The writings of William Carlos Williams

In The Writings of William Carlos Williams, Daniel Morris examines the previously neglected fiction written throughout Williams's career to explore the extreme shift in his poetry from the impersonal early lyrics to Paterson, the ultimate celebration of the poet as modernist cultural hero.

With close textual analyses of Williams's writing in a variety of genres, including lyrics, short stories, novels, essays, and his epic poem, Morris demonstrates that Williams consciously shaped his identity as a public writer able to provide an unacknowledged social group with the dignity of appearance in distinguished classes of representation such as the modern poem.

In addition, Morris takes a close look at Williams's publication history, paying specific attention to his professional relationship with James Laughlin, the founder of New Directions Press. Morris uses the correspondence between Williams and Laughlin to reveal the contradiction of Williams wanting both to defy and to please the reading public.