William Carlos Williams and the Diagnostics of Culture

Brian Bremen's innovative re-examination of William Carlos Williams's life and work traces the development of Williams's poetics, focusing in particular on his ongoing fascination with the effects of poetry and prose. In an analysis informed by the insight of contemporary cultural critics, Bremen traces Williams's thought from the confused romanticism of Spring and All to the methodological empiricism of Paterson, examining in the process Williams's correspondence with life-long friend Kenneth Burke and their shared theoretical interests. Through this fresh conceptual frame-work, Bremen shows how Williams's role as poet becomes more congruous with his role as doctor. In addition, Bremen looks closely at Williams's economic and social theories in light of those of Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot, making a case for the consistency of Williams's thought on medicine, gender, economics, poetry and prose, and history. William Carlos Williams and the Diagnostics of Culture is essential reading for scholars not only of Williams, but also of Modernism, twentieth-century literature, and cultural criticism and history.