William Carlos Williams

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William Carlos Williams

• Art and Healing

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• Only medicine, a job I enjoyed, would make it
  possible for me to live and write as I wanted to
• -William Carlos Williams

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Outline

• Early life
• The world around William Carlos Williams
• Early Works and Imagism
• The relationship between medicine and art
• Conclusions

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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

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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

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The Political Climate

• Russian Revolution
• Transportation Revolution
• World War I
• Prohibition
• Womens Suffrage

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The Artistic Climate

• Marked by mans realization of his own
  fragmentation and an almost complete break from
  former styles
• Cubism Picasso, DuChamp
• Ballet Balanchine
• Music Stravinsky

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Georges Braque Woman With Guitar
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Marcelle DuChamp Fresh Window (1920)
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George Balanchine
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Stravinsky

• Works featured adventurous harmonies with a
  focus on dissonance

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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

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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

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The Red Wheelbarrow

• so much depends
• upon
• a red wheel
• barrow
• glazed with rain
• water
• beside the white
• chickens

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• Williams eventually broke with the imagist
  movement because he felt that the brevity of the
  imagist poem caused it to lose structural
  necessity

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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

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• 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

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The Link Between Poetry and Medicine?

• Diagnosis!
• In medicine and in poetry, Williams sought to
  catch the evasive life of a thing, to phrase
  things in such a way that stereotype will yield a
  moment of insight

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• LE MEDECIN MALGRE LUIOh I suppose I
  shouldwash the walls of my officepolish the
  rust frommy instruments and keep themdefinitely
  in orderbuild shelves in the laboratoryempty
  out the old stainsclean the bottlesand refill
  them, buyanother lens, putmy journals on edge
  instead ofletting them lie flatin heaps-then
  beginten years back andgraduallyread them to
  datecataloguing importantarticles for ready
  reference.I suppose I shouldread the new
  books.If to this I addeda bill at the
  tailor'sand at the cleaner'sgrew a decent
  beardand cultivated a lookof importance-Who
  can tell?  I might bea credit to my Lady of
  Happinessand never think of anythingbut a white
  thought

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Landscape With The Fall of Icarus According to
Brueghel when Icarus fell it was spring a
farmer was ploughing his field the whole
pageantry of the year was awake tingling near
the edge of the sea concerned with itself
sweating in the sun that melted the wings'
wax unsignificantly off the coast there was
a splash quite unnoticed this was Icarus
drowning
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The Fall of Icarus by Brueghel
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Later Years

• William Carlos Williams suffered a series of
  stokes
• Passed away March 4, 1963 at age 79
• Posthumously awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1963

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Conclusions

• PLENTY of other William Carlos Williams works if
  you are interested
• It is not necessary to abandon outside interests
  in pursuit of medicine
• Art and medicine are inextricably linked we are
  lucky to have the opportunity to participate in
  both!

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References

• Bremen, Brian A. William Carlos Williams and
  the Diagnostics of Culture. New York City
  Oxford University Press, 1963.
• Engels, John. Guide to William Carlos Williams.
  Columbus Merrill Publishing Company, 1969.
• Williams, William Carlos. The Complete
  Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams.
  New York New Directions,1938.