The Yachts (Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: William Carlos Williams
- First Published: 1935
- Type of Work: Poem
- Genres: Poetry, Lyric poetry
- Subjects: Sailing or sailors, Sea or seafaring life, Yachts or yachting, Harbors, Ocean, Wind
In “The Yachts,” Williams's more typical penchant for imagistic presentation coexists with a tendency toward symbolism. Halfway through the poem, there is an interesting and unusual shift from an imagistic to a symbolic mode. The occasion is a yacht race in a bay protected from the “too-heavy blows/ of an ungoverned ocean.”
During the preparations for the race, the speaker is impressed by the physical beauty of the graceful craft, “Mothlike in mists, scintillant in the minute/ brilliance of cloudless days, with broad bellying sails.” Although the appeal is primarily...
[The entire page is 670 words long]
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