Poetic Imagination And The "Clarified"Revelation Of Reality

As one of the most important American poets on an equal level with Ezra Pound, T.S.Eliot and Wallace Stevens in the 20th century, William Carlos Williams’ position could not be indisputable nowadays. As a matter of fact, Williams not only composes a vast number of poems, but his poetics is important and wins a high admiration among the literary critics as well. As he himself once asserted that the impartial criticism on his poetry must be achieved through his poetics, Charles Doyle and other literary critics agree with him and say that only Pound and Eliot could challenge him in this aspect. Zheng Min, the prestigious Chinese scholar and literary critic, even demonstrates that compared with the New Criticism, Williams’ poetry theory "possesses more vigor and vitality". Based on the above-mentioned criticism, in order to clarify and grasp Williams’ poetics, this dissertation would attempt, combined with Williams’poetry oeuvre including the epic Paterson, to apply some of the Phenomenological thoughts of Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, Gaston Bachelard, Hannah Arendt, etc. to the analysis and exploration of Williams’ "imagination", the so-called "foundation of his poetic works". Specifically speaking, the dissertation would do that from three perspectives, i.e., the generation of his "imagination", the poetic or philosophical quality embodied in his "imagination", and the "clarified" revelation of reality from his poetic "imagination".In general, this dissertation would be divided into the following five parts."Introduction" would firstly state the importance of Williams’ "imagination" in brief and then diachronically examine the transmutation of the conception of Imagination in the West. Besides, this part would also make the comprehensive review of Williams’ poetry study mainly in the western academic field. Based on those information and exploration, the conclusion we could come to is that on the one hand, literary imagination would always more or less be the reflection of philosophical imagination in the same epoch. On the other hand, as for poets, imagination could be regarded as an aggregation where poetic and realistic nature in poetry would more often than not reside side by side.Chpater One would attach more importance on the generation of Williams’ "imagination". Generally speaking, the development of science, art and philosophy like Einstein’s Relativism, the contemporary European arts, and the veering in philosophy from dualism to the thing itself at the early period of 20th century has the profound influence on Williams’"imagination". Seen from the path of Williams’ poetry-composing, the idea of his "imagination" could obviously begin to sprout in Kora in Hell, while in another collection of poems Spring and All, "imagination" eventually comes into bloom. In a word, Williams’"imagination" is based upon the reality as well as beyond it and it is the consequence of his immediate "intensity of perception". In both the thing itself and the "contact "of intersubjective intention, his continual quest for poem itself and deep concern for reality could be fulfilled explicitly.Chapter Two would explore the poetic or philosophical quality of Williams’ "imagination" from these two levels, i.e., "No ideas, but in things" and "contact". In short, Williams’"No ideas, but in things" not only agrees on Husserl’s "intentional association", but secretly echoes Heidegger’s "Dasein/Being". At last, under the interaction among "ideas", "things" and "language", Williams’ "imagination" could be bestowed with the infinite philosophical tension. The idea of "contact", which both contains the contact of locality and the contact of intersubjective experience, could date back to the little magazine Contact cofounded by Williams and Robert MacAlmon. Therefore, there would be something in common between Williams’ "contact" and phenomenological "intersubjectivity". In his poetry, the idea of "contact" could be sensed lucidly through the image of "dance".Chapter Three would lay more emphasis on the "clarified" revelation of reality from Williams’poetic "imagination", which would be fully embodied at the later stage of his poetry-composing. Concretelyly speaking, this part would select the aspects of "history" and "education" to expound the realistic view hidden in Williams’ poetic works. In the historical writing, "present concern" would be the main cause for Williams to scan the American history. In terms of the unique writing principle of bisexual experience and "make it SHOW itself", Williams’ "history" deals a lot with the essence of such "things" as humanity, politics and economics. Distinct from the thoughts of contemporary educationist like John Dewey, Williams stresses more the "clarity" of knowledge. In other words, "education" should follow the development of humanity and lay emphasis on the "emancipation of humanity". Moreover, the coexistence of intersubjective experience could be another prospect for his "education". To sum up, for Williams, the realistic "ideas" would imbue not only with the tint of idealism, but with the great concern and resolution for the realistic difficulties as well."Conclusion" would offer the summary on Williams’ "Imagination". Being a doctor, poet and critic, W.C.Williams finally fulfils, by his deep affection for poetry, his lifelong quest for "beauty" and "modernity" on the construction of his "imagination".