- Paperback: 272 pages
- Publisher: New Directions; 2nd Revised edition edition (Sep 22 2009)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 081121849X
- ISBN-13: 978-0811218498
- Product Dimensions: 20.3 x 13.2 x 1.8 cm
- Shipping Weight: 259 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,072,333 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
Product Description
Although admired by D. H. Lawrence, this modern classic went generally unnoticed during the years after its publication in 1925. Yet it is "a fundamental book, essential if one proposes to come to terms with American literature" (Times Literary Supplement). William Carlos Williams was not a historian, but he was fascinated by the texture of American history. Beginning with Columbus's discovery of the Indies and moving on through Sir Walter Raleigh, Cotton Mather, Daniel Boone, George Washington, Ben Franklin, Aaron Burr, Edgar Allan Poe, and Abraham Lincoln, Williams found in the fabric of familiar episodes new shades of meaning and configurations of character. He brought a poetic imagination to the task of reconstructing a live tradition for Americans, and what results is one of the finest works of prose to have been penned by any writer of the twentieth century.
About the Author
Poet, artist, and practicing physician of Rutherford, New Jersey, William Carlos Williams wrote poetry that was experimental in form, ranging from imagism to objectivism, with great originality of idiom and human vitality. Credited with changing and directing American poetry toward a new metric and language, he also wrote a large number of short stories and novels. Paterson (1946-58), about the New Jersey city of that name, was his epic and places him with Ezra Pound of the Cantos as one of the great shapers of the long poem in this century. National recognition did not come early, but eventually Williams received many honors, including a vice-presidency of the National Institute of Arts and Letters (1952); the Bollingen Prize (1953); the $5,000 fellowship of the Academy of American Poets; the Loines Award for poetry of the National Institute of Arts and Letters (1948); and the Brandeis Award (1957). Book II of Paterson received the first National Book Award for poetry in 1949. Williams was named consultant in poetry in English to the Library of Congress for 1952-53. Williams's continuously inventive style anchored not only objectivism, the school to which he most properly belongs, but also a long line of subsequent poets as various as Robert Lowell, Frank O'Hara, and Allen Ginsberg. With Stevens, he forms one of the most important sources of a specifically American tradition of modernism. In addition to his earlier honors, Williams received two important awards posthumously, the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry (1963) and the Gold Medal for Poetry from the National Institute of Arts and Letters (1963).
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Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Perspective on American Culture,
By A Customer
This review is from: In The American Grain (Paperback)
In the American Grain is William Carlos Williams's outstanding and interesting perspecitive on the formation of American culture and ideals. Set as fictional and nonfictional stories of historical figures and their place in creating what Williams' calls the American Idiom. Williams provides the reader with some of the most interesting and provocative writting in the 20th century. He has supplied the piece with dramatic and extreme views on the state of American Art, Culture, and History like few before or since. An authoritative text for anyone seeking a realistic view of American Society.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
4.2 out of 5 stars (4 customer reviews) 21 of 23 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Perspective on American Culture,
By A Customer - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: In The American Grain (Paperback)
In the American Grain is William Carlos Williams's outstanding and interesting perspecitive on the formation of American culture and ideals. Set as fictional and nonfictional stories of historical figures and their place in creating what Williams' calls the American Idiom. Williams provides the reader with some of the most interesting and provocative writting in the 20th century. He has supplied the piece with dramatic and extreme views on the state of American Art, Culture, and History like few before or since. An authoritative text for anyone seeking a realistic view of American Society. 15 of 16 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
Poetic History,
By The Ginger Man - Published on Amazon.com
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: In The American Grain (Paperback)
Published in 1925, this book of historical essays can be uneven both in method and interest but is, at its best, brilliant, and, even where it fails, mostly of interest. The subject matter stretches from Eric the Red to Abraham Lincoln, and from one page (Lincoln) to a lengthy set of essays on Puritanism. The strength of the book is the evocative writing and Williams' ability to bring a new way of looking at subjects that have received extensive treatment in the past.His approach seems particularly suited to personalities at the margin of American development: Hernando de Soto, Cotton Mather, Pere Sebastion Rables and Aaron Burr. I would approach this more as a book of essays than a history. Slow your reading pace to savor Williams' rhythm. Allow him to transport you to each venue as you try to judge the past through its own framework. Williams certainly has a point of view about American character which he develops through these selected profiles. But he does not hide his bias so it remains up to the reader whether to agree or to take issue. 2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
IN THE AMERICAN GRAIN,
By Thomas Roberdeau - Published on Amazon.com
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: In The American Grain (Paperback)
William Carlos Williams has written a classic text, poetic and profound, of vignettes about American icons who shaped our society throughouthistory. This is a fever dream of impressionistic prose, cutting into the heart of each historical character, what they did, what it meant and still means. History as shimmering as a chiaroscuro. |
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