To Elsie (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: William Carlos Williams
- First Published: 1923
- Type of Work: Lyric
- Genres: Poetry, Lyric poetry
- Subjects: Sex or sexuality, Emotions, Lower classes, Greed, Youth, Employment or employees, Automobiles, Human anatomy, Birthparents
The Poem
“To Elsie” is a free-verse poem of sixty-six lines, divided into twenty-two stanzas of three lines each. The title indicates the person to whom the poem is addressed: Elsie, the poet’s housekeeper.
Elsie’s early life is sketched in a few lines: “reared by the state and/ sent out at fifteen to work in/ some hard-pressed/ house in the suburbs.” Not even the first mention of her name, “some Elsie,” dispels the aura of obscurity that surrounds her. Moreover, this introduction is delayed until the fourteenth stanza, well into the poem.
Before...
[The entire page is 984 words long]
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