Refiguring America: A Study of William Carlos Williams' in the American Grain - Hardcover

Conrad, Bryce

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0252017048 ISBN 13: 9780252017049

Publisher: University of Illinois Press, 1990

Synopsis

'Refiguring America' is the first book-length study of William Carlos Williams' major prose work about his nation's past, 'In the American Grain'. Williams approaches the writings of the early-comers to the New World as the verbal seed from which our history has sprung, arguing that only by "intelligent investigation" of the original records of the American past can we recognize the defining contours of America. Incorporating writings by the Spanish, French, and English, Williams establishes a debate among voices representing the three main European cultural groups that vied for ascendancy in the New World. Yet Williams' orchestration of these contending voices is performed with a modernist's sense of the fictive nature of all historical knowledge. Voices are quoted, simulated — even invented. Bryce Conrad's 'Refiguring America' treats the complex issues of historical knowledge and verbal representation that are raised by Williams' text, and also accomplishes the most thorough recovery to date of Williams' source materials. The most significant aspect of Conrad's work is his discovery of Williams' primary source collection, the 'Old South Leaflets', a popular reprint series of early American documents. Refiguring America convincingly demonstrates that Williams not only relied on the leaflets to guide his choice of historical documents, but that the leaflets also shaped his apprehension of the past. "In Refiguring America, Conrad not only shows us the most probable sources which William Carlos Williams himself read in order to write 'In the American Grain', one of the handful of truly classic American texts our century has produced, but he also reveals how Williams managed to read himself into that history. This is as lucid, vivid, and convincing a study of 'In the American Grain' as we are likely to see for a long time."

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Illinois Press
• Publication date: 1990
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0252017048
• ISBN 13: 9780252017049
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 192