The Great Figure Themes

"The Great Figure" immediately plunges us into a chaotic and disoriented scene of lights shining through the rain. The title suggests a religious or spiritual significance, and the poem seems to ex...

Williams's distinctive use of poetic form, with short lines and lots of enjambment, results in a poem that stretches out time like a rubber band. Specifically, time moves in an arc, going faster, t...

Williams was inspired by Walt Whitman's use of distinctive American diction that approximated the way people really talk. "The Great Figure" reflects his experiments with plain American-speak. Asid...

Williams is considered a "modernist" poet, meaning that his poetry deals with the distinctiveness of modern life: urbanization, new modes of communication, the isolation of the individual, and the...