Spring and rebirth is a constant theme throughout Williams' Spring and All. "It is spring. That is to say it is approaching THE BEGINNING" (182). Williams' is expressing that spring is the rebirth of the world. In the beginning, Williams' talks about destruction of the world before the rebirth. Every thing needs to be broken down before there can be new life. "Never mind; the great event may not exist, so there is no need to speak further of it. Kill! kill! the English, the Irish, the French, the Germans, the Italians and the rest: friends or enemies, it makes no difference, kill them all" (179). There is another place in Spring and All where Williams' makes mention of destruction before rebirth. "Beyond there was of broad, muddy fields brown with dried weeds, standing and fallen...twiggy stuff of bushes and small trees with dead, brown leaves under them leafless vines...One by one objects are defined- It quickens: clarity, outline of leaf" (183). The poem mentions the death of the plants around the hospital where there is also human birth. The human birth is parallel with the new life in the plants. Williams' ties in human birth with the theme of spring, because human birth brings new life as well. "They enter the new world naked, cold, uncertain of all save that they enter. All about them the cold, familiar wind-" (183).
I feel as though William's contradicts himself quiet a bit, especially when he talks about spring and evolution repeating itself. "It is spring, but miracles of miracles a miraculous miracle has gradually taken place durning these seemingly wasten eons. Through the orderly sequences of unmentionable time EVOLUTION HAS REPEATED ITSELF FROM THE BEGINNING" (181). Here, William's is saying that although spring brings new life and new experiences, whatever has been newly created, is just taking the place of what was once there. Where there was once a tree, there is now a similar tree in it's place. Williams' is saying that no matter what has come from the new spring, it will never be originally new, but a copy of what once was. "Every step once taken in the first advance of the human race, from the amoeba to the highest type of intelligence, has been duplicated, every step exactly paralleling the one that preceeded in the dead ages gone by" (181). I feel as though he is saying that nothing on this planet can ever be truly new. We live in a world of duplication, and nothing can ever be its own original creation. Even as humans, we are new form of our parents because we cannot be created without them.
When I first encounted this piece of work, I was jolted from my concentration whenever the piece would shift from poem to text. It took me a while to get used to the shifts because when I read the text parts, I can easily understand what it is telling me and move on. When it came to the actual poems, I would have to go back, read it again, and write notes as to what I thought was going on.
I totally agree with you when you suggest that spring and rebirth are constant themes throughout Williams, “Spring and All”. That concept was the very first one I picked up on out of all the twists and turns he presents. As Williams talks of spring and rebirth, and new life I think he is also indirectly referring to his own poetry. Being a modern poet that was trying to break from the normal more “formal poetry Williams, in a sense gave birth to a new form of poetry. A form of poetry that frankly had no form.
ReplyDeleteWhen you wrote of Williams contradicting himself I wasn’t quite sure what to make of that statement. However I looked more closely at “Spring and All” and found what you said to be very revealing. Williams obviously wanted to break free of form and simply create art. Yet when he praises such other forms of art such as jazz, I think he most definitely contradicts himself. Jazz is a free form, but there are still general guidelines of which jazz musicians fallow. Melodies, chord progressions, and rhythms can all be improvised, yet there is still a foundation on which they must be played upon.
Your take on Williams’ “Spring and All” seems to be very similar to mine. On the other hand I failed to notice the contradictions of the poetry. The incongruity added to a more revealing read.