The Poetry Of Tennessee Williams Plays

Tennessee Williams, a great drama poet, is writing in prose style.Once, Tennessee Williams says, "I attempt to substitute a 'poetry of the theater' for 'poetry in the theater.'As far as Williams is concerned, the theater vitality is endowed with the charm of poetic and fancy, with the style of concision and vividness to represent life. In Williams' plays, the meaning we see from them has transcended the boundary of the orthodox poetry, and the style we perceive from them is the innovation in the form of the theater representation. Therefore, this thesis discourses upon the poetic of Williams plays from these aspects: the poetic of characters, the poetic of stage atmosphere, the poetic of play language, and the poetic of sex and violence. Before this, for the sake of explaining how Williams has created the "poetry of the theater", this thesis analyses the connection of plays with poem and the connection of Williams with poem. I think this can clarify the background of "poetry of the theater". We can see from Williams plays mixed with corrupt feeling and lily-white feeling that shock us and far exceed so-called the rational theater of America. From the stages where the miserable, beautiful fate is performing, we see the people who live in unfortunate circumstances. They are struggling, resisting. They don't want to lose the inebriation for getting excited from flesh and blood, the life value, and the heart's-blood dignity. They (especially these women in the plays) never give up the search for the refuge of the soul, and sometimes are interrupted, notwithstanding there are always tempests in the limited human universe. This is the poetic spirit that affects us best of all through his plays.