WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS AND WilliaIn Carlos WilliaIns and TranscendentalisIn Fitting the Crab in a Box

Ron Callan Assistant Professor, Dickinson College Carlisle,

Palgrave Macmillan © Ron Callan 1992 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1992 All rights reserved. For information, write: Scholarly and Reference Division, St. Martin's Press, Inc., 175 Fifth Avenue, , N.Y. 10010

First published in the of America in 1992

ISBN 978-1-349-12118-2 ISBN 978-1-349-12116-8 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-12116-8

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Callan, Ron, 1948- William Carlos Williams and transcendentalism: fitting the crab in a box / Ron Callan. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN 978-0-312-07596-5 1. Williams, William Carlos, 1883-1963-Criticism and interpretation. 2. Transcendentalism in literature. I. Title. PS3545.I544Z5825 1992 811 '.52-dc20 91-42218 CIP For Gillian, Gavin, Sorcha and Breda Carson Callan Contents

Acknowledgements viii List of Abbreviations x Introduction xiii

1 Emerson: Facing the Ignoble World 1

2 Thoreau: A Purely Sensuous Heaven 27

3 Whitman: A New Distribution of Roles 50

4 Marriage out of Despair: The Stecher Trilogy 77

5 Caught Half Off the Earth in Ecstasy: The Poems 103

6 The Art of Domestic Husbandry: Paterson 134 Snail-like 138 The grasshopper 149 White hop-clover 158 Pregnant ash 169 King-self 180 Fiercely loyal 190

Notes and References 193 Select Bibliography 201 Index 207

vii Acknowledgements

I first studied with Peggy O'Brien and it was her excellence as a critic and teacher which inspired me to see the importance of working in this field. For her criticisms of my work, for the example of an exemplary passion for excellence and for the gift of friendship, my debt is enormous. Stephen Matterson became involved at a crucial stage of my research and has made many valuable suggestions. Again I have been very fortunate in having a colleague and friend with the ability and interest to be significantly helpful. There has been some very fine scholarship in the of Williams's studies but I must acknowledge the work of Paul Mariani in particular. His A New World Naked is a watershed in this field and was the source of so much support for me in my research. I would like to record my thanks to the following people who have in their own inimitable ways contributed to the development of my work: Bob French, John Hicks, Stanley Koehler, Paul Mariani, John Nelson, Sharon O'Brien, David Rabey and Gareth Reeves. To Geraldine Mangan I am deeply grateful for years of support. India Nolen and Romeo Grenier of South Hadley deserve much praise for their efforts to keep my personal up to date. The Scholarship Exchange Board and the Embassy of the United States of America in Dublin financed an extended visit to the of during my thesis studies. My work there was an important addition to my research. I have had two editors at Macmillan. Sarah Roberts-West guided me through the early stages of the project but it has been left to the perceptive Margaret Cannon to suffer the trials of completing the work. I wish to thank the School of English in Trinity College Dublin for the opportunities they have given me and for their unstinting support. The Department of English at Dickinson College, Carlisle has provided me with the facilities and encouragement to complete the final stages of my work. During my time of study and research I have worked in non• scholastic fields. These experiences were made significant and pleasant by the remarkable people I have met. I would like to acknowledge the men and women, too numerous to name, who work the night shift in the Central Telephone Exchange in Dublin. viii Acknowledgements ix

From an earlier career I wish to record the long and stimulating conversations I shared with Tony Fahey. My family has been a particular source of strength. My parents, Michael and Margaret Callan, created a loving environment in which to grow and constantly urged their children to do their best. Eamonn helped me begin my studies and has never stopped willing me on; Jeannette fed me on her surfeit of enthusiasm while Michael has shown by example how much can be achieved. To my wider family of in-laws, The Carsons, and especially the late Paddy Whack and Mary, I acknowledge their extraordinary faith in such dreams as mine. To Breda Carsen Callan, Gillian, Gavin and Sorcha I dedicate this book. In many ways you wrote it by making my love for Williams not simply a matter of criticism but also a belief born out of experience. Your love has meant the world to me. I alone am responsible for all the errors in this book.

The author and Publisher are grateful to Carcanet Press Ltd and New Directions Publishing Corporation, New York for permission to reprint the following material:

Extracts from The Autobiography of William Carlos Williams © 1951 William Carlos Williams; The Build-Up, © 1946, 1952 William Carlos Williams; The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams, 1909-1939, Volume 1 © 1938 New Directions Publishing Corporation; The Col• lected Poems of William Carlos Williams, 1939-1962, Volume II © 1962 William Carlos Williams; The Embodiment of Knowledge © 1974 Florence H. Williams; The Farmers' Daughters © 1938 William Carlos Wil• liams; Imaginations © 1970 Florence H. Williams; In the American Grain © 1933 William Carlos Williams; In the Money © 1940 Florence H. Williams; Interviews with William Carlos Williams © 1976 the Estate of William Carlos Williams; I Wanted to Write a Poem © 1958 William Carlos Williams; Many Loves and other Plays © 1948 William Carlos Williams; Paterson © 1946, 1948, 1949, 1951, 1958 William Carlos Williams, 1963 © Florence H. Williams; A Recognizable Image © 1978 the Estate of William Carlos Williams; Selected Essays © 1954 William Carlos Williams; A Voyage to Pagany © 1938, 1970 New Directions Publishing Corporation; White Mule © 1937 New Direc• tions Publishing Corporation; Selected Letters © 1957 William Carlos Williams. List of Abbreviations

EMERSON

CW The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 12 vols, 2nd edn, introd. and notes Edward Waldo Emerson; introd. to AMS edition Joel Myerson, (1903--4; rpt New York: AMS Press, 1979).

THOREAU

A W A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, in : A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, Walden; or, Life in the Woods, The Woods, Cod (New York: Library of America, 1985). CC , in Henry David Thoreau: A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, Walden; or, Life in the Woods, The Maine Woods, Cape Cod (New York: Library of America, 1985). TMW The Maine Woods, in Henry David Thoreau: A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, Walden; or, Life in the Woods, The Maine Woods, Cape Cod (New York: Library of America, 1985). W Walden; or, Life in the Woods, in Henry David Thoreau: A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, Walden; or, Life in the Woods, The Maine Woods, Cape Cod (New York: Library of America, 1985).

WHITMAN

LOG Leaves of Grass, eds, Sculley Bradley and Harold W. Blodgett (1965; rpt London: W. W. Norton & Company, 1973).

x List of Abbreviations xi

WILLIAMS

A Autobiography of William Carlos Williams (1951; rpt New York: New Directions, 1967). BU The Build-up: A Novel by William Carlos Williams (1952; rpt New York: New Directions, 1968). CP1 The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams, Vol. I, 1909- 1939, eds A. Walton Litz and Christopher MacGowan (New York: New Directions, 1986). CP2 The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams, Vol. II, 1939-69, ed. Christopher MacGowan (New York: New Directions, 1988). EK The Embodiment of Knowledge, ed. and introd. Ron Loewin• sohn (New York: New Directions, 1974). FD The Farmers' Daughters: The Collected Stories of William Carlos Williams, introd. Van Wyck Brooks (New York: New Di• rections, 1961). I Imaginations, ed. and introd. Webster Schott (1970; rpt New York: New Directions, 1971). lAG In The American Grain: Essays by William Carlos Williams, introd. Horace Gregory (1925; rpt New York: New Direc• tions, 1956). 1M In The Money: A Novel by William Carlos Williams (1940; rpt New York: New Directions, 1967). Int Interviews with William Carlos Williams: 'Speaking Straight Ahead', ed. and introd. Linda Welshirner Wagner (New York: New Directions, 1976). IWWP I Wanted to Write a Poem: The Autobiography of the Works of a Poet, ed. and rpt Edith Heal (1958; rpt New York: New Directions, 1978). ML Many Loves and other Plays: The Collected Plays of William Carlos Williams (New York: New Directions, 1961). P Paterson (New York: New Directions, 1963). RI A Recognizable Image: William Carlos Williams on Art and Artists, ed. and introd. Brarn Dijkstra (New York: New Directions, 1978). SE Selected Essays of William Carlos Williams (1954; rpt New York: New Directions, 1969). SL The Selected Letters of William Carlos Williams, ed. and introd. John C. Thirlwall (New York: McDowell, Obolensky, 1957). xii List of Abbreviations

SS Something to Say: William Carlos Williams on Younger Poets, ed. and introd. E. Breslin (New York: New Direc• tions, 1985). VP A Voyage to Pagany, introd. Harry Levin (1928, rpt New York: New Directions, 1970). WM White Mule: A Novel by William Carlos Williams (1937; rpt New York: New Directions, 1967). Introduction

'I was attempting to imitate myself, is how William Carlos Williams explains the genesis of his triadic line to Stanley Koehler. 1 In understanding Williams's work as a whole, it is a statement of profound importance. It indicates the nature of the poet's creative identity in that the figure 'I' is separated from and yet inextricably part of another 8lement, 'myself'. This activity of relating assumes a primary function in his aesthetic and the nature of being becomes a problematic and complex love affair. To imitate another is to come to terms with certain qualities which are not one's own and to discover in that ffickering of particularity the principles of fertility. In literary terms, Williams senses the inclusive power of the symbol and the rigid equation of the simile as inadequate tropes: one enclosing; the other separating. The conditions created by metaphor, with their implicit intercourse of extremes, suggest a suitable figure to imitate his creative process and so account for the necessary 'give and take' (SE 155). To be true to this interaction of identities requires a particularly innovative understanding of closure. If one's sense of self is rooted in the process of relating and if that process is the basis of one's aesthetic then endings become difficult, if not impossible. The attendant danger becomes the void which the diffusion of freedom implies. Williams's defence against these extremes is love, is the act of intercourse. He consistently looks to areas where form and freedom can coexist, where 'liberty' activates conservation (SE 208). For some his awareness of the object is an avowal of particu• larity, of the limits of the edge. For others his word is beyond definition and evocative of experiments rather than inventions. Both fail to register his imitative act, his faith in the relatedness of things. There, in the activity of marrying, for,m and freedom dance and, in the experience of transcendence, offer and receive gifts. 'Transcendence' not alone offers the reader a framework for com• ing to terms with Williams's creative range but it also suggests a traditional basis for his aesthetic. The past, though, is a series of acts, apparently completed and resolved, and, as such, a taunt for a poet committed to liberty. Williams is sensitive to these oppress• ive qualities and their inevitable lure seeking to rape or seduce the artist. For him, T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound's desertion of American xiii xiv Introduction generative slums for the aristocratic hierarchies of and Europe is indicative of that power. Yet he does speak of a 'usable past' but in terms which suggest his prejudice for 'a past as alive in its day as every moment is today alive in me' (Int. 82). Rather than see history as an oppressor, Williams meets it face to face. One such face which he consistently addresses is Walt Whitman and Williams often acknowledges common ground there. This study expands this connection and looks at the work of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau as part of the develop• ment towards Williams. In arguing for these relationships, I am suggesting a radical development in literature tentatively proffered by Emerson and dramatically evident in Thoreau and Whitman's works. This departure suggests that the world at hand, the much ignored or abused quotidian, is integrally related to the sublime. In tracing the points of touching, the argument proceeds from a vision of transcendence as divinely inspired to a purely secular notion of it. However, in both it is clear that the conjoining light is the point of focus: Williams, as Paul Mariani writes, 'was always one for celebrating light'. 2 It is, I will argue, the sustenance gained from this Transcen• dental connection which grants him the constant in his journeys of uncertainty. Williams's magnificent achievement is to see in the indeterminate qualities of a complex figure 'I' the means to explore a range of experiences from the lyric to the epic, through prose, drama and poetry. To do this he needed to renew his imagination and did so by a faith in the activity of relating, a faith in the power of the music of '01' Bunk's Band' to eat 'through / transcendent' (CP2 149). The poet does not merely give each object its place but rather engages it in conversation. It is irrelevant whether the object is the Unicorn Tapestries or a red wheelbarrow for success lies with the marriage achieved. Seeing Williams in this framework allows him the liberty of variety coupled with a structural predisposition and avoids the image of the mutilated crab which so offended him: 'I was early in life sick to my very pit with order that cuts off the crab's feelers to make them fit into the box' (SE 188). Again and again he rejects an imposing order and yet conSistently acclaims the value of form, the need for order. While I accept Peter Schmidt's call to explore the variety of Williams's work,3 I would point to Schmidt's work as an example of how variety can have direction. His fine reading of Kora in Hell, for example, draws on some of Whitman's crisis poems from Leaves of Grass to enrich and Introduction xv shape our understanding of Williams's achievement. 4 Contextual readings and historical perspectives are, I am certain, the way forward in Williams studies, not alone to counter his own belief, held as late as 1951, that he was being judged a 'rough sort of blindman' (SL 299) but also to place him, as Mariani does, in the 'postlapsarian, gritty yet burgeoning world of America'. 5 Freedom and place, ideas and things, are difficult to grasp as related enti• ties. Williams's faith that they should be conjoined was not with• out significant precedents.