Humane Particulars: The Collected Letters of Williams Carlos Williams and Kenneth Burke - Hardcover

by James H. East (Editor)

Significantly deepening our understanding of two key figures from the modernist period, The Humane Particulars collects the letters between William Carlos Williams and Kenneth Burke. Written during forty-two years of close friendship and literary debate, these nearly 250 letters span two long lives, two complicated personalities, and two brilliantly productive careers. The animated exchange between a canonical poet and the leading American rhetorical critic of the twentieth century offers a more complete vision of their outlooks and their contributions to the shape and tenor of the modernist scene. Set in context by James H. East's introduction and explanatory notes, the letters begin just after Burke and Williams's initial meeting in 1921 during a tramp through a New Jersey swamp and surrounding meadowlands. Their written exchange follows the maturing of their friendship and professional regard. The correspondence shows that Williams and Burke were fast friends during the experimental twenties, preoccupied by individual and divergent projects in the thirties and early forties, and reunited as enthusiastic correspondents after the Second World War. The letters refer to happy times

Author Biography

Born in Barnstable, Massachusetts, and raised in New York, Maine, and Florida, James H. East holds degrees in English and comparative literature from Florida State University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He has taught literature and composition for more than twenty years at colleges and high schools in the Southeast and currently teaches at the Brookstone School in Columbus, Georgia. East divides his time between Columbus and Maine's Penobscot Bay.