Writing Dialogues, Reading Myths: Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, and the Publication of Kora in Hell

Year 2000, Issue: 11, 63 - 72, 01.04.2000

João Paulo Nunes

Abstract

Between 1909 and 1920, William Carlos Williams published in many literary magazines and managed to produce three books of poems despite his busy professional life as a doctor. However, the publication of the book Kora in Hell in 1920 marked a turning point in Williams’ career, as the volume, a collection of poetic prose fragments dedicated to Williams’ wife, Florence Herman, inaugurated a new creative period for the poet. The texts gathered in Kora in Hell resemble the prose poems written by the French symbolists, and reflect diverse genres and influences that expand the boundaries of traditional conceptions of the literary text. The history of Kora in Hell’s writing and publication shows the influence of literary dialogues exchanged with Ezra Pound, and of writers such as Arthur Rimbaud, Pietro Metastasio, E.W. Sutton Pickhardt, and Homer, in whose “Hymn to Demeter” lies the explanation of the myth of Kora, a disturbing evocation of spring and fertility.

Keywords

Writing, Dialogues, Reading Myths

References

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