So now we're going to talk about The Red Wheelbarrow. Another anthologized Williams poem, a chestnut. It's a poem that everybody memorizes. Who can do it from memory? >> Anna can. [laugh]. >> Anna can. Go ahead. >> So much depends upon a red wheel barrow glazed with rainwater beside the white chickens. >> Terrific. Okay, so there. >> [laugh]. >> Very nice, yeah. So, I'm going to assign some parts here. Max you have so much. Molly you have depends Really hard. Alright, really hard. Mollie you have upon. The two of you have the red wheel barrow glazed with rainwater, you have that whole thing. And, Emily and Amaris, you have beside the white chickens, okay? Here we go. >> [laugh] >> The poem, was not given a title until it started to be anthologized. It was, it was part of spring and all of 1923. I believe and it just appears, in these four stanzas, without a title as far as I remember. >> Okay, so whose got so much? Max? >> So much he's, he's invoking. Some kind of plenitude a lot, everything even. So much like when we say that's, the, that, that, you, you, this means so much to me. We mean in some ways that it means everything to me. >> Okay. Good. It's not so much is not really an input of the word of images would use strictly adherent to the tense. Because it's a very rhetorical phrase. >> Sure. >> It's like very. >> Yeah. >> You want to take those words out. You know, in a station of the metro, you wouldn't have the word very in it. Okay. Alright, Molly. You have the hardest word in the poem, and I know we're going to start it and come back to it. >> Okay. >> Depends. >> There's a couple of different ways we can look at it. Telies is one synonym. >> Mm-hm. >> Where something rests. >> Yes. >> On this condition. >> Yes. >> And the other is that, it's conditional if something. >> Good. >> Then something. >> Lot. It's a logical word as well. Okay. We're gonna come back to that. Anna, do you have upon? >> You gave Molly upon. >> I think he meant you. >> Oh, I meant Anna. >> Okay. >> Sorry, you're not prepared. >> That's fine. Upon, I think. It's, is a preposition. So it could mean literally like, on top of like. >> Mm-hm. >> An upon, the desk. >> Mm-hm, mm-hm. >> But to depend upon someone or something could also mean that you are relying on that thing. >> Mm-hm. >> So, like, I depend on my mother for support when I am. >> So the object, the, the thing that one depends upon will follow. >> Upon, preposition sets up the thing that's stating the positional relationship. Fine. So now if you, everybody put your thumb over the first two lines. Now what do we have left? What kind of poem do we have? >> Images. >> It's just, it's a pseudo, so called objective, it's a photographic thing. A red, and a fragment, it's no longer a grammatically full sentence, right? A red wheel barrow glazed with rainwater beside the white chickens. It's a fragment, it describes something. Now, put your, take your thumbs off. Now what do we have? >> Some infinitely more complicated. >> Yes, much more complicated. >> Aren't we glad that he put those first two lines in? So he's sort of violating the pure, the, the spirit of pure description. He's never really been interested in that. Oh, maybe only briefly. And now we have so much it depends upon. And so, what we're going to do in the end, is we're going to come back to that and try to understand how those first two lines make all the difference. Okay. So, a red wheelbarrow glazed with rain water. That would be the two of you. What, what do we have here? Describe it. >> Well. >> It's pretty hard to describe it better than he does ... >> Right. It is what it is. >> It's pretty straight forward. But You know, it's also pretty evocative. You can kind of feel that kind of wet morning. I don't know why, I think it's. >> Glazed with rainwater. The rain has just come. What does the rain do to things? >> Makes it shine. >> Gives life. Gives life to plants, organic matter. >> But this is not organic, the red wheel barrow. So what does it do? Also rain water it symbiosis regeneration. Right, so doesn't even have to symbolize when it rains you look things can be seen clearly, the atmosphere clears a little bit and this particular wheel barrow, we imagine it is newish. Enough so that the wax or whatever surface is on it so that the water beats up. It's glazed with rain water. >> I think it's important to re-use the article A, red wheel barrow. Rather than the, because he wanted to generalise it more. Rather than talk about this particular thing he wanted to. >> Well he doesn't have to. He could be. He generalises, but also particularises. >> Right. >> This is just a. >> Mm. >> A. One. The particular. Okay. So we have a, so, where are we? What kind of scene is this? Are we in downtown Manhattan, where they're talking the numerality? >> I think we're pretty far away from that. I mean. >> Maybe too far but you're a city girl. >> Across, across the river. >> Across the river in New Jersey. We're in the yard even in Rutherford, New Jersey which has become suburban, one can have chickens and wheel barrel easily. Yeah. So we are in some space, that's somewhat rural maybe or, has a little, a little breath of remnant of rural, right? And how does that make you feel? Okay. I'm inviting you for the first time in this course just to feel. Does the image provoke a feeling? >> I'm pretty neutral towards it. Mm-hm. >> Dave? >> It's little more intimate to me. Seems more personal. >> Okay. Let's go to the white chickens and come back to feelings. Beside the white chickens, another, another preposition which sets up a position. Amaris? >> Well, it's an extension of the pastoral setting and now we, again, see underscoring of colors, that we have red set against white, and. >> Oh, yeah. Just total juxtaposition of red and white, very striking. >> Mm-hm. >> I'm imagining these are very white chickens. >> And the addition of the water, rainwater perhaps creates an effect of blurring, or them running together, or ... >> So Emily, what does the total scene evoke? The, the wheel barrow glazed with rainwater beside the wet chickens, what's that evocation? >> Of a red wheel barrow beside white chickens. >> [laugh] >> Oh, it is only what it is, it doesn't evoke anything? >> Are you being resistant? >> Trying not to be. >> I guess sort of quiet and domestic moments observed by the genius of his household. >> [laugh] Okay, others what's it looks. >> It looks work of a wheel barrow means that there's someone there to, to operate it or for him to carry heavy things, lumber or feed or something, it's, it's. >> Minor work, yeah, wheel. It seems, it seems at, it's a poised seen of work once done or, yeah okay, so work. >> Or, or, or work to be done the next day as well. >> Okay, keep going, what else does it evoke? Molly? >> I think it's a very static image. >> Mm. >> It's seems almost purposely composed to, like, a still life of red wheel barrow and chickens. >> Okay so it's a still life. Anna what does he evoke? >> No, I agree with Molly because the rain isn't falling. The rain is, already fallen. It's just glazed. >> What else does he evoke? Ali? >> I don't know. >> Am I the only one who feels? I guess I'm of a certain age. I see a looking back to a certain geo-social situation. I see. >> You feel nostalgic about this? >> [laugh] >> I think there's a nostalgia here. I think you're looking at something that's rural. Quasi domestic, static and beautiful. Refreshed by the rain. It's kind of a perfect image, right? It's a kind of clear, it's a clear, one of those clear images. >> So how do you feel about this in conjunction with between walls and what we've looked at with the broken urban man-made? I mean, a wheel barrow broke. >> I'm being asked a question about how I feel. I love it. I think the key here is so much depends upon. So let's get back to it. I'm going to answer your question with another question, and I promise to come back. So, how, what does, what does this poem say from the start? So much depends upon what? >> Abstract. So much depends upon. >> The image as a starting point. >> The image as a starting point. Let's do it some more. So much depends upon. >> The feeling you get from the image. >> The feeling you get from, from an image of clarity and stasis. >> So much depends upon. >> Turning the image into a poem. >> Making, the, aestheticizing of the everyday. So much depends upon. Keep going. >> Just the object itself. >> The object. So much depends upon simple scene, So much depends upon juxtaposition of color. So much depends upon clarity. So much depends upon our eyes seeing something photographic. So much depends upon seeing nature and composing it. Into an art. Composing it. Putting the pieces in a scene. So much depends upon precision. So much depends upon seeing a slight nothing, seeing a modest scene and knowing that so much depends upon it, right? This is a programmatic statement that doesn't feel polemical at all. It feels like he is saying urgently this is what we need. Not the rural setting in itself, because, and that's your answer to, that's your answer to the question you asked me about a relationship between this poem and the between walls. So much depends upon seeing life in the broken green glass, so much depends upon taking anything as the subject for poetry. So much depends upon being able to create beauty out of something that seems unimportant. So finally let's look at the word depend. How else does it work, guys? Okay. I had you put your thumb over the first two lines. And you saw a perfect photograph but it wouldn't be nearly the interesting poem that this is. Because, you take your finger off, you get a poem that says, everything depends on doing this things. Which the poem, as an objective photographic piece of realism, wouldn't have done. So now, the word depends. >> Somebody really understand the word depends. What depend you have something depending from your neck did you know that? >> Oh, yeah. Hangs? >> Hangs. Depends. Do you understand how depends is almost a sculptural word? Anybody think of an Alexander Calder? What do we call those things? >> Mobile. >> A mobile. What depends there? >> Well, I didn't hangs off with the prose [inaudible]. >> It's the artwork depends, it's a sculptural work. Can we imagine that this scene, the wheel barrow and the chickens, depends from the, opening two lines? This is meta-meta, right? So much depends upon. So much depends upon. You have to have that thing from which the content of the poem depends. >> Imagism isn't enough. You have to have the rhetorical urgency, a programmatic urgency of seeing the world knew, of making it knew. And let the content of the poem depend on it's form. >> So if we look at it, then. >> If you look at it. It looks like the poem, the ready made is depending. >> Mm-hm. >> From the opening line. >> Well, the reason why the wheel barrow is perhaps sliced into two different lines is that. >> Well, I don't know. I don't know. What I've revealed there, but [laugh]. >> Final word, Molly. Then we're going to exit. >> I kind of saw it the opposite way. That the poem is resting on the image. And in that way the first two lines are depending and resting upon, you know. >> I think that. >> Would work really well. And I don't mind rhetorically having it that way. But when I look at this poem visually, and I think about, I think about ready-mades, or I think about going out into the world, and finding. Finding the thing that inspires make it new. I think about that which inspires so, falling, following from and falling from the Calderian sense almost, from the assertion that so much depends, everything depends on it. This is vital to us. We have to remember these scenes. I think, in fact this may be as the memory from childhood is possible. We must remember those clear moments.
