Madison Dahl Mrs.

Tieman English 12 24 March 2014 Poetry Analysis In the poem Spring and All by William Carlos Williams, he begins his first stanza by giving a lot of descriptive details about the environment. For example he said, ...under the durge of the blue mottled clouds driven from the northeast, from this, you get the visual that there are a lot of clouds in the sky and that they are being pushed across the sky by a northeast sky. He continues throughout the rest of the poem with the same amount of detail in each stanza adding more visuals to the poem. All of these details in the poem allow the reader to have a visual standard of what is really going on in the poem and the reader feels like they are actually involved. From the first stanza to the very end of the poem you can literally see the season change from winter to spring and William even states ...sluggish dazed spring approaches. Even though he comes out and says that spring is approaching, you still can get the assumption that spring is around the corner because almost everyone knows that trees come into spring naked and that the grass begins to grow after being dormant in the winter and begin to grow in the spring. From the first line in the first stanza, all the way to the last line in the last stanza, this poem is full of imagery. In the first stanza William goes above and beyond with the imagery because he describes what the hospital is where its located, if there are clouds in the sky, even which way and how hot or cold the wind is blowing. Thats not even all of the details in the stanza. He goes on by explaining the fields near the hospital and what

is in the fields, like water. By William putting all of this detail in the stanzas, he allows the reader to really feel like they are actually there in the poem. Imagery makes the reader feel and understand the poem and are able to interpret the writers meaning behind it. Williams may use imagery throughout the entire poem, but he also includes personification to help the reader feel more apart of the poem. For example, in lines 1619 he says, They enter the new world naked, cold, uncertain of all save that they enter. All about them the cold, familiar wind what this personifies is that the wind is still cold when spring starts but the wind never stays the same. One day it is cold and then another day it will be warm. He then goes on and says in lines 26-27, Still, the profound change has come upon them: rooted they grip down and begin to awaken. again personifies the trees as if they can awaken from their sleep from the winter and they begin to have characteristics of spring and the begin to show some hope of it actual being spring at the end of the poem. Combining personification as well as imagery, the author really allows the readers to be able to feel apart of the poem and be able to feel the changes from stanza to stanza. Adding attitude to this poem, it brings the poem to a whole different level. When The attitude of Spring and All starts out in the first few stanzas as being very dark and gloomy then slowly changes throughout the stanzas and starts to sound more happy as spring approaches in the last stanza. The changing attitude shows the difference between the seasons of winter to spring through the poem. Starting the poem as dark and using details to describe the brown grass and the cold wind shows the attitude as gloomy and how winter feels. It then slowly changes to light and airy with the last two stanzas describing how spring is starting to appear and the descriptive details allow the

attitude to change. The changing between the descriptive details to show the attitude are shifts between stanzas. these shifts provide the ability to progress the poem from winter to than spring in the last stanza. The main shifts in this poem are between stanzas 1 and 2, where the writer ends the first stanza with describing the dry leaves of the trees on the ground and the bare trees in the fields. To then in the next stanza he starts to describe what the road looks like near the hospital, because of this shift it allows the writer to put more details and more depth to the poem. Another big shift in the poem happens between stanzas 4 and 5, in stanza 4 he explains the cold wind hitting the bare trees then shifts to stanza 5 to talking about the grass and what it will then do when spring does come. Through this poem the title plays a lot of detail to the meaning of the actual poem. Without reading the title before reading the actual poem the reader would be very confused on what this would be about. Spring and All as the title tells the reader that this poem will surely be about the season spring but it also can be interpreted as a new beginning to the subject in the poem. The poem starts out as sad and gloomy as if in a world of disappointment then soon changes to the subject being able to start out new in this unfamiliar world, their new world which would be open to many new possibilities.