity, clarity of expression and precision through the use of visual images. It stressed on clear and sharp language and direct treatment of the subject. No word should be used that does not contribute to the effect of the poem. The poet should concentrate on everything he wishes to communicate into a vivid image rather than use poetic devices and meter to complicate and decorate it. Imagist movement is the first organized modernist literary movement. This trend is reflected in Avant Garde (introducing new and experimental methods in music, art and literature) art and Cubism. The imagist works were published mostly between 1914 and 1918. The famous Imagist writers of this period are:Ezra Pound, Hilda Doolittle, Amy Lowell, T.E. Hulme, F.S. Flint and William Carlos Williams.
T.E. Hulme in his essay “Romanticism and Classicism” (1908) wrote that language in poetry is a visual concrete one and images in verse are not mere decoration but very essence. Pound adapted Hulme’s ideas for his Imagist Movement in 1912. He moved away from fixed meters and moral reflections, subordinating everything to what Hulme called “hard, dry image.” Pound defined image as an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time. The presentation of such complex gives a sense of freedom from time limits and space. Williams met Ezra Pound during his stay in Pennsylvania and with his help his second book of poems “The tempers” was published by a London Press.
In 1914 Pound edited and published an anthology “Des Imagistes” including poets like William Carlos Williams, James Joyce, Hilda Doolittle and Richard Aldington. Due to difference of opinion Amy Lowell assumed leadership of Imagist movement and published three anthologies between 1915 and 1917, all called by name “Some imagist Poets.” Lowell also distanced himself from this movement later. Pound propounded a new philosophy called Vorticism to describe the creative energy of artistic creation. The Vorticists developed an abstract style filled with energy and dynamism. They opposed the ostentatious rhetoric of traditional style and the 19th century sentimental and imaginative approach but stressed on solid reality. Pound's essay “Vortex” appeared in “Blast” in 1914.The vortex represents maximum energy and mechanical dynamism of the age. The Vorticists preferred control, dynamic energy and rationality without any deviations from the main theme.
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28th August,2023 Somaseshu Gutala
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