32 pages 1 hour read

Paterson

Fiction | Novel/Book in Verse | Adult | Published in 1946

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Summary and Study Guide

Overview

Paterson is a long work, primarily in verse, by the American modernist poet and noted Imagist William Carlos Williams. Williams was a medical doctor with strong ties to the eponymous city of Paterson, New Jersey. Paterson is a riverside city associated with the development of Revolutionary War-era policies under Founding Father Alexander Hamilton. As an epic poem, Williams aimed to demonstrate how “a man in himself is a city” as well as how humans form a synergistic relationship with the world around them (i). Paterson was originally published as five separate books between 1946 and 1958. The third book won the 1950 National Book Award in Poetry. The works were first collected together into one volume for publication in 1963. Page numbers will follow the 1983 Penguin Books edition of the collected volumes of Paterson.

Plot Summary

Paterson is the name of the city in New Jersey, but throughout the text Williams also uses it as the name of a character. He draws close connections between the man and the city using evocative imagery, especially of the human body and the natural world. Early on, the river which emanates from blurred text
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