ISSN:
0021-8758
Source:
Cambridge Journals Digital Archives
Topics:
English, American Studies
,
History
,
Political Science
,
Sociology
,
Economics
Notes:
In a strong attack on the second, third and fourth books of William Carlos Williams's Paterson, Randall Jarrell expressed chagrin that Book II introduces the themes of credit and usury, ‘those enemies of man, God, and contemporary long poems’. It is true that the economic theories worked into parts of Williams's major work often sound very much like Ezra Pound at his most dispensable. As Vivienne Koch put it: ‘One serious weakness in Book IV, got like a contagion from Pound's Cantos, is the introduction of an explicit pseudo-scientific diagnosis of our present economic ills, relying on the Poundian demonstration of Usura and the Poundian salvation of Social Credit.’ The least impressive passages in Paterson are those (particularly the final six pages of IV. ii) in which the excited promulgation of money theories comes perilously close to being mere harangue. Jarrell was mistaken, however, in going on to assert that the economic anecdotes and political remarks are where they are only ‘because Dr Williams chose—happened to choose—for them to be there’. Williams's ideas on money and credit, as digressive and presumptuous as they often seem to be, are actually tied in with the other major themes in the poem. Furthermore, they represent the culmination of a long and passionate protest against a system that sanctions private use of public money.
Type of Medium:
Electronic Resource
URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0021875800009932
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