"You in the face and the intimacy of the world": William Carlos Williams's Indo-European Connection

Abstract

ABSTRACT:This article uses the recently published correspondence between Williams and the Indian poet Srinivas Rayaprol (1925–1998), spanning Williams's last creative decade, to investigate the former's relationship with Europe still talking to him, in subtly persuasive ways, through the avid, manifold interests and travels of the younger poet. From Bach to Beckett, to Kafka, to Klee, to Monteverdi, Picasso, Ungaretti, Villon, etc.—the list of writers, artists, and musicians the old master and his self-appointed pupil discuss in their letters is patently Eurocentric, and far outweighs any references to American literature and the arts.