The following three chapters identify influences of the Imagist movement and the avant garde painters on the early poetry of Williams, and particularly on those poems that deal with flowers. This study is restricted to the earlier poems for several reasons, the most obvious being that Williams simply does not employ floral imagery to any extent in The Collected Later Poems. For instance, of the almost three hundred poems in The Collected Earlier Poems nearly sixty take flowers as their title or rely on floral imagery for part of their power. Nearly half that many use arboreal imagery, another prominent and important "object" in Williams' poetry, and, of course, many more use other images from the natural world. On the other hand, in The Collected Later Poems only three poems have flowers in their titles. Even in these three Williams was more interested in depicting sociological situations than in description, for his conception of poetry changed radically after the 1930's. He became convinced at that time that poetry should be serious rather than entertaining. Further, he became a staunch advocate of the "anti-poetic" theory of beauty whose chief tenet was that beauty and ugliness were part of a single whole. Nothing beautiful, like a flower, could exist without its soil of ugly, drab antecedents. James Guimond believes that this is the reason why Williams ceased presenting "his beautiful objects in splendid, static isolation from time and the world around them" (1, p. 50). Possibly 14 for these reasons the nature imagery is not nearly so dominant in these poems as in those written before 1940. Nor has the poetry of Paterson or Pictures from Breugel been included in this study. Because of the tremendous attention given them in the last five years, their nature imagery has been well covered. However, of the nature, and especially floral, imagery of the earlier poetry little has been said. Hopefully, this study will show that Williams made extensive and successful use of flowers in his poetry because they were the particular objects of the concrete world which best lent themselves to the related techniques and goals of first the Imagistic movement in poetry and later the Stieglitz school in painting.

La tension analysée par Leo Marx dans son essai The Machine in the Garden: Technology and the Pastoral ideal in America (1964), entre l’Arcadie américaine comme terre de pureté naturelle et le trope de la menace mécanique, sous-tend les œuvres des deux poètes du XXe siècle que nous nous proposons ici d’étudier, William Carlos Williams (1883-1963) et Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997). Leur abondante correspondance est la trace d’une relation poétique mais aussi filiale : Pater-Son, pour jouer sur le titre du long poème de Williams. Cet échange épistolaire vient également remettre en question la périodisation des mouvements littéraires trop souvent conçue comme une série de ruptures. L’état du New Jersey, Garden State, dont ils sont tous deux originaires, jardin dévasté par la révolution industrielle, apparaît comme un terrain fertile au surgissement d’une langue unique et autochtone. Cet espace commun et métamorphique offrira également une échappatoire à l’impasse de la classification des œuvres : du modernisme à la Beat Generation. Il faudra donc revenir sur les délinéaments des tracés cartographiques pour mieux dessiner à notre tour la carte poétique de leur relation littéraire et personnelle. Au gré des passions humaines, extases et tribulations, les poètes arpentent les sillons du vers qu’ils creusent à même le sol de leur New Jersey natal, pour faire sourdre le flot autochtone d’une poésie résolument américaine. / The tensions analyzed by Leo Marx in his 1964 essay The Machine in the Garden: Technology and the pastoral ideal in America, between the American Arcadia as a land of original purity and the trope of industrial threat is ghostly present throughout the works of both poets at stake in this dissertation: William Carlos Williams (1883-1963) and Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997). In this research I intend to analyze the processes by which the poets manage to claim ownership of their land in spite of the lurking mechanic apocalypse. Writing, each in his own time, both poets endeavor to reclaim the original historical and spatial meaning of their continent, by devising an autochthonous language that would provide a new “point of view” and a new “point of voice”, as means to prophesy a collective future for the nation from their personal “local” anchorage in their natal New Jersey. Striving to “make a start out of particulars” they intend to escape the vastness of the continent by focusing on the minute details surrounding them in their own garden state. The correspondence between the two poets also questions the periodization of literary movements, too often conceived as a series of breaks and schisms. The Garden State, metamorphic space covered with the remnants of industrialization provides us with a way to break free from the shackles of such categorization : from modernism to the Beat Generation.

Les États-Unis n’ont eu de cesse d’attendre depuis Emerson le grand chef d’œuvre national qui célèbrerait le destin d’exception de la jeune démocratie et affranchirait la littérature et la langue américaines de la tutelle du vieux continent. Cette tâche ne pouvait incomber à l’épopée dont on a pu juger qu’elle était inapte à décrire le monde contemporain et qu’elle contredisait une modernité poétique de l’intensité lyrique. La renaissance spectaculaire du « long poème » américain au cours des XIXe et XXe siècle ne peut donc s’inscrire dans la filiation de « formes » jugées obsolètes. Elle paraît d’ailleurs d’autant plus problématique qu’après avoir été rapportée au lyrisme démocratique de Walt Whitman, le « long poème » fut approprié par T.S. Eliot et Ezra Pound et assimilée aux excès d’un « high modernism » autoritaire, élitiste et systématique. C’est ainsi que la critique n’est parvenue à rendre compte paradoxalement de cette « forme » qu’en la niant, confirmant ainsi son illisibilité : le long poème ne pouvait être qu’un recueil de poèmes courts, un chef d’œuvre ruiné ou une parodie de la pensée systématique et de l’exceptionnalisme américain. En étudiant « A » de Louis Zukofsky, Paterson de William Carlos William et les Maximus Poems de Charles Olson, je vise à démontrer qu’il est au contraire possible de lire cette forme en tant que telle sans avoir recours à des typologies génériques ou à la dichotomie modernisme/postmodernisme. Je tenterai aussi de suggérer que, dans ces trois œuvres, la poésie se conçoit comme une activité en devenir qui tente modestement d’articuler le poème au monde, au temps et à la lecture. / Ever since Emerson the United-States have been expecting the great national masterpiece that would not only celebrate the unique destiny of this young democracy but would also free American language and literature from the European model. However, it did not seem that it was for the epic poem to accomplish this task given that it appeared not only ill-suited to describe the modern world but also incompatible with the demands of a poetic modernity predicated on lyrical intensity. Hence, the planned obsolescence of this “form” has made it all the more difficult to explain the spectacular rebirth of the “American long poem” in the 19th and 20th centuries. It has appeared all the more problematic since, after having been associated to Walt Whitman’s democratic lyricism, the “long poem” was appropriated by T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound making it the symbol of the authoritarian, elitist and systematic tendencies of “high modernism”. It will thus come as no surprise that the critical community has tended to view the “long poem” negatively confirming in a way its illegibility: the “long poem” could only be viewed as a short lyric sequence, an impossible masterpiece or a parody of systematic thought and American exceptionalism. In undertaking this study of Louis Zukofsky’s “A”, William Carlos William’s Paterson and Charles Olson’s Maximus Poems I wish to demonstrate that it is possible to read the “long poem” as such without having to resort to generic categories and to the modern/postmodern dichotomy. I also hope to show that, in these three works, poetry is understood as a kind of ongoing activity which modestly attempts to articulate the poem to the world, time and reading.

[pt] Esta dissertação apresenta traduções comentadas de poemas de William Carlos Williams (1883-1963), um autor de destaque no cenário literário norte-americano, mas cuja obra ainda tem pouca circulação no Brasil. Levando em conta o interesse do poeta por artes visuais, optou-se por traduzir os poemas que Williams escreveu a partir de pinturas do mestre flamengo Pieter Brueghel (c. 1525-1569). O percurso proposto começa com um esboço da biografia de Williams, situando-o em relação a alguns de seus contemporâneos, como T. S. Eliot e Ezra Pound, para contextualizar o desenvolvimento de suas premissas artísticas. Em seguida, será abordada a trajetória de Pieter Brueghel — essa parte visa, principalmente, a descoberta de possíveis pontos de contato entre um pintor do período da Renascença e um escritor do início do século XX. No capítulo dedicado à fundamentação teórica, são elencados os critérios adotados no processo de leitura e tradução, tomando como base as ideias de Haroldo de Campos, Paulo Henriques Britto, Henri Meschonnic e Charles Hartman. Nas seções dedicadas a cada poema, discutem-se as especificidades do diálogo que se estabelece entre texto e imagem, além dos desafios e soluções encontrados ao longo do processo de tradução, especialmente no que diz respeito ao uso do enjambement. / [en] This master s thesis features annotated translations of poems by William Carlos Williams (1883-1963), a prominent author in the North American literary scene whose work is not widely available in Brazil. Prompted by Williams s interest in the visual arts, this thesis focuses on the translation of Williams s poems that were inspired by the paintings of Flemish master Pieter Brueghel (1525-1569). The research begins with a summary biography of Williams, describing his relationships with contemporaries such as T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound, in order to contextualize the development of his artistic vision. Next, Brueghel s life and work are discussed, in part to discover possible commonalities between a Renaissance painter and an early 20th-century writer and poet. A chapter discussing the thesis s theoretical foundation lists the criteria used to analyze and translate Williams s poems, based on the ideas of Haroldo de Campos, Paulo Henriques Britto, Henri Meschonnic and Charles Hartman. Sections devoted to each poem discuss the various connections between image and text, as well as the challenges and their corresponding solutions throughout the translation process, particularly regarding Williams s use of enjambment.

The purpose of this study is to examine the position of twentieth century American poetry at the mid-point of the century to ascertain whether contemporary poetry--poetry written in the fifties and sixties--has been justly relegated to the obscure position which it now occupies.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Chicago. / Includes bibliographical references: leaves [274]-284. Also available on the Internet.

The thesis commences an examination of Williams's divided nature and conflicted personality. The connection between the "hidden core" of Williams's life claimed in the Autobiography and his repressed sexual desire as divulged in his poetry is primarily concerned. From Chapter Two to Chapter Four, I attempt to demonstrate that Williams, in the poetic world, finds an outlet to release the suppression of his desire. Especially in his earlier poetry imbued with the poet's highly autobiographical elements, written from 1909 to1939, Williams projects his repressed sexual desire unto the images of nature, woman and little girl. In an essay "Vortex," Williams argues that he is entitled to take any object or even the entire world as a vehicle for self-expression. I employ this argument for approaching Williams's nature poems. The image of female can be deemed as one of the cardinal subjects in Williams's poetry. In exploring Williams's poems about women and little girls, I have two main concerns: first, I examine how he constructs the sexy nature of varied women to dissimulate his erotic nature and projection; second, I inspect how he deconstructs the innocence of little girls so as to exonerate his adult sexual deviation. The thesis concludes with a brief comparison between Williams and some contemporary poets for affirming the uniqueness of his sensual and even erotic nature as a Modernist poet. In a word, Williams is inspired to write poetry by the strong impulse of his repressed sexual desire.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2001. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Available also from UMI Company.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2001. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 203-216). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Lehigh University, 1999. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 242-256).