Preface

Summary

Troubled by critics' complaints that The Picture of Dorian Gray lacked a moral, Oscar Wilde responded that they were mistaken – it had one indeed: “And the moral is this: All excess, as well as all renunciation, brings its own punishment” (Hart-Davis, 1962: 259). These proved prophetic words for Wilde himself. They also expressed a quandary that many others faced in the fin de siècle. After a half century of Victorian rigidity, who was left to instruct them in striking the proper balance between excess and renunciation? The focus of this book is on William Carlos Williams's immersion in that problem and its expression in his early poetry. Excess and renunciation are the two poles between which so much of his early work shuttles. We commonly forget – so “modern” is his reputation – that his education at home had a strongly Victorian cast.

It has long been a critical commonplace to speak of Williams's divided nature. Critics often use this observation as a point of departure for their particular readings of his work. The argument of this book is that this truism is not simply an important feature of Williams's character, but the defining feature, and that it becomes the defining feature of his early poetry. In terms of theme, style, meter and his confrontation with traditional poetic practice, Williams negotiated between zones of stability (“measure”) and invigorating but dangerous adventures (the “other”).