It is impossible to talk about William Carlos Williams without mentioning some of his contemporaries, because he belonged to a whole group of poets at that time -- the momevent known as Modernism.  This movement was not only limited to poetry, but it included all of the arts, such as painting and music.  

 

It arose from the strict traditions and conventioned that had dominated the visual, literary, and performing arts in the Western World in the past.  It was a reaction to traditions (especially to European traditions), to the Romantic era in particular.  

 

The Modernist wanted to break with those traditions and express the purity of their work -- the directness and honesty of work that just was what it was.  That was the idea...  To the modernist it was important to make a statement with their work -- to stand out as individuals, instead of "fade" in the mainstream of conventions (while at the same time many of them denied that their purpse was to make social statements). 

 

However, what they may not have realized at the time was that they were actually creating new traditions -- they were a group of people believing in similar ways of creating artwork.  Alan Ostrom discusses this contradiction in The Poetic World of Williams Carlos Williams.  He writes, "...Not only is Williams at the center of the whole revolution of the mind begun in the early years of the century, but he is, like Stevens, Pound, and Eliot, for all his (and theirs) damnation of the Romantics, a true product and example of the Romantic movement..." 

 

Every era in history is followed by a counter-era, which is a cultural protest to the era before...  In other words, it is a new set of traditions and conventions...  the ideas are different, but the principle is the same -- to convince people to believe in their point of view -- to persuade the rest of the world to believe that their new way of thinking is the only way... (just like the era before them did -- the era they were opposing...).

 

Some of the Modernist poets included Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, Walace Stevens, and William Carlos Williams.   Alan Ostrom writes, "These four poets were not interested in the artistic technology of 'social protest,' but the poem's capacity to facilitate the growth of the mind.  Theirs was the attempt to give men the most useful knowledge of all, the understanding of the nature of things..."

 

There were sub-movements under this main category as well, such as the short lived "Imagist Movement," headed by Pound.  In addition, there were also contemporary poets who  the "main" four claimed did not belong to their movement.  Cummings and Hemmingway, for instance were referred to as "the lost generation..." 

 

The four main modernists had all some influence on one another -- many of their works was direct reactions to the works of their fellow poets.  They did not always agree, nor were all of them friends.  Still, they were all a part of a larger literary phenomenon that streched over the Atlantic Ocean to Europe.  In fact, many American poets at the time made Europe their home, and they became what Williams referred to as the "Internationalsts." 

 

Williams had very strong opinions about these poets (even if his best friend was one of them -- he still did not always agree with Pound's literary style.  Williams was not shy as to voice his opinion publicly regarding the kind of poetry he interpreted many of his contemporaries were creating.  In other words, he did not always approve... At one point in his career, Williams' poetry became an active "stylistic battle" against the style of his contemporary American poets who lived in Europe. 

 

Parts of Williams' poetic life often seems to have been direct reactions to the commercial successes of other poets at the time.  Williams seemed to take very personally how other poets' careers unfolded.   Williams was a poet who not only observed other people, but at times, on a psychological level, he let others almost "dictate" his work...   (although only those he trusted and respected).  For instance, when he sent a copy of his first published poetry collection to Pound in England and Pound was critical to his work in a negative way, Williams began to change his style the way Pound wanted it to look...  (although later in life, Williams was the one with the strong opinions about the work of Pound and others...), and apparently it worked. 

 

Pound had an unusual eye for spotting talent, and it seems that he was the driving force behind the entire Modernist movement.  He also had great abilities marketing and promoting other people's work, and it seems he was instrumental in the careers of both Williams and Eliot.

 

However, regardless of Pound's career-shaping advice to Williams before the 1920's,the strongest influence on Williams' work in terms of his career as a whole was probably T. S. Eliot.  Williams' struggles with accepting Eliot's success is probably the strongest influence a contemporary poet had on Williams' work.  It seems that Williams may have been jealous with Eliot's success to the point where the jealousy seemed to turn into obsession -- an obsession that might have been counterproductive as far as his own work was concerned.  

 

In some literary journals, it is often described how Williams constantly measured his own success to the success of Eliot.  I fact, one  expert writes that Williams claims that the reason he did not succeed early in life as a poet was because T. S. Eliot was so successful.  In other words, he blamed Eliot for his perceived slow progress as an artist, while at the same time his books were selling too.  He just was not the instant celebrity Eliot was. 

 

Eliot's work was popular among the mainstream audience a lot earlier than Williams' was, as Eliot produced work such as the lyrics for the musical "Cats," for instance (which Andrew Lloyd Webber composed the music for...).  The poetry Eliot created seemed to appeal to the masses in a way that Williams' did not (until the last 12 years of his life). 

 

Eliot seemed to write for an existing audience (regardless how much he probably would deny that) while Williams seemed to write for the sake of the poem, and therefore the audience had to come to him.  In other words, people had to get used to his work, which takes time... 

 

When we look at history, we see that many truly great artists did not enjoy celebrity status while they were alive.  In fact, many of them struggled greatly to make ends meet.  Several of those who have become today's most beloved names in the arts had no idea they would ever be famous.  Many were not appreciated at all when they were alive.  Mozart, for instance, was thrown into a mass grave when he died young, poor, and alone; and the painter Vincent Van Gogh only sold one painting in the course of his lifetime, and that was to his brother... 

 

In fact, most of the greatest artists ever lived did not enjoy fame when they were alive.  In many cases, an artists' work is not appreciated (and often not even discovered) until after the artist has passed away.  Therefore, how great an artist is has really nothing to do with their popularity as individuals while alive.  An artist's greatness has to do with the quality of the artist's work -- what the artist is actually capable of producing.  If the work is of outstanding quality, it will be discovered and preserved...  We humans have a need for the exposure to excellence (it is the driving force of this world...), regardless of temporary "movements" of mediocrity, artistically destructive trends, and cultural setbacks in a society.

 

On the other hand, if an artist is fortunate to enjoy public recognition while alive, that does not mean that that artist is less talented than one who lives his or her life completely in society's shadow.  An artist can be great and also be lucky enough to enjoy fame and fortune; he/she can be great and be completely unknown while alive; or the artist can experience gradual recognition and enjoy fame toward the end of his or her life, as was the case with William Carlos Williams. 

 

There are so many factors that wheigh in regarding a person's becoming famous while alive (great work is always discovered by someone -- eventually..) -- it has a lot to do with being at the right place at the right time -- in other words, luck...  Fame while being alive has to do with popularity, and popularity is a manifestation of personality.  Not everyone has a personality that is likeable to the public (some do not even have a personality that is likeable to anybody).  Not all artists like public appearences.  Not all artists know how to interact with other people (social skills are an entirely different set of abilities, and not all artists possess such skills -- many artists do not).  Many artists do not even want to interact with large groups of people or people at all -- they want to, and choose to remain private.  They do not want to be social -- they just want to be left alone and do their work....  

 

Everyone is different -- Eliot and Williams were too.  They were both  great artists, but their personalities were different, and they interacted with people differently... That does not mean that one was better than the other (for instance that Eliot was better than Williams) -- they were just different.  They had different approaches to and ideas for the creation of poetry.  However, Williams seemed to measure success to instant celebrity status rather than to the quality of the work itself.  In other words, it seems that to Williams, a poet is good only if the general public says so...  (a direct contradiction to Williams' outspoken philosophy on what poetry is about...).  

 

Therefore, it seems that the decades-long inner struggles Williams had with himself regarding Eliot's success was not about Eliot's work, but about his popularity.  In other words, Williams' perceived rivalry with Eliot seems to be about personal validation rather than about the work they were producing...  It may have to do with Williams' strict upbringing -- especially his father's constant demand for excellence.  Williams may not have realized that the excellence in his own work was there all along even though Eliot was the "media star" from a young age. 

 

From many of Williams' own statments in interviews, for instance, we get the sense that he clearly did not care much for Eliot.  However, instead of just letting it go (just accepting the fact that Eliot was a successful poet), Williams actually made professional decisions based on work done by T. S. Eliot.  In other words, Williams is supposed to have decided to write certain poems as a form of "answer" to poems Eliot had written.  Not only that, Williams always wanted to be better than Eliot (according to what his definistion of "better" was). 

 

For example, some comentators on literature state that Williams' five-book poem, "Paterson," was a direct response -- a reaction to T. S. Eliot's "The Waste Land."  Many scholars view "Paterson" to be a continuity of "The Waste Land."  "Williams picks up where Eliot left off," one literary journal prints.  Although Williams' poems are brutally honest and direct regardig his subject matter, they often display a glimmer of hope among the horrors that is described, while Eliot's poems have a different voice -- more pessimistic.  Eliot's "The Waste Land" seems to be more about an attitude, an opinion, and a feeling, while Williams' "Paterson," seems to deal with issues such as renewal and hope, amid description of conditions as they were...  It seems that "The Waste Land" is about the initial reaction and negativity associated with destructions in nature as well as in society, while "Paterson" is about the human condition of experiencing destruction...  Since it is about the human condition as a whole (rather than only about a fragment of it as "The Waste Land " seems to be), it is also bound to be about the possibilitities and hope that comes with the fact of being human and being alive...

 

Even though the rivalry between Williams and Eliot may seem to have been a perceived situation by Williams, it was a driving force for his creativity.  In a way, Eliot may have unknowingly helped Williams along with his career by writing "The Waste Land."  Who knows if Williams' production would have blossomed the way it did if it was not for Eliot and his important poem...  Furthermore, by the fact that Pound helped both Eliot and Williams with their work really shows how much the movement of Modernism mattered in the lives and careers of the individual Modernist poets.  In a way, the way the three of them (especially) got impulses and ideas from one another, speak more of a group effort than of individual artists.  It seems very clear that without one of them, the other two would not have been, in the history of literature, who they finally became...