"Every artwork exists to evoke pleasures that are easier to feel than to describe." (Vendler, 73). William Carlos Williams defies the nature of this statement in his poem, "The Dance", which is a description of Brueghel's artwork "The Kermess". To analyze the poem as pleasure, one must analyze the poem's rhythm, rhyme, structure, images, argument, poignancy, wisdom, and the development of new style or language in the poetry; just as to analyze artwork, one must analyze lines, curves, use of space, structure, the image itself, and the development of new art style. Through his poem one can actually visualize, and feel, the pleasurable effects of the painting without having to actually view the painting.
             William Carlos Williams' "The Dance" is a free verse poem. Vendler notes that "[e]ven in free verse. . . we often hear the same rhythms recurring" (Vendler, 74). Although Williams does not use conventional rhythms we see some aspects of rhythm evident in "The Dance", where the emphasis is placed on similar words throughout the poem, namely action words and festive, almost musical, terms. This emphasis on happy, joyous terms provides the basic underlying theme to the poem. Williams provides the reader with an uplifting feeling by his use of stresses on these particularly intoxicating terms. Williams uses no rhyme in his poem. Rather than using rhyme, Williams puts emphasis on one particular word, "round". "[T]he dancers go round, they go round and around. . .round as the thick- sided glasses whose wash they impound" (2-3, 5-6). In dance there is a feeling of going around in circles, and Williams repetitious use of the word "round" also gives the feeling of dancing in circles. Further, Williams' lack of a regular rhythm in the poem, such as would be found in a sonnet, and his lack
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