Name: watch video on William Carlos Williams's "Danse Russe"
Uploaded: 2016-09-10T13:04:23.481Z
Duration: 19 min 33 s

>> So now, we're talking about Danse Russe, where are we?

What's the setting? What's the scene?

Dave, what's the scene? >> The suburbia in confines of a room.

>> We're, we're guessing suburbia from what we know about Williams rather for New

Jersey. But I suppose, there's something,

something suburban about this. What, what, what are some suburban values

that you see here, anybody? >> I think, the idea that like, he's got,

if I in my north room. >> Okay.

So, he's got his. >> T's sort of his spot, his room in the

house. >> His writing room.

This is where dad, when he's not delivering babies, or attending at the

hospital, or doing his pediatrician work, that's where dad goes.

That's where husband goes when he wants to write.

It's his writing room. >> He also has a nanny.

>> Mm-hm. >> Yes.

Kathleen. If, if I when my wife is sleeping and the

baby and Kathleen, so he had two sons but this is written when he has one son and

Kathleen must be the nanny. So, this is, this is someone who's helping

a new mother and everybody is napping. What day of the week is this do you think?

>> Saturday, Sunday. >> Saturday or Sunday, it seems, right?

There's a nap. There are naps being taken and the doctor,

poet is home. So, we're going to guess it's a weekend,

it doesn't really matter. But, anybody want to set the scene a

little more? Molly, what else do you see?

>> Well, it seems like it's the middle of the day and it's kind of I think the

semi-rural setting points to that suburbia.

There are shining trees, and silken mists. Maybe like in early morning, or early

evening. >> It's either early morning, or a late

afternoon. >> Yeah.

>> The sun is a flame-white disc in silken mists above shining trees.

Now, what's he doing in this room, Anna? >> He is dancing naked.

>> What should he be doing probably? >> Doctoring or writing or.

>> I don't think he doctor's in that room. This is his art.

>> Well. >> In an artist room, probably.

Yeah. So, he should be writing, producing art.

What kind of art does William Carlos Williams aspire to produce?

Tough question, but, go for it. >> Oh, wasn't, I mean.

>> Sonnets? >> Obviously, absolutely not sonnets.

>> No, no sonnets. No traditional Sonnets.

>> No Sonnets. >> He wants to make something new.

And instead, on this occasion of making something new, Ali, can you say something.

>> Well, the thing is though, he is writing because him, the scene of him

dancing is conditional. He says, if I do this.

>> Interesting. If, if, if, what's the conditional?

Where does it turn? All these if clauses turn at the end to a

statement which is a question. If this is true, and this is true, and

this is true, who shall say, I am not the happy genius of my household.

Translate that question at the end, can you?

>> Well, I think, there are a bunch of ways to ...

>> Okay, try one. >> So, one is that, if he were to do that,

cuz the happy genius can refer to genius, the genius as the poet, the genius as.

>> I think we can stop there for now, genius.

Anybody want to say something about that word Genius.

Emily? It's got a great tradition for genius.

>> Well, it's a little funny because by saying the genius of my household, he sort

of negates the meaning of genius, doesn't he?

Which is sort of singular and exclusionary.

>> Yeah, he's got there's a baby, not going to be a genius yet anyway, unless

it's a baby genius. We've got a nanny and we've got a new mom,

and it's, I mean, with all due respect to all three of those individuals, it's not a

huge thing to say that he's the genius of the household, but genius is a special, so

genius in the, he's as smart as Einstein sense.

It becomes funny and ironic, and limiting, and self-deprecating.

But, there's another kind of genius. No, it's an old fashioned word.

No? Nobody?

>> I think. >> Am I the only one?

>> Biologically really, it, it, it. >> That word was a genius.

>> Genius. >> That was like genius.

>> Is there some sort of. >> You know.

>> Genius, genius refers to the in a muse like sense.

The Creator, right? So.

>> The Originator. >> The Originator.

So that, the happy genius of my household is the creator of art without it.

That is the person who, who makes it. Who aestheticizes it, or who is the singer

of it. He's the owner of the household, of the

suburban household, which, so you know, in the Homeric sense of genius, this is a

large landscape of origins, of the ways things are.

But in, in William stuck in his room with people sleeping in the suburbs taking a

break from his doctoring and trying to write, he seeks an art that wants to be

elsewhere, but at the same time, is sort of pissed off that anybody could tell him

that he's not the happy genius of his household.

Its a very complicated question. All right.

So, what about Danse Russe? Does, does the reference help us at all?

Okay. I'm just going to throw out a little

factoid, and we can add, add more information later.

This refers to the Ballet Russe, the Russian, the Russian Ballets of

particularly, modern modernistic avant garde dance that was being performed from

1909 all the way through 1929 everywhere, all around, especially in Europe, but not

only. >> Well, I imagine that, that particular

ballet is not being performed in Rutherford, New Jersey.

>> In Rutherford, New Jersey, in the suburbs.

>> Diverse but middle class, primarily, where Williams got all of his Whitmanian

sense of the experience, of the diverse experience of people in a famous poem, To

Elsie, a young woman, an Appalachian woman thrown up from, from incest and, and you

know, declining you know, declining American folk.

He gets a hold of people, urban people and suburban people, but there's one thing it

doesn't have, which is modernism. >> Which is in New York.

>> Which is in New York, which way across William's biographically, frequented he

would leave. He would leave his wife and his children

and he would take the train into New York, and he would hang out with the Danse Russe

types. And so, he has a longing here in this

poem. Can you describe that longing a little

more? >> Well, I think, I mean, you, you sort of

get the longing in the I am lonely, lonely, I was born to be lonely.

You get a little bit of that and you get the kind of, the loneliness of, of his

wife is sleeping and the baby is sleeping. And then, the fact that he, all he can do

besides write I guess, is, is dance around naked.

>> He dances naked. He does his Danse Russe, he does his

modern, provocative, experimental dance by himself.

By himself, waving his shirt round his head and singing to himself.

And admiring his arms, his face, his shoulders, his flanks, buttocks again the

yellow drawn shades. What is that?

Max. What's, what's going on in the suburbs?

>> His ball, his shades are. >> Sounds like David Mamet.

>> [laugh] >> His shades are, are, well, there's, these are very ugly shades to

begin with. >> [laugh] >> It sounds like.

>> What's he doing, Max? >> He's projecting something.

>> Well, that they're pulled down so no one can see him.

>> That's not seen. >> Although he's not seen, but it looks

like ... >> If you were outside and you would see

the shadow. >> It's a shadow play, yeah.

>> Shadow play of this naked. >> [laugh] >> This naked suburbanite

dancing by himself, can't you see it? Can you describe, come on now.

Emily, you know the suburbs. Can you describe what's the situation

sociologically, psychologically, emotionally.

>> Suburbs are one sort of, comforting and isolating for sort of, intellectuals, I

guess, as William Carlos Williams necessarily is.

It's a conflicted place to be. It's away from the sort of, urban and

intellectual center, but it's also where families possibly prosper most.

>> He, nice. He's torn between, have you ever felt that

way in the suburbs? >> Of course.

>> [laugh] >> You want something more, right?

>> Always conscious of the walls around you.

I mean, people in the suburbs were cheap there because they want their own land.

They want to be enclosed in something, They want to be safe.

So, I think the. >> He's trying to be wild but he does it

within the constraints of his choice, his life choices.

>> Yeah, I think, always present in his problem are the constraints around him.

>> And you can kind of see the yellow drawn shades as the fact that they're

drawn as like a symbol of conformity as, you know, you could also say about the

suburbs in general. Because, you know, the sense that he feels

the need to draw the shades, the sense that that's a condition of him being able

to hypothetically dance in this way in this room kind of points to the fact that

it's an unacceptable thing to be doing in that environment.

>> Molly, let's talk a little more about the conflict, the inner conflict, that

seems to be in this poem. What's he stuck between?

>> Oh, I was going to say something else about the shades.

>> Go ahead say something else and analyze them.

>> Sure. [laugh] That there's this game that you

play with your neighbors in the suburbs. >> Oh, wow.

>> You know, that kind of peeking through windows and you know, shutting, shutting

the blinds and opening the blinds. And there's this sort of, this idea, this

stereotype of a lonely housewife that may like, leave the window open while she

changes. >> And I have to stipulate that Williams,

in poems such as The Young Housewife, was very much the guy who would look into

houses like this as he passed by in his car on his way to do his rounds.

And he would see, he'd get a glimpse, another one called Young Woman at a

Window, where he's apparently seeing a woman holding a baby crying in the window.

So, he's very interested in what's stuck. And of course, American artists of the

twentieth century have all been interested in this dynamic of the suburbs.

Go ahead. What, what else were you going to say?

>> Well, what I was going to say with the last two lines, as far as the conflict, I

almost feel like he's saying, if he's alone and doing his, his modernist dance

and nobody's there to see him, who can say he's not a genius, like, who can say he's

not creating art. >> So, let's ask again, Max, why the

question is asked the way it is. Ali got a start on that a few minutes ago,

who shall say I am not, is he imagining someone protesting and saying, no.

>>, He's the defending this. >> Certainly, its a challenge.

It's it poses a challenge. >> Who shall say, alright, let's take it

outside. >> [laugh] >> Who's going to tell me I'm

not a poet? I'm stuck here but I'm, I'm a poet.

I'm, I'm lonely, lonely, lonely but I'm best being lonely.

I don't think that's true. I think, William Carlos Williams is best

when he's Whitmanian, ultimately. >> Sure.

>> He's best when he's in contact with people.

>> This also seems like a challenge to his, his family because he's there in his,

in his studio, in his working room, not working or not, or not working in the

conventional sense. >> He's dancing, he's, right.

>> He's just dancing and [inaudible] so. >> But he's eventually, because the poem

gets produced. >> Well, of course, of course.

>> By the situation. >> But in, in this, in this situation,

though, it's easier to define his, his family who, they woke up and found him

there and say, what are you, why are you, why are you, you shouldn't be here, why

are you in this room, why won't you let anyone [inaudible].

>> Why are you here? Why do you want to be in New York?

Amaris, your thoughts on this? >> I think, he's like opposing his

domestic and professional life against his artistic life.

And so, by the end of the poem, he's shed all these strings that have pulled him

here and there and he's become this sort of, happy dancer and profile against the

window whether seen or unseen is unclear. But, it's certain I think, that the poem

becomes the space of fantasy and creativity and.

>> This is why I particularly, personally like American modernism so much.

Because, what's at stake is the, is the kind of American life to which Williams

was so attracted but which at every point, was preventing him from participating in

international art movements and, or, or, even just cosmopolitan movements.

And he was always, he was always torn so he makes an American art out of the

frustrations of wanting something more, aesthetically.

>> So, you think. >> Anna?

>> Do you think that this poem is a way, is a, is a space where those two can

coexist having like the suburban, that kind of life and the artistic, you know.

>> I get you, well, first of all, I love being asked a question.

I, in the setting. I'm just so, I'm so happy about that.

[laugh] ... >> [laugh] >> I guess you're, you're so

smart, Anna, because you're pointing out that what I just said about American

modernism is kind of a wimpy moderate thing.

Like I am trying to find a middle ground between a poetry that respects American

life as it's really being lived and not just in the, you know, a few blocks in one

city. I do admire Williams' capacity to, and I

would say, Whitmanian capacity, to embrace American life as it's being lived and to

love it all aggressively, and to be unhappy about the limitations but to make

them, those limitations, into art, but to resist using traditional forms to show, to

express those constraints. So, in the, in the poem Smell where he

kind of undoes the sonnet, or at least, the fourteen lines, that's an obvious way

to do it. Danse Russe is less obvious than he's

doing it formally. But, he's a very complicated guy so I just

want us to conclude by going around and inviting any of you to talk about what you

see as the complication here. He's clearly complicating Whitmanism to

some degree, but we don't have to talk about Whitman.

Anything you like. How is this complicated?

Start with you Max. >> His, his relationship to his body is

quite different than Whitman's, I would say.

He has, he describes his own dancing as grotesque which I don't think Whitman

would ever describe anything about his body or about human life as grotesque.

And instead, here, Williams is, is, he's looking at it.

And we can imagine his, his flanks and his buttocks as sort of, sort of saggy and

grotesque to him, and, and as a result grotesque to us.

And, and he's sort of looking at himself in this mirror, and, and.

>> Is he? >> Is it rather erotic?

>> Certainly. Yeah.

>> I mean, he's dancing. >> Yeah.

>> By himself, he's doing a naked dance by himself.

>> I am, I am, I best alone. >> [laugh] >> I am best alone.

I am best alone. My wife and the baby, this is, it's hard

to, it's hard to be a new dad. >> [laugh] >> He said from experience,

right? You know, I mean we, anyway, go ahead.

Did you want to say something more? You're good at that.

>> That, that, that, that about covers it. >> Okay.

Good, good. Molly, any thoughts about the

complicatedness of this? >> Yeah.

I mean, there's a defensiveness about it. You know, at first glance it seems very

exuberant in the style of Whitman as happy, naked you know, everything's out

there dancing. But, really it seems like he's expecting

to be judged both by the art world and by his wife and baby, you know, should they

come into the room their going to wonder what the heck he's doing.

>> Yeah, and he's going to say, it's for my art.

Ali, sent us in the grammatical direction of thinking maybe.

If this were fiction, we'd say well maybe it's never happened at all because he's

supposing it. If I did this, but I might not.

If I did this, but I might not have. If I did this, if I did all these things

conditionally, then, who's going to, who's going to talk about me not being a genius

of my household? It may not even be happening.

>> That's where the complication comes from for me because, well, if you think

about Whitman's poem, he's very obviously has a part in.

>>, For women. >> Yeah, he's everywhere.

>> He's everywhere. But for this, you know, having the three

ifs. >> He's failing with his Whitmanian

mission of being out there. >> Yes, because it's an, if it means it's

not necessarily happened. So, he's not, you know, the baby aren't,

the baby and his wife and, and Kathleen aren't sleeping.

He's not in his north room dancing naked, and he's not admiring his arms.

>> And he's not a genius. >> And he's not a, you know, so this.

>> Very nice. >> It's very complicated there.

>> Ali, your thoughts about complication, or you can pass if you like.

>> Well, you know, I think he's kind of pointing to his loneliness and that he is

best lonely. But at the end, the state of him being a

genius is in relation to his household. That seems like a contradiction to me that

even, you know, what Amaris was kind of saying about the, his art being a place to

escape the duties of his suburban life, it's still in the context.

It remains, like, ultimately, in the context of his household.

>> Good, thank you. >> On his family.

>> Dave? >> I think, one of the complications is

trying to be a Whitmanian in modern society.

And he's, he's still trying to have those ideals but he's making commentary on you

know, the increasingly modern society and what it does to us and how it can be

constraining. >> Nice, good.

>> Sociological observation, I mean, we do want to read these poems sometimes as

occurring in a point of history. And, I think there's a difference between

the Whitman of the '50's and '60's, 1850's, '60's, '70's, '80's, and even

'90's. And then Williams who's grappling with a

different kind of life, a modern life, you know?

Amaris. >> So, I agree with Molly and Ali that,

that the conditional does evoke a sort of tentativeness which, but I still do feel,

in response to Anna's question that the poem is a reconciliation of those two

seemingly opposing obligations between art and his family.

But here finally, in that way that he's caught between not having Whitman's

freedom and maybe having Dickinson's values, I feel like he is celebrating and

accepting, finally, those limitations and enjoying that life of the mind that the

poem provides. >> Dickinson's values in the specific

sense of finding power and art in the room.

>> And a fulfilling life. >> Right.

>> And a fulfilling life cuz her life was entirely fulfilled in her consciousness

but, here he's caught between those two. >> Oh, so the if steps away from the

experiential ideology of Whitman. The if, the conditional becomes a little

more cerebral and imaginative. Very interesting point.

I have been teaching this poem for many years and I hadn't thought of it quite

that way. Emily.

>> Well.. >> Thought, final thought?

>> I'm noticing that whereas Whitman was sort of a hyper-egalitarian and

emphatically rejected all types of dividedness and hierarchy.

It seems that William Carlos Williams feels somehow liberated and empowered by

the existence of the potential hierarchy, that being isolated in his room, and being

in a sense separated from something is glorifying.

And he wants to believe that he's a genius rather that there's no teacher and no

student. >> Yeah.

>> That, that, that he can, prompted from hierarchy.

>> He slept at the top of the house, and they're below.

And he's the genius, and they're not. And they're sleeping, and he's dancing.

Yeah. You're a genius.

>> [laugh] >> [laugh] Very good.

watch video on William Carlos Williams's "Danse Russe"

Modern & Contemporary American Poetry (“ModPo”)

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