14 March 2012
ENH 242
The British American Conversion
American writer William Carlos Williams widely recognized for a frugal use of lexicon stands apart as one of the most significant forces of twentieth-century poetry. A myriad of ingredients, including people, experiences, and circumstances, combined to influence Williams’ poetry and prose. Williams’ writing, along with that of many of the emerging American Modernist poets, is also considered to be a reaction to the verbose poetry and prose he had been exposed to growing up. “The ‘New Poetry,’ as it was called, was largely a revolt against the Romanticism of the previous decades” (Scott 18). In addition, Williams’ poetry was inspired by societal and cultural changes occurring during the early twentieth century. William Carlos Williams led the way into an Americanized style of poetry, diverging from the grandiloquent manner of European writers, to create a form of modernist poetry that remains as relevant today as it did when it was written.
The essence of William Carlos Williams’ innovative style of writing derives from his remarkably plebian upbringing. Born in 1883 to an English father and Puerto Rican mother in Rutherford, New Jersey, Williams was exposed to art, literature, and the Bible by his family. His father and mother instilled in him a sense of idealism and moral perfectionism that terrified Williams. In 1904 Williams wrote “I never did and never will do a premeditated bad deed in my life,” (Williams Carlo Williams, Poetry Foundation). Although early on Williams’ demonstrated interest and proficiency in the academic areas of math and science and he went on to practice medicine for fmore than forty years, his heartfelt passion was writing. It was while studying to become a physician at the University of Pennsylvania that Williams met writers Ezra Pound and Hilda Doolittle and painter Charles