William Carlos Williams the Imagist

A detailed Summary of William Carlos Williams the Imagist

It is said that people can create art in their unique way to express themselves. William Carlos Williams tried to capture the direct image of the object and cloud out its surroundings. He attempted to focus the poem on the subject in order to eliminate any irrelevant responses from its surroundings. Through language and imagery, William Carlos Williams uses certain objects in the world that would be poetic no matter how directly they are presented. He accomplishes this using imagism.

According to Webster's Encyclopedic Dictionary, imagism is a theory of poets in America who believed that poetry should use common speech, create new rhythms, and include a clear, concentrated, and precise image (955). Williams kept his poetry fixed to the environment around him. Although he would use American speech and images, it was filled with repetition and unusable material. He would not be able to resort to emotions as most poets could. If he were, the reader would most likely get confused and would only have a vague understanding of the poem. With all the weakness within his sources, he needed to be able to battle the environment while focusing on the object. He thought to himself that it would be unachievable "without invention of s

"To a Solitary Disciple" is a good poem to use as an instruction for an imagist poem. It is a "teach-by-doing" poem in where it does not just talk about the things in the poem, but actually accomplishes it within itself. The poem is so clear and lucid that "it is in no sense an imagist poem or a plea for imagism; its sole relation to imagism is in its instance upon clarity of image and its own accomplishment of that clarity (Ostrom 13)." Williams began these imagist poems by laying out the groundwork of his style. He sought out the distinctiveness in the "thing" and avoided any minor details. They would be unneeded until the poem has distinguished the "thing" and was properly structured (Ostrom 14).

A wise choice, Williams decided to stay with the American topics. He ended up "creating" a method that allowed him to use materials and other objects from his world. Amazingly, he was still able to use this method to stay at par with other Imagists' methods. Williams would use any nearby materials and illustrate them in a succinct style. Jules Laforgue was another author using a similar style. Williams admired him for "building upon the basis of what is of value to the man in the welter as he found it, and a rigid exclusion of everything else (Guimond 38). " He also admired Edgar Allen Poe for the same style. "It is a fight to borrow nothing from the scene and to put all the weight of effort into the writing. (Guimond 38)."

This poem shows why Williams was a master of letting readers become aware of things in the world. His concept "no ideas but in things" has required the readers to forget about beliefs in the world around them. The "things" that they forget will make them focus on the object in the poem. They will see the object itself, and see that it does not represent anything; the object is the poem (Ostrom 21).

In closing, Williams was an imagist poet. Through language and imagery, he uses certain objects in the world that would be poetic no matter how directly they are presented. Williams created a style that allowed him to use materials and other objects from his world. He also uses actuality, reality, and ideal themes to let the reader use their imagination in the poem. "To a Solitary Disciple" and "The Red Wheelbarrow" are 2 good examples of an imagist poem. "To a Solitary Disciple" was a "teach-by-doing" po

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Approximate Word count = 1576
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English