Modernism And Postmodernism In William Carlos Williams's Poetry

Williams Carlos Williams, contemporary of T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound, is now considered one of the greatest American writers of the twentieth century. As a poet and doctor, Williams devoted all his life to his patients, writing, poetic experimentation and research into the nationalization of American poetry. Williams lived in the flourishing period of American modernist poetry; naturally, his poetry bears distinctive features of modernism. Yet his poetic works and ideas exert great influence upon American postmodern poetry. Accordingly, it is of great significance in the study of American postmodern poetry to identify, explain and differentiate modernist features from postmodernist ones in Williams's poetry. There are already a lot of writings on Williams, but as far as this perspective is concerned, I haven't found any. Based on the theories on modernism and postmodernism of Ihab Hassan, famous American critic on postmodern literature, this thesis is a try in this respect.The thesis consists of four chapters. The first chapter is the introduction to the significance of the study, the author's life and career, his literary achievements, as well as critical responses to Williams both in China and abroad, which help to provide me with support and foundation.The second chapter mainly introduces some theories on modernism and postmodernism of Hassan and other great minds.The third chapter is the main body of this thesis. Based on Hassan's theories on modernism and postmodernism, major modernist and postmodernist features in Williams's poetry are identified, differentiated and discussed.As to the modernist features, Williams's long poem Paterson and the short lyrical poems are discussed respectively, including themes, structures and writing techniques. The major modernist features embodied in Paterson are unity in structure, the use of myth and symbols as well as the theme of alienation of human will in an industrial city. The major modernist features in Williams's short lyrical poems are embodied in the imagistic features in his poetry: concise, condensive, concrete, immediate, direct, objective, and imagistic.The postmodernist features in Williams's poetry are discussed in four respects, namely, self-reflexivity, hybridity of genres, fragmentation and decanonization. The fact that in Paterson the hero's searching for a "redeeming language" and his final failure and promise are reflected in the actual failure and promise on the part of the poet in reality is a clear indication of the use of the technique of self-reflexivity. The hybridity of prose and verse in Paterson breaks the boundary between literary genres. Fragmentation, which is achieved by the using of such techniques as montage and collage, is manifested both in Williams's long poem and his short ones. Decanonization is mainly shown in Williams's strategies of les petites histoires, idiolect and localism.The fourth chapter is conclusion. Based on the analysis above, the thesis comes to the following conclusions: As a whole, the short lyrical poems of Williams have both modernist and postmodernist features. His long poem Paterson has modernist features in theme and structure; but has postmodernist features in style, technique and strategy. In general, there are both modernist and postmodernist features in Williams's poetry.