The Contagious Hospital

Darkness, gloom, and doom each contribute to the apparent mood of the early parts of William Williams’ poem “By the road to the contagious hospital” in his book “Spring and All.” Oppositional to the expectations of the average person towards the name of the poetry book, this poem may originally disconcert the further reading intentions of the previously noted individual, as the poem begins with considerations of a conspicuously harsh landscape, which would be an injustice to the culmination of idea and compositional cogency of the poem lucidly appearing at the end. In effect, the poem creates a large contrast between a lifeless landscape and one beginning to develop with smaller plants taking root. To any degree, Williams’ manipulations of …show more content…
Not only does the first line use a preposition to create a reference point of setting for the rest of the poem, but also summons the idea of a hospital with the modifier of “contagious.” The general understanding of a hospital is that of a service to assist with fixing human problems which may consist of injury or sickness. However, describing a hospital as contagious, although somewhat true to the reality of a hospital, diverts the idea of a hospital from that of a problem solver to that of a problem creator. In effect, a contagious hospital serves as an implied complication which mirrors the mood present throughout the first few stanzas. Williams continues to unfold the scenery with a description of the sky including “the surge of the blue/mottled clouds” (2-3). First and foremost, the verb of the clouds, “surge,” performs the task of carrying the subject forward, but not in the familiar fashion of clouds known to so many; usually clouds gently glide across the sky, but these clouds “surge” which connotes an aggressive rush of movement in an attempt for an attack or quick relocation to a specified …show more content…
The ideas of the poem closely resemble those of Romanticism in that nature earns a degree of reverence and also to that of realism as the poet pays careful attention to the systems that run the natural world. Under lacking scrutiny, “By the road to the contagious hospital” reads as a simple series of images, but in effect references the undefined area, or time period of change which exists without a specific dictionary denotation, between seasons that may also apply to other situations. If one were to apply the events of the poem to the question of ethics, then a connection between the aforementioned time period and the aspect of morality requiring ethics become closely related. In any case, this poem of William Williams appeals to a universal audience as the story provides for a positive outlook and the didactic purpose applies