So Williams' Portrait of a Lady, first published in a magazine called the Dial in 1920. This, I think, I would say is, of the poems that we've read so far, the most experimental of the poems. And I also think that this is, in a way, the most predictive of postmodernism. This is the most predictive, modernist poet that's going to lead us somewhere later. Okay, so I really loaded it up and I apologize for that. So what would you describe as the big problem of this poem, Dave? What's the problem? >> Just trying to use conventional symbols to describe something, just can't do it. >> To describe what? >> To describe a woman. >> Yeah, portrait of a lady is a genre, it's a type, it's a literary type. We have a novel by Henry James, for instance, Portrait of a Lady. And so when you see portrait of a lady as a phrase, you think? >> Beauty. >> Beauty, what else, what you think in terms of medium? >> Paint. >> Paint, you think of a portrait. It could be a verbal portrait, it could be a photographic portrait, novelistic portrait, okay, and it could be oil paint. So restate the problem, Ana, what's the problem that he faces here? >> The problem is that I think there are two competing voices in this. And the first voice is trying to use that conventional language to describe a woman. >> Such as? >> Your thighs are apple trees. >> Okay, is that a good simile? >> No, it's awful. >> It's actually not a simile, its a metaphor. It doesn't say like or as, but it's pretty terrible. Is it deliberately terrible? >> I think so, yeah. >> Your thighs are like apple trees whose blossoms touch the sky. And then the second voice says, which sky? Now what kind of second voice is that? Name that second voice. >> It's the voice of the, I guess we could argue, imagist poet. >> Okay, it could be the voice of a modernist poet just saying you can't do that. Who else could it be? Let's put some names on these. >> The woman in question. >> It could be the woman in question saying, no you can't do that, don't liken me. I'm not a Japanese paper fan, okay. Who else could it be, what other voice? >> The author? >> It could be the author, the alter ego of the author saying, you idiot, this is not going well, this poem. Okay, what else? >> Just the person who is viewing or hearing it. >> It could be a skeptical reader. Someone who's receiving this thing and saying, wait, wait, wait, I got questions. It could be an editor. In a way, it's the alter ego of the writer as the editor. Okay, your thighs are apple trees whose blossoms touch the sky, which sky? And then the poet explains, they sky where Watteau hung a lady's slipper. Your knees are a southern breeze, another metaphor, or a gust of snow. What's the import of or, Ali, why or a gust of snow? >> Because it says that are a southern breeze isn't quite right. >> He can't quite choose how best to describe it. >> And so instead of taking one out, he- >> He just kind of discards both of them. >> Well, he doesn't discard them. >> Well no, not yet, but he just goes back. >> Yeah, but he doesn't discard them. He doesn't discard the options, what does he do? >> He puts them both. >> He puts them both in, his choices remain. So the editorial, skeptical voice, or maybe the object of depiction, of portraiture, or maybe of desire. Is responding and saying, that's bullshit. And he's including all, the composition is in the poem, okay. >> But also I'm not sure that a gust of snow is an improvement on a southern breeze. >> It certainly isn't. >> So he seems to be more in love, I would say, with the portrait than the lady herself. >> He's in love with portraiture. He wants to do the work of portraiture, he's sort of forgotten the purpose. Yes, then he says, and then he asks a funny question, what sort of man was Fragonard? So Max, what kind of question is that? Where's that coming from? >> Well, he's trying to paint a portrait. So he's already invoked two painters, Watteau and Fragonard. >> And he doesn't know what kind of painter was Fragonard. He says, what kind of man, why? What's he referring to? >> Well, he's referring to some sort of fortitude or some sort of character, which allowed Fragonard to paint portraits and not doubt it in the way that the speaker here is. Has a self editing, doubting impulse that frustrates his portrait and makes it almost impossible. >> And literary historians have pinned it down. He's probably referring to a particular painting called The Swing, in which two men seem to conspire to push a woman, who's wearing a sort of flouncy dress, late 16th or 17th century style, or actually maybe even early 18th century. >> It was probably 1720ish. >> Yeah, I think Watteau died in 1721. Anyway, this is a Rococo painting of a woman who's swinging on a swing. And who somehow gets to the point where she's coming up in the swing and the man sitting below her gets to see up her skirt. This seems to be the reference. >> And one shoe flies off into the air.. >> It may be the Watteau painting >> No, In The Swing. >> In The Swing, okay, thank you. >> You're welcome >> So, what sort of question was Fragonard, what kind of question is that? >> Well, you're talking about Pound's disrespect of female subjectivity, and that seems to be recurrent here. In that he's focused on the woman below the knees, and doesn't have much thought to- >> So what's the answer to his question? >> An indecent man? >> A man just like me, I suppose, right? And the difference between Pound in the encounter and Williams here is that he's fully confessing, or almost fully confessing, to what a mess he is, and how portraiture is impossible. And then he goes further, below the knee. So he's basically creating a kind of extended conceit following love poetry of the centuries. Your cheeks are like this, and you know, how shall I liken you? This is sort of a standard lyric question, and he's resisting those though he's including them. So overall, who wins, which voice wins? Is it the voice of the poet who's trying to get through the job of the portrait? Or is it the second voice, the doubting voice? The editorial voice and the alter-ego saying, you can't do it this way, which wins? >> Well, the second voice definitely gets stronger throughout the second half of the poem and appears more often. And the way that Williams reads it, his tone is so sort of frustrated in the last line. I would say the second voice wins >> And when he reads it in public, the final double, which sure, which sure? He's angry, angry at whom? >> At the inadequacy of that language to convey? >> At the inadequacy of traditional depictive language to convey a person, to convey a woman. >> Angry at the tradition, too, I'd argue. >> Angry at tradition, and, of course, angry at himself for being tempted. But also mock angry, delighted that he's able to write a poem in which he fails to do, and shows how he fails. And therefore succeeds in exposing the problem. So what do you think? I called it the most experimental poem we've read. It's annoying, it doesn't get anywhere. Who wants to be grumpy? Emily, be grumpy. >> I'm not sure if I'm grumpy. Well, it just ends up not being, maybe we have enough portraits of a lady. Maybe what we need right now is a sort of a portrait that's also a sort of archive and preservation of that sort of internal dialogue of the artistic voice. >> Right, it's sort of psychological realism, in a funny way. Yeah, and it's also time for some anti-portraiture. So this is a portrait that's an anti portrait. >> I think what makes it experimental for me is exactly what Emily's saying, that he leaves his process out there on the page. >> Right, and Ali was saying that, too. We get to see the composition, so Gertrude Stein is going to be very interested in the way in which the writing is the composition. And that's what this is. Ali, thoughts? >> I was just going to say, it's called Portrait of a Lady. It could just as easily be called Portrait of an Artist. >> Portrait of the artist trying to do a portrait of a lady, but not succeeding. >> Which definitely shows, it's a very novel way of showing that self awareness, which is cool. >> Both Watteau and Fragonard depict women and others in scenes of bucolic, idyllic charm. This is clearly, we know from the wheelbarrow poem and from the broken glass that keeps scattering all over William's poems and all the fragments, this is clearly an area of problem. Williams is a poet who is happy to work in nature, but does not want those values to take over his modern sense of fragmentation, of the impossibility of depiction. And so, in a way, he uses those two painters as instances of his own natural inclination toward conceit and metaphor. And then he wants to show how that inclination gets destroyed by the mental challenge of the woman, who would prefer not to be likened in such a way. And I think, in that sense, this is a step forward from the encounter.
