William Carlos Williams as an urban poet

Abstract

The topic of this thesis is the study of William Carlos Williams as an urban poet. This involves exploring the tension between Williams' aesthetic theories centred around Imagination and its product, poetry; and the individuals that exist in a high-density urban population. Williams, says 'For years I've been tormented by/that miracle, the buildings all lit up-'(CEP, 238). They have the power. In Williams the urban poet,the tension is between the city, devoid of Imaginative qualities in its people and products, where the power is material, and the poet, who perceives with Imagination but needs the power of the city and its people although poetically it could silence him. Trying to reconcile these differences and not ignore them makes Williams an urban poet.