The Descent (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: William Carlos Williams
- First Published: 1948
- Type of Work: Meditation
- Genres: Poetry, Meditation
- Subjects: Memory, Love or romance, Death or dying, Life, philosophy of, Old age or elderly people, Aging, Night
The Poem
“The Descent” is a brief lyric of forty-four lines, most of which contain five or six syllables. It is noteworthy, in part, because it is William Carlos Williams’s first use of the forms that became a pattern for much of his later verse, the triadic line and the variable foot. This pattern provided Williams with a style that was flexible enough to allow him to avoid what he regarded as the straitjacket of strict meter.
This poem was written in Williams’s later years and is concerned with the limitations and the consolations of growing old. Memory...
[The entire page is 1254 words long]
