Annali di Ca’ Foscari. Serie occidentale

Parole e simboli: The Great Figure di W.C. Williams

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Abstract

Published in 1921, The Great Figure is among William Carlos Williams’s most paradigmatic poems. It inspired an equally famous Poster-portrait (1928) by Charles Demuth, the poet’s longtime friend. Both artists may be said to have been ‘Precisionists’: Demuth by direct association with the American Art Movement of this name, Williams by the accuracy of his medium. This essay presents a close analysis of the poem vis-à-vis the painting. To show how difficult it is to turn Williams’s ‘simple’ language into Italian, the essay analyses Vittorio Sereni’s version of the poem.


Open access | Peer reviewed

Submitted: May 7, 2024 | Accepted: June 17, 2024 | Published Sept. 30, 2024 | Language: it

Keywords William Carlos Williams • The Great Figure • Charles Demuth • La Grande Cifra • I Saw the Figure 5 in Gold

Copyright © 2024 Cristina Giorcelli. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/AnnOc/2499-1562/2024/12/003