ABSTRACT

In Paterson, William Carlos Williams, the American writer, constructs a city to house his voiceless poor, confirming his desire to remain a part of society, rather than an artist in isolation. Williams's reconstruction of America was angry and violent and began in writer's consistent determination to defeat him. Rejecting Baudelairean excesses, which he identified with an exalted vision of the 'artist' and artist's necessary separateness from the material world, Williams's 'furious wish was to be normal, undrunk, balanced in everything'. In selecting Paterson, New Jersey, as site for his city-text, Williams was mindful of the need to ground his reconstruction of American history in a local community. Williams's conception of Paterson as weaving or tapestry is simple culmination of his desire to connect things up. Williams's reconstruction of American history and his implicit rewriting of America take shape in this local emphasis and his belief, citing John Dewey, that 'the local is the only universal, upon that all art builds'.