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William Carlos Williams |
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Kelli A. Larson's Guide to the Poetry of William Carlos Williams (New York: G. K. Hall, 1995) offers an annotated listing, organized on a poem-by-poem basis, of many critical discussions of Williams' poetry. Her notations provide a fascinating overview not only of the immense amount of critical attention that has been paid to Williams' poetry and the wide range of approaches taken to it, but also of the often heated debates among various commentators. As might be expected from the great mass of Williams' own writings on aesthetics and his lifelong preoccupation with expressive form in poetry, the bulk of attention to his work has traditionally been FORMALIST in nature. In recent years, however, there has also been an emphasis on READER-RESPONSE and DECONSTRUCTIONIST modes of approach, especially to such poems as "This Is Just to Say," "Poem (As the cat)," and especially "The Red Wheelbarrow," for which Larson lists an astonishing forty-one citations.
The justly celebrated and widely reprinted story "The Use of Force" is an excellent illustration of the richness of Williams' best work. From a HISTORICAL perspective, it provides insight into the quality and texture of life in the industrialized Northeast during a particularly bleak period in modern American history. A SOCIOLOGICAL approach to the story would prove quite helpful in clarifying the attitudes that the doctor and the girl's parents take toward one another. Given the doctor's preoccupation with comprehending his own motives, a PSYCHOLOGICAL analysis would likewise be illuminating. And, needless to say in these sensitized times, GENDER criticism would also prove quite relevant, given the sexes of the two principal characters and the symbolic dimensions of their interaction.
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