《美国文学》课件二十二.ppt

Lecture 22 William Carlos Williams (1883-1963) and his “The Red Wheelbarrow”;His position in American literature Williams is one of the two major literary figures in modern American literary history for whom writing poetry was only an avocation (the other one being Wallace Stevens); he worked all his life as a physician in America except for two brief visits to Europe.; Williams’s recognition came later in his career. He lived long in the shadow of T. S. Eliot (1888-1965) , and he was anti-Eliot all his life. Not until the 1950s and 1960s did Eliot’s influence begin to wane and Williams’s poetry began to have a chance to assert itself. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1963.; Now his position as a major voice in modern American poetry was established, and his poems began to exercise their influence on the general course of the development of contemporary poetry. He has been recognized as a forefather of open verse. In contemporary poetry, he is a stronger influence, perhaps, than anybody else’s. All major schools of poetry acknowledge their indebtedness to him. ;Williams’s views Williams saw America as the place where he should root his poetry. He believed that American poetry must be rooted in America as its fount of inspiration and its source of information and subject matter. It was the place for American poets. He felt strongly that poetry must be grounded in everyday experience and in the speech of the common people. To him there was poetry in everyday life, which, when closely observed and well appreciated, is in itself poetry. ; Williams was not interested in philosophical and metaphysical speculation, which in his opinion, has no place in poetry: “Say it! No ideas but in images.” Clarity of imagery constitutes the essential element of his poetry. ;3. “This is just to say” I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox and which you were probably saving for breakfast Forgive me