A selective list of online literary criticism for William Carlos Williams, favoring signed articles by recognized scholars, articles published in reviewed sources, and web sites that adhere to the Modern Language Association guidelines for web pages
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Anderson, Dana. Anderson reviews J. H. East's Humane Particulars: The Collected Letters of William Carlos Williams and Kenneth Burke and Ross Wolin's The Rhetorical Imagination of Kenneth Burke. Rhetoric Society Quarterly, Spring 2004
Baldwin, Neil. An introduction to Patterson from Neil Baldwin's essay about the 1950 National Book Award winner
Bertonneau, Thomas F. "The Sign of Knowledge in Our Time: Violence, Man and Language in Paterson, Book I (An Anthropoetics)." Bertonneau contends that Williams in Paterson and later works embraced humanism, identifying himself as the bearer of a moral obligation to speak for the universality of the human in an historical moment. William Carlos Williams Review 21, 1 (1995) (removed)
Blakesley, David. "William Carlos Williams's Influence on Kenneth Burke." Paper originally presented at the 1997 MLA Convention
Bremen, Brian A. A review of Bremen's William Carlos Williams and the Diagnostics of Culture (Oxford Univ. Press, 1993). In Literature, Arts, and Medicine Database
Cappucci, Paul R. "'And Everyone and I Stopped Breathing': William Carlos Williams, Frank O'Hara, and the News of the Day in Verse." Papers on Language and Literature, Fall 2003
Caws, Mary Ann. Caws discusses similarities between Williams and the surrealist poet Rene Char and their liking for each other. "Williams and Rene Char: Two Poets Injured in the Street." Special edition of the William Carlos Williams Review devoted to Williams and Surrealism, 22, 1 (1996) (removed)
Cirasa, Robert J. A review of Cirasa's The Lost Works of William Carlos Williams: The Volumes of Collected Poetry as Lyrical Sequences (1995). Reviewed by Bryce Conrad, H-Net Review, Sept. 1996
Corbett, William. "The New Selected William Carlos Williams." A short article by poet William Corbett on a 1986 New Directions edition of Williams's selected poems, with poems selected by Charles Tomlinson rather than Williams himself. Ploughshares, Fall 1986
Costello, Bonnie. "William Carlos Williams in a World of Painters." Boston Review, June/July 1979
Diggory, Terence. "William Carlos Williams's Early References to Freud: 1917-1930." An overview of Williams's complicated relation to Freudian thought. William Carlos Williams Review 22, 2 (1996) (removed)
Dolin, Sharon. "'Bitter and Delicious Relations': The Transitional Object in Williams's Poetry." Dolin presents a reading of Williams's poems as transitional objects. "For Williams, writing poems was one way of achieving this union of the masculine and the feminine and of acknowledging the fusion and separation of self from parent." William Carlos Williams Review 22, 2 (1996) (removed)
East, J. H., ed. A review of East's The Humane Particulars: The Collected Letters of William Carlos Williams and Kenneth Burke (Univ. of South Carolina Press, 2003) Publisher's web site
Eby, Carl. "'The Ogre' and the 'Beautiful Thing': Voyeurism, Exhibitionism, and the Image of 'Woman' in the Poetry of William Carlos Williams." William Carlos Williams Review 22, 2 (1996) (removed)
Fisher-Wirth, Ann. "The Allocations of Desire: 'This is Just to Say' and Flossie Williams's 'Reply.'" Fisher-Wirth contends that a gendered view of the dynamics of sexual transgression infuses these two poems. William Carlos Williams Review 22, 2 (1996) (removed)
Ford, Charles Henri. Article on Williams and surrealism by American Surrealist Charles Henri Ford, editor of Blues and View, to both of which Williams was a regular contributor. William Carlos Williams Review 22, 1 (1996) (removed)
Fredman, Stephen. A review of Fredman's The Grounding of American Poetry: Charles Olson and the Emersonian Tradition, (1993). Reviewed by Richard Frye in William Carlos Williams Review 21, 1 (1995) (removed)
Hayman, Ronald. "Drama That Stays Indoors: A Note on Carlos Williams," in Poetry Nation 5, 1975
Johnson, Bob. "'A Whole Synthesis of His Time': Political Ideology and Cultural Politics in the Writings of William Carlos Williams, 1929-1939" [Great Depression]. First page of article only. American Quarterly, Volume 54, Number 2, June 2002
Kouidis, Virginia. An introduction to William Carlos Williams from the Literary Encyclopedia, 02 July 2004
Levine, Jessica. "Spatial Rhythm and Poetic Invention in William Carlos Williams's 'Sunday in the Park.'" Levine begins with Williams's line "Without invention nothing is well spaced," to examine the meaning of "well spaced" for Williams. William Carlos Williams Review 21, 1 (1995) (removed)
MacGowan, Christopher. "'Sparkles of Understanding': Williams and Nicolas Calas." MacGowan considers the conjunction of interests between Williams and one-time surrealist Nicolas Calas. William Carlos Williams Review 22, 1 (1996) (removed)
Mariani, Paul. A review of William Carlos Williams: A New World Naked. Reviewed By Gilbert Sorrentino, NYTimes, 11/22/81
Miller, Tyrus. "Poetic Contagion: Surrealism and Williams's A Novelette. " Miller discusses Williams's improvisatory techniques in A Novelette in relationship to surrealism, focusing on shared metaphors of epidemic and contagion. From a special edition of the William Carlos Williams Review devoted to Williams and Surrealism, No. 22, 1 (1996) (removed)
Palattella, John. "But If It Ends The Start is Begun: Spring and All, Americanism, and Postwar Apocalypse." Palattella looks at Spring and All as a response to T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land. William Carlos Williams Review 21, 1 (1995) (removed)
Peterson, Jeffrey. "'A Laboratory...for Dissociations': Approaching Williams's Automatic Writing." Contending that the Williams poems that have attained canonic status represent his tamer impulses, Peterson examines some of Williams's unfamiliar improvisational work. William Carlos Williams Review 22, 1 (1996) (removed)
Sayre, H. "The Enchained Dragon: Williams and the Optical Unconscious." Sayre uses Lacanian theory to illuminate Williams, "'the 'optical unconscious' is by no means easy to understand, but it is an idea worth developing in terms of Williams’s own poetic practice because it defines, precisely, the Surrealist concern with the invisible, that which resides outside opticality in a terrain that would appear to be accessible, particularly, through words." William Carlos Williams Review 22, 1 (1996) (removed)
Tashjian, Dickran. "Williams and Automatic Writing: Against the Presence of Surrealism." Tashjian analyzes Williams's ambivalent attitudes towards European surrealism. William Carlos Williams Review 22, 1 (1996). (removed)
Wagner-Martin, Linda. "Reading William Carlos Williams." Wagner-Martin focuses on Williams's breakthrough in Spring and All. From the Center for Book Culture (removed).
Excerpts from influential critical discussions of the following poems: The Young Housewife, Portrait of a Lady, Queen-Anne's-Lace, The Widow's Lament in Springtime, The Great Figure, Spring and All, To Elsie, The Red Wheelbarrow, Young Sycamore, The Descent of Winter, This is Just to Say, The Yachts, Asphodel, That Greeny Flower, Book I, The Descent, Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, Proletarian Portrait. From Modern American Poetry Site (Univ. of Illinois)
Biography of William Carlos Williams from Modern American Poetry Site (Univ. of Illinois)
A description of the William Carlos Williams manuscript collection at the University of Buffalo
Extended reading list for William Carlos Williams from Gonville & Caius College
The William Carlos Williams Review a peer-reviewed, subscription only scholarly journal
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