William Carlos Williams' "Pastoral" and "Proletarian Portrait"

William Carlos Williams' "Pastoral" and "Proletarian Portrait" William Carlos Williams' poem "Pastoral" is narrated in an introspective, confessional voice that describes the narrator's attitude toward the streets in which he was raised. There is very little plot in the poem, and it consists mainly of details concerning the street locale. Given the minimal plot that occurs, the details assume great significance.

The reader must therefore be cognizant of how the details inform the meaning, as well as the poem's expressive use of diacritical marks, and the words that begin and end each line. It is significant that the term "ashes," which ends line ten, is followed by a comma and then "furniture," which begins line 11. Ashes are a dirty aspect of street living, while furniture is used by bourgeois members of society, thereby showing how far removed the proletariat is from bourgeois society.

Moreover, one of the central tensions of the poem involves how exactly the details construct the meaning of the poem? What is the ideological significance of the myriad details that pepper the poem? In the document from The Making of Modernist Traditions, Hilda Doolittle addresses the extensive use of details in Williams' poetry through her claim that "when you speak direct you are a poet" (345).

Through her claim it can be inferred that Doolittle refers to the cold, hard details that offer no comfort to the reader and paint a dreary portrait of financial destitution. Interestingly, Doolittle deploys the term "sacred" to describe Williams' style, and another central theme of the poem involves how exactly the cold details of poverty can be imbued with any "sacred" meaning.

Although Williams seems to disagree with much of what Doolittle states, he does assert that "the one thing that stands eternally in the way of really good writing is…virtual impossibility of lifting to the imagination those things which lie under the direct scrutiny of the senses" (3). This statement is significant in that it attests to Williams' emphasis on everyday details over grand intellectual themes, representing the world rather than interpreting it.

William Carlos Williams' "Proletarian Portrait" continues the theme of proletarian struggle that was so central in "Pastoral." The use of details is also crucial, as it is another poem where the extensive use of details precludes substantial plot activity. The author repeatedly juxtaposes details through line breaks, and in many cases details are placed on the succeeding line from the noun they describe.

For example, the opening line, "A big young bareheaded woman" is followed by "in an apron," and the line separation makes it so that the mental picture that the reader develops over the first line is undercut by the line that follows. When someone pictures a bareheaded woman, they likely perceive an average, middle-class woman, but the next line drastically alters its connotation.

It is also important to remember that details play a strong role in other poems, such as "The Red Wheelbarrow" and "The Great Figure." The painterly title "Proletarian Portrait" is also significant in that it alludes to the visual aspect of the poem. William Carlos Williams was a modernist poet and the form of his poems is often inextricably linked with his themes. In each stanza, the second line modifies the first by describing the plight of the poor, such as "on the street," and.