Review by Choice Review
MacGowan's enormous undertaking--the preparation of a revised edition of Paterson--will be of interest primarily to Williams scholars and those interested in the process of revising texts. At the end of the five books that constitute Paterson, MacGowan offers three appendixes: Williams's unfinished attempt at a sixth book found after Williams's death and reprinted in the condition in which it was found, with crossouts and misspellings; a story of the tribulations entailed in the collection of relevant resources and the complex kind of decision making necessitated by printing what is believed the author had intended; and a detailed account of the many minute changes from previous editions. Because Paterson is a self-conscious, deliberate poem intimately concerned with the nuances of American idiomatic English in whose every mark of punctuation resides a choice, a statement, sometimes a revolution, MacGowan's meticulous research will no doubt shed light on many passages and possibly stir new debates about some others. Graduate; faculty. D. Coshnear; formerly, City College, CUNY
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Despite its epic scope, Paterson is often chosen by nonspecialists, such as the social critic Robert Coles, as the way in to a discovery of Williams' exuberant and humane career as a poet. The going is made easier and the way is clarified by this invaluable new edition, for in it Williams' achievement can be seen in its proper context. His social concern, for instance, in contrast to that of other modernists, becomes more apparent. Misprints have been corrected, fugitive verses or sources have been tracked down, tab spaces have been restored and the crowded typography of recent editions has been opened up. Textual notes are thorough. We learn, for instance, that Williams changed the phrase ``seldom dig'' in a letter of Allen Ginsberg's excerpted here to ``seldom did,'' probably because the older poet did not know the Beat usage. Williams at his strongest is as good an American poet as there has been; still, it must be noted that not all of the five books of Paterson (plus fragments of a sixth) are up to that level. Yet, with this edition, the important project of re-editing Williams' poetry is skillfully completed. The work of an experimental master is laid out in a definitive edition. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
With this appearance of his magnum opus, the publisher's laudable project of republishing Williams's poetic oeuvre in modern scholarly editions has been completed. The high quality of the two volumes of Collected Poems ( LJ 7/88; LJ 10/86) is replicated here. MacGowan's fine edition sorts out the poem's complicated textual history. His notes will be most useful to future readers, students, and scholars, as they elucidate difficulties and clarify the provenance of the many prose excerpts from various sources included in this unique work. A modernist classic, Paterson is a nativist's answer to the cosmopolitan Pound and Eliot, ``a reply to Greek and Latin with the bare hands.'' By exploring the local, Williams sought to descry the universal and to find in city and landscape symbolic analogues for the essential issues of human life. Highly recommended.-- Frank J. Lepkowski, Oakland Univ., Rochester, Mich. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
