William Carols Williams The Dance

William Carols Williams’ “The Dance”, written in 1944 close to the end of World War II, focuses mainly on the poetic statement of Ekphrasis. Ekphrasis is a poem and a painting working together for one common goal, to describe and complement each other. Ekphrasis poems are motivated by a work from another medium: a painting, a photograph, film or architecture. Williams focuses on the painting Kermess by Brueghel, for his poem “The Dance” which is based much before World War II almost in Medieval times. Within the poem Williams highlights a few points such as culture and social class. “The Dance” is seen in the painting as a festival, a celebration of some sort. The painting has people dancing, eating, talking, and running around just as seen …show more content…
When Williams uses the words “go round” this gives the reader a sense of the characters in the painting twirling, spinning, and dancing. All together the poem gives the reader a sense of people gathering together. Later on in the poem Williams mentions “rolling about the Fair Grounds...” due to this the reader can assume that this celebration is an annual festival in their culture. Due to Lines 4, 8-9 we can envision a sense of Folk Art in the mist of the painting that Williams is describing to us. Based on the clothing in the paining we can see that Brueghel focused mainly on the lower class. In line 3-4 of the poem we read that this celebration is not proper with selected music for the higher class which must be tuned just right. Instead the music is loud and almost obnoxious “the squeal and the blare.” Also a sign of the lower class in the poem is in line 9 “the Fair Ground” when people think of the Fair Grounds it is a common area in which everyone is welcome and free to come as they are. Unlike a palace would be where it most likely would be invitation only and most people would be wearing their best