INFORMATION TO USERS This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. UMI films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be from any type of computer printer. The quality of this reprodaction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleedthrough, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send UMI a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by sectioning the original, beginning at the upper left-hand corner and continuing from left to right in equal sections with small overlaps. Each original is also photographed in one exposure and is included in reduced form at the bade of the book. Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy. Higher quality 6" x 9" black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order. A Bell & Howell Information Company 300 North Zeeb Road. Ann Arbor. Ml 48106-1346 USA 313/761-4700 800/521-0600 ONE ALONG SIDE THE OTHER: THE COLLECTED LETTERS OF WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS AND KENNETH BURKE by James H. East A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of The Graduate School at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy Greensboro 1994 Approved by UMI Number: 9520526 Copyright 1994 by East, James Henry All rights reserved. OMI Microform 9520526 Copyright 1995, by UMI Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. UMI 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, MI 48103 EAST, JAMES H., Ph.D. One Along Side the Other: The Collected Letters of William Carlos Williams and Kenneth Burke. (1994) Directed by H.T. Kirby-Smith. The collected letters of William Carlos Williams and Kenneth Burke from the Beineke Library at Yale, the Pattee Library at The Pennsylvania State University, and the Kenneth Burke estate, which span the entire forty-two years .of their relationship from 1921-1962, have been collected, collated, annotated, and introduced. The introduction describes their first meeting, offers a brief look at their lives and works, and contrasts their relationship with that of the attenuated image created by the John C. Thirlwall Selected Letters of William Carlos Williams (1957). The introduction goes on to examine the nature of their relationship as reflected by The Collected Letters and information gathered from interviews with Kenneth Burke, Michael Burke, and Bill Williams, Jr., as well as other sources and concludes with a brief characterization of the nature of their collaboration. © 1994 by James H. East APPROVAL PAGE This dissertation has been approved by the follow committee of the Faculty of The Graduate School at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Dissertation Advisor. H.T. Kirby-Smith Committee Members Keith Cushman Murray Arndt m 1\/lJx Uj Rand< lph M. feulginry 21 Date of Acceptance by Committee ^Lk> SsuaXLaJIsm Date of Fina 1 Ora1! Examination ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Many thanks to Professors Tom Kirby-Smith, Keith Cushman, Murray Arndt, Randolph M. Bulgin, and Charles Davis. Additionally I would like to thank others who have contributed time, information, facility, or criticism: Dr. Marjorie East, Michael Burke, Dr. Bill Williams, Dr. Adam Steiner, Rachel Fedde, Susan Taylor (at Gramley Library of Salem College and Academy), Charles Mann (at Pattee Library of The Pennsylvania State University), Patricia Willis (at Beineke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale), the Litwinchuk Fund of Salem College and Academy, and Stephanie Tullis East. iU Grateful acknowledgement is given to New Directions Publishing Corporation for permission to quote from the following copyrighted works of William Carlos Williams, THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS. Copyright 1948.- 1951 by William Carlos Williams. THE BUILD-UP. Copyright 1946; 1952 by William Carlos Williams. COLLECTED POEMS: VOLUME I, 1909-1939. Copyright 1938 by New Directions . Publishing Corporation. 6^^ ® COLLECTED POEMS: VOLUME II, 1939t196^. Copyright 1944, 1953, Copyright (a)lS62, by William Carl9s Williams. Copyright@ 1988 by William Eric Williams and Paul H. Williams. THE DOCTOR STORIES. Copyright 1934, 1962 by William Carlos Williams. THE EMBODIMENT OF KNOWLEDGE. Copyright^c) 1974 by Florence H. Williams. THE FARMERS' DAUGHTERS. Copyright 1934, 1950 by William Carlos Williams. Copyright(c)1957 by Florence H. Williams. I WANTED TO WRITE A POEM. Copyright (^>1958 by William Carlos Williams. IMAGINATIONS. Copyright (c)1970 by Florence H. Williams. IN THE AMERICAN GRAIN. Copyright 1925 by James Laughlin. Copyright 1933 by William Carlos Williams. IN THE MONEY. Copyright 1940 by Florence H. Williams. MANY LOVES & OTHER PLAYS. Copyright 1948 by William Carlos Williams. /ire, tw? I PATERSON. Copyright @^1958 by William Carlos Williams. PICTURES FROM BRUEGHEL. Copyright 1954, 1955, 1962 by William Carlos Williams. A RECOGNIZABLE IMAGE: WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS ON ART AND ARTISTS. Copyright 1978 by the Estate of Florence H. Williams. SELECTED ESSAYS. Copyright 1954 by William Carlos Williams. SELECTED LETTERS OF WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS. Copyright 1957 by William Carlos Williams. SOMETHING TO SAY: WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS ON YOUNGER POETS. Copyright {c)l985 by William Eric Williams and Paul H. Williams. A VOYAGE TO PAGANY. Copyright 1928 by the Macauley Co. Copyright 1938, Copyright 0^1970 by New Directions Publishing Corporation. —p.:.2— WHITE-MULE. Copyright 1937 by New Directions Publishing Corporation. -THE. WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS READER. Copyright @1966 by New Directions -Publishing Corporation. YES, MRS. WILLIAMS. Copyright^)1959 by William Carlos Williams. Previously unpublished m'aterial by William Carlos Williams Copyright © (year of publication) by William Eric Williams and Paul H. Williams; used by permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation, agents. INTERVIEWS WITH WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS: SPEAKING STRAIGHT AHEAD. Copyright (c) 1976 by the Estate of William Carlos Williams. =2^ /??<? Ms /?7f. TABLE OF CONTENTS APPROVAL PAGE ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS i i i CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION First Contact 1 Burke's Life and Works 8 Williams' Life and Works 20 The Limited Perspective 36 The Collected Letters • 5 3 The Nature of Their Collaboration 67 A Note on the Text 89 II. THE LETTERS 103 Bibliography 573 iv 1 First Contact On 2 January 1921, four slender figures made their way southward, by foot, from Rutherford to Newark, New Jersey, through "the great swamp."1 The mid-forty degree temperature made for a comfortable walk, made it warm enough to release the pungent odor of nearby marshes. Along the ten-mile hike, which paralleled the route of the Hackensack-to-Newark trolley line, the hikers could easily see, though the day was cloudy, the Hackensack river, eastward, winding through the meadowlands below; to the west, closely parallel to the roadway, the Passaic river headed toward its union with the Hackensack and Newark Bay. Contrastingly, in the foreground, they witnessed: . dilapidated factories and warehouses, grimy railway yards, coal bunkers, and mountains of rubble and tin cans; in short, one of the ugliest and most blighted areas in all America.2 The youngest of the group, Matthew Josephson, had instigated the first meeting between Kenneth Burke, his friend and former classmate at Columbia, and William Carlos Williams, whom he had interviewed in December for the Newark Ledger.3 Williams as well brought along his companion and co-editor of Contact, Robert McAlmon, whom he had befriended two years 2 earlier at one of Lola Ridge's parties in Greenwich Village.^ As early as 1918, Burke had heard of Williams through a correspondence with his lifelong friend, Malcolm Cowley. In a note sent from Harvard in March of that year Cowley wrote: And oh God read A1 Que Quiere (Williams). It is the framework and the suggestion of much good poetry, much excellent, superexcellent poetry.5 The enthusiasm spread to Burke; a couple of years later he wrote to Cowley: "I am thinking of hatching up some sort of a club-article on Eliot, Williams, and Masters".5 And by September 1920, in a letter written from Asheville, North Carolina, Burke's critical interest had blossomed into a full-fledged Emersonian manifesto: Our school is INTEGRALISM, the emphasis of the unit, the vision of art as a succession of units or integers. A scherzo I wrote while in Asheville exemplifies the far reaches of Integralism. Willy-Nilly, W.C.W., is our first Integralist and we should write and tell him so. His illuminating sentence, published in Little Review in one of his Notes to "Improvisations," runs something to the effect that 'the poet, slashing about in his thin exaltation or despair, often realizes an acuteness of expression by which the contact is broken, rather than established."7 This is the very heart of Integralism. By striving for essences, by attempting to fix one entire facet of approach in a few sentences, we thus attain a unit, so distinct that it almost gains complete