Summary
The first half of the poem depicts the speaker alone, as the other members of his household are sleeping. He describes the rising sun and says that he is dancing naked before the mirror in his room.
Analysis
"Danse Russe" is William Carlos Williams's lighthearted ode to self-reflection. The speaker finds himself alone for a moment, and examines his unclothed body as he sings and dances before a mirror. While the poem's overall tone is comedic and joyful, it does offer meaningful insight about introspection and the self. Williams uses the short scene in which the poem unfolds to show his speaker untethered to his domestic responsibilities and observing himself mirthfully.
The poem opens with some conditional scene-setting: "If I when my wife is sleeping / and the baby and Kathleen / are sleeping." These three opening lines establish the circumstances during which the poem takes place, showing that the speaker will only enact the scene that follows under specific conditions. It also shows him as being in a state of passing singularity. He is awake while everyone else is sleeping. The three lines that follow strikingly depict the rising sun ("and the sun is a flame-white disc / in silken mists / above shining trees,—") making it clear that this scene is occurring in the very early morning. These images are rich with detail. They show the sun's color and shape and capture its position in the misty morning sky, just rising above the "shining trees." Taken together, these six lines create and solidify the backdrop for the poem. The use of the word "if" also emphasizes that the events of this poem transpire under particular conditions.
The next lines ("if I in my north room / dance naked, grotesquely / before my mirror") finally reveal the speaker to the reader. He is standing "before" his "mirror" dancing "naked" and "grotesquely." This is the composite portrait of the "Danse Russe" that the title refers to. The adverb "grotesquely" is being used somewhat lightly here, as he is referencing the absurdity of dancing nude in front of his mirror, but he does not seem to be ashamed to be doing so, as the reader learns later in the poem. This is the poem's most pivotal moment, as the reader finally arrives at its primary scene. The speaker also reveals, here, the poem's essential tone, a comedic one. The speaker is figuratively unencumbered by his role as a father and husband and also literally unencumbered by clothing. This image sets up the poem's central idea (this instance of self-reflection) as a less serious scene. The reader still feels the emotional cue of his dance, but it is not underscored by straight-faced drama. Williams uses the humor inherent to this dance in the nude to elucidate this moment, while not taking it too seriously.
This particular poem is written in a slightly more ornate style than some of Williams’s later work. The reader can see the weighty influence of Walt Whitman on Williams here. In particular, the description of the sun, while still immediate and clear, goes on a bit longer than might be expected. Similarly, he makes use of enjambment, but many of the lines are end-stopped with punctuation. He also makes some use of dashes, giving the poem occasional moments of seeming interjection and excitement. On the whole, even though the text has more traditional stylistic elements, it still contains much of the same visual vividness of his other poems. This seems to serve the material of the piece, as it is carefully unpacking a small moment occurring in an unremarkable home.
