Williams' Poetic Turn From Imagism To Objectivism

William Carlos Williams is a 20 th century American Modernist poet.Influenced by Pound in the early days and opposed to Eliot's poetics,he became one of the leading figures in the Imagist movement.However,since the 1930 s he was devoted to the Objectivist movement.Current researches on Williams mainly focus on his Imagism.In addition,the studies at home and abroad on Objectivist poetics mainly discusses Zukofsky,Oppen and so on,but Williams is not included.However,Williams contributes greatly to the Objectivist poetics for principles of “no ideas but in things” and “the poem being an object”.Besides,his autobiography shows that he calls himself an Objectivist poet.In this view,taking Williams' essays and poetry as the research object and making the diachronic and synchronic analyses,this thesis aims to study the reasons for and methods and consequences of Williams' poetic turn from Imagism to Objectivism.The body of this thesis consists of three chapters.The first chapter explores thematically why and how Williams switches his poetics from Imagism to Objectivism.Firstly,this chapter discusses Williams' departure from Pound' Imagism in terms of Americanness.Pound and Williams attempt to carry out the Modernist revolution through everyday language.Pound's Imagism does not care for American locality while Williams does.Secondly,this chapter discusses the difference between Williams' Objectivist poetics of “now” and Eliot's history-oriented “tradition”.Williams' Objectivist poetics of “now” emphasizes changes and the renewal of experience,emphasizing the direct relationship between words and objects rather than the social and cultural implications embedded in traditional images.The second chapter explores formally why and how Williams switches his poetics from Imagism to Objectivism.He believes that the disappearance of Pound's Imagism is due to its lack of an open form.Williams emphasizes that the form and structure of poetry should be an open field of action.The inner structure of his Objectivist poetic text is dynamic and open because of the use of techniques such as visual texts,cubism juxtaposition and enjambment.Unlike Eliot's poetics of impersonality emphasizing on a continual dismissing of personality,Williams' use of anti-traditional grammatical punctuation and line breaks in his prose verse is based on his personal emotions and perceptions,directly expressing his feelings about American society.The third chapter analyzes that Williams interprets and develops Zukofsky' principles of“sincerity” and “objectification” into his “no ideas but in things” and “the poem being an object” and political mentality in Williams' Objectivist poetics.“Sincerity” refers to the directconnection of words and objects as well as the poetic writing of the poet's direct perception of the world.“Objectification” emphasizes the independent structure of poetry itself and the openness of texts.Objectivist poets resist the political aestheticization of Fascism through disruptively recasting poetic forms.Williams' Objectivist poetics reflects his Populist thought and anti-hierarchical democracy.This thesis comes to the following conclusions about Williams' poetic turn from Imagism to Objectivism: his Objectivist poetry focuses on social reality,emphasizing locality and the present in America.He changes Pound's structureless Imagist poetry,and his individual emotion-and-perception-based prose poetry changes Eliot's poetics of impersonality.His Objectivist poetics such as “no ideas but in things” and “the poem being an object” is consistent with Zukofsky's “sincerity” and “objectification”.It reflects his Populist thought and anti-hierarchical democracy.