william carlos williams disability studies poetry modern american poetry disability
Abstract:
In 1951, noted physician and American poet, William Carlos Williams, suffered the first of many strokes that would render him paralyzed. This thesis explores the development of disability aesthetic in Williams’s late work, particularly “The Desert Music,” written in the spring of 1951. This thesis focuses on key figures of atypical embodiment and how they operate in the poem—what agency they are granted, what connection they have to the speaker, and what they contribute to the discussion of a poet’s relationship to embodiment and poetry. Ultimately, these atypical embodiments form a uniquely disability-oriented consideration of poetic consciousness that drastically departs from Williams’s previous work and warrant consideration as disabled poetry.
