William Carlos Williams' "Pastoral" and "Proletarian Portrait" Essay

William Carlos Williams' "Pastoral" and "Proletarian Portrait"

William Carlos Williams' poem "Pastoral" is narrated in an introspective, confessional voice that describes the narrator's attitude toward the streets in which he was raised. There is very little plot in the poem, and it consists mainly of details concerning the street locale. Given the minimal plot that occurs, the details assume great significance. The reader must therefore be cognizant of how the details inform the meaning, as well as the poem's expressive use of diacritical marks, and the words that begin and end each line. It is significant that the term "ashes," which ends line ten, is followed by a comma and then "furniture," which begins line 11. Ashes are a dirty aspect of street living, while furniture is used by bourgeois members of society, thereby showing how far removed the proletariat is from bourgeois society. Moreover, one of the central tensions of the poem involves how exactly the details construct the meaning of the poem? What is the ideological significance of the myriad details that pepper the poem?

In the document from The Making of Modernist Traditions, Hilda Doolittle addresses the extensive use of details in Williams' poetry through her claim that "when you speak direct you are a poet" (345).Through her claim it can be inferred that Doolittle refers to the cold, hard details that offer no comfort to the reader and paint a dreary portrait of financial destitution. Interestingly, Doolittle deploys the term "sacred" to describe Williams' style, and another central theme of the poem involves how exactly the cold details of poverty can be imbued with any "sacred" meaning. Although Williams seems to disagree with much of what Doolittle states, he does assert that "the one thing that stands eternally in the way of really good writing is…virtual impossibility of lifting to the imagination those things which lie under the direct scrutiny of the senses" (3). This statement is significant in that it attests to Williams' emphasis on everyday details over grand intellectual themes, representing the world rather than interpreting it.

William Carlos Williams'….....