A Libretto in Search of Music: The Strain of Collaborative Creation in William Carlos Williams's The First President

Throughout the 1930s and beyond, William Carlos Williams labored on a grand opera entitled The First President that "would," as he wrote, "galvanize us into a realization of what we are today" (Many Loves 303). He portrays George Washington as a figure who transforms fear and anxiety into the creative leadership necessary to guide an unstable new country. Williams dreamed of Roosevelt attending his opera and thus fusing the past with the present. Such a project reflects Williams's epic ambition to do something of national import. This paper documents Williams's design for the libretto and his collaborative difficulties; it also contextualizes the project amid the numerous Washington celebrations that occurred throughout the 1930s. By examining the libretto in this way, the paper reveals Williams's increasing investment in the project and ultimate identification with a troubled visionary who persistently overcame betrayals in an effort to help America realize its democratic promise.