William Carlos Williams

WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS

“TRACT” AND “THE RED WHEELBARROW”

I. INTRODUCTION

1. A few poets and critics adjudge Williams (1883-1963) to be the most important poet working between World War I and World War II.

2. A medical doctor, he continued to practice even after he achieved recognition as a great poet. He reportedly delivered more than 2,000 babies during his medical career.

3. An advocate of Imagism, his poetry concentrates on specific images drawn from everyday life.

4. His poetry employs the vernacular of American speech, although it avoids slang; he seldom uses words beyond the vocabulary of the ordinary reader.

5. He was bitterly opposed to the school of Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot, who he felt wrote above their readers by employing highly educated allusions.

6. He does not use meter or rhyme or many technical devices; for example, he uses few similes and metaphors.

7. Williams almost never uses generalities or abstractions.

8. “No ideas but in things,” he wrote in several places, meaning that the poet’s job was to deal with concrete particulars and let ideas take care of themselves.

II. “TRACT”

A. THEME 2

1. It is an attack upon the empty pomp which tradition has attached to funerals.

2. The poem contrasts the conventional funereal gestures of grief with manifestations of genuine feeling which treat the ______with individualism and respect.

B. STRUCTURE

1. Lines 1-6: This stanza announces the poem’s thesis: “I will ______you my townspeople / how to perform a ______” (1-2).

In essence, the speaker plans to teach them some “______sense” (6), a reference to common sense about funerals, but also a pun on the “ground” where the corpse will be put.

The rest of the poem will list the areas of the conventional funeral which the speaker wants to change.

2. Lines 7-43: These lines deal with some inanimate parts of a funeral: the hearse and the flowers.

Instead of a fancy hearse, he advocates using a weather-beaten “farm ______” (11) or a “dray” (15), a cart without wheels.

The wagon/dray hearse should have “no ______,” “no ______,” or other luxuries (26-29).

Instead, all that is called for is “A ______hearse . . . / with gilt ______and no ______. . . . / On this the ______lies” (31-33).

There should be no flowers placed on the hearse. Instead the mourners should place “Some common ______. . . / something he ______and is known by: / his old clothes—a few ______” or “even ______,” if the dead had treasured them (34-43).

3. Lines 44-56: The speaker then moves to the living or human aspects of the funeral, “the ______” (45) of the hearse being treated first.

The driver should be simply dressed: no “______hat” (46).

He should not be seated on the wagon/dray, but should walk “______” (56) at the side of the funereal horse, holding its “______” (54). Therefore, nothing involving the driver should be there to distract the mourners from the person being buried. 3

4. Lines 57-67: The speaker then deals with the mourners.

He says it is best for them to “walk ______” the hearse (58), or if they have to ride, they should curtain the windows of their vehicle so that it will not appear they have come to the funeral in order to be seen (59-60).

The mourners should expose themselves to some “______” of both “weather” and “grief” (61-62).

They should not shut in their grief, since it is something which binds the members of a community together: Share your grief, he declares; “it will be ______/ in your ______” (66-67).

5. Lines 68-69: There is probably ambiguity in the last lines: “Go ______/ I think you are ______” may mean not only that the neighbors are ready to conduct a proper funeral, but they are also ready to die when their time comes.

III. “THE RED WHEELBARROW”

A. THEME: The essentials of existence. People get caught up with the passing or trivial and overlook the important and basic aspects of life. 4

B. STRUCTURE

1. The poem has only ______lines and ______words, its length itself being a commentary on the bare essentials of life.

2. Interestingly, each of the ______stanzas has the rough shape of a wheelbarrow: The shorter second line of a stanza seems to represent the ______, and the longer first line, the cart or box part and the handles of the ______. Such a poem which is shaped like a picture is called ideographic poetry.

3. The first two lines create a tension with their teasing, unsupported assertion—”so much ______/ upon”—causing the reader to expect some important religious, scientific, or philosophical statement to follow. Instead what appears is a simple description of a rural scene, at the center of which is a basic farm implement, the ______.

4. Two other essentials of life are then listed: “______/ water” (5- 6) is obviously an essential for farming as for all life, and “______” (8) provide two common foodstuffs in their flesh and in their eggs.

5. Thus the poem’s objects can be seen as among the most basic in providing physical sustenance, and much therefore “______/ upon” (1-2) them.

C. IMAGERY AND STYLE

1. The imagery is basically visual.

2. The “______” color of the wheelbarrow contrasts with the “______” color of the chickens.

3. There is a contrast between the living chickens and the inanimate wheelbarrow.

4. A pecking ______also has a similar triangular shape to a wheelbarrow.

5. The line lengths slow down the reading and give greater ______to each word.

ANSWER KEY

II. “TRACT” A. 2. dead. 5

B. 1. teach; funeral; ground.

2. wagon; glass; upholstery; rough plain; wheels; top; coffin; memento; prized; books; flowers.

3. driver; silk; inconspicuously; reins.

4. behind; inconvenience; money; pocket.

5. now; ready.

III. “THE RED WHEELBARROW” B. 1. eight; sixteen.

2. four; wheel; wheelbarrow.

3. depends; wheelbarrow.

4. rain; chickens.

5. depends

C. 2. red; white.

4. chicken.

5. weight or importance.