William Carlos Williams

The Adoration of the Kings

The Adoration of the Kings - meaning Summary

Art Reframes Sacred Scene

Williams presents the Nativity as if seen through a painting, noting the Babe, Virgin, Wise Men and Joseph arranged like an Italian master’s composition but altered by a modern consciousness. The poem contrasts artistic technique with the "resourceful mind" that accepts the story yet remains restless about representation. It suggests devotion is both aesthetic and spiritual, focusing on the Virgin’s downcast eyes as an object of profound worship.

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From the Nativity which I have already celebrated the Babe in its Mother’s arms the Wise Men in their stolen splendor and Joseph and the soldiery attendant with their incredulous faces make a scene copied we’ll say from the Italian masters but with a difference the mastery of the painting and the mind the resourceful mind that governed the whole the alert mind dissatisfied with what it is asked to and cannot do accepted the story and painted it in the brilliant colors of the chronicler the downcast eyes of the Virgin as a work of art for profound worship

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