William carlos williams ppt
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Transcript of William carlos williams ppt
William Carlos Williams
Art and Healing
“Only medicine, a job I enjoyed, would make it possible for me to live and write as I wanted to”
-William Carlos Williams
Outline:
• Early life
• The world around William Carlos Williams
• Early Works and Imagism
• The relationship between medicine and art
• Conclusions
Beginnings
• Born in Rutherford, New Jersey in 1883• Father was an Englishman from the West
Indies; Mother was of Spanish and French heritage, also from West Indies
• Studied abroad before enrolling in Horace Mann High School in NYC
• Attended Medical School of Pennsylvania, during which time he befriended Hilda Doolittle and Ezra Pound
An Everyday Life
• Graduated from medical school in 1906• Interned in New York City • Married Florence Herman (“Flossie”), and
had 2 sons, Paul and William• Published his first book of poetry in 1909• Worked in a very busy primary care
practice• Edited several magazines and began to
write fiction and plays
The Political Climate
• Russian Revolution
• Transportation Revolution
• World War I
• Prohibition
• Women’s Suffrage
The Artistic Climate
• Marked by man’s realization of his own fragmentation and an almost complete break from former styles
• Cubism: Picasso, DuChamp
• Ballet: Balanchine
• Music: Stravinsky
Georges Braque – “Woman With Guitar”
Marcelle DuChamp – “Fresh Window” (1920)
George Balanchine
Stravinsky
Works featured adventurous harmonies with a focus on dissonance
Imagism
• Rejected the effusive nature of Romantic and Victorian poetry
• Focused on directness of idea and economy of language
• Contemporary with and in harsh contrast to Georgian poetry
• Contemporaries: Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot
Basic Tenets of Imagism
• To use the language of common speech • To create new rhythms – a new cadence means
a new idea• To allow absolute freedom in the choice of
subject• To present an image• To produce poetry that is hard and clear, never
blurred or indefinite• Concentration is the very essence of Poetry
The Red Wheelbarrow
so much depends upon
a red wheelbarrow
glazed with rainwater
beside the whitechickens
Williams eventually broke with the imagist movement because he felt that the brevity of the imagist poem caused it to lose “structural necessity”
Basic Premises of Williams’ Poetry
• “Modern man has no measure”• Insisted on the value of newness,
inefficacy of old forms• Sought a voice and style that was truly
American• Rejected the necessity of religion or
contrived mythologies• Believed in the contribution of the
individual to a continuum of humanity
“Medicine was the thing that gained me entrance to these secret gardens of self… I was permitted by my medical badge to follow the poor, defeated body into those gulfs and grottos”