A Close Textual Analysis of William Carlos William's 'The Widow's Lament in Springtime' Anonymous College

In his poem, ‘The Widow’s Lament to Summer’, William Carlos Williams explores themes of mortality, the fleeting beauty of life and emotional attachment through the perspective of a recently widowed woman. Through limited descriptive techniques and reversed associations and metaphor, Williams presents an ironic and highly emotional depiction of life after the death of a loved one.

Throughout the poem Williams notably restrains the form of the poem so as to emphasize a sense of loss or grief. The lines, for example, never have more than seven words and regularly include enjambment, limited caesura and a lack of punctuation beyond commas and full stops. By limiting line length Williams creates a compact space of emotion and memory with little digression from the central image, presenting an almost imagist style scene. The simple punctuation, enjambment and infrequent use of caesura creates a sense that the reader is viewing the direct thoughts of the widow, almost in a stream of consciousness type style. By providing the reader with the direct thoughts and emotions of the widow Williams heightens the personal impact of the language by providing it with an almost confessional tone, uninterrupted by pause or editing. Through form...