with the bare hands: modernism between Eliot and Williams

for many readers of English poetry, the term ‘modern’ is nearly synonymous with the name TS Eliot. ‘The Waste Land,’ especially, carries that high blend of literary English and refined sensibility that came to mark much of the movement of literary modernism. much, that is, but not all. in contrast to what he termed the “classroom” English of Eliot’s poetry, William Carlos Williams focused on a meter and especially an idiom rooted in American speech. (174, The Autobiography of William Carlos Williams) as he said, he was making “…a reply to Greek and Latin with the bare hands…” (2, Paterson) Williams was taking poetry to a different arena, pushing its bounds and trying to alter its stuffy, academic status. after all, here was a poet who spent his days working, doctoring, only at night or between patients able to “bang out” pages on his typewriter. (xiv, The Autobiography of William Carlos Williams) a working poet. taking poetry back from the academe and trying to give it life.

texts cited: Williams, William Carlos. The Autobiography of William Carlos Williams. New Directions. 1948.
Williams, William Carlos. Paterson. New Directions. 1946.

Originally published at microproseblog.wordpress.com on September 2, 2018.