Major Poets:
Ezra Pound 1885 – 1972
T.S Eliot 1888 – 1965
Amy Lowell 1874 -1925
H.D Hilda Doolittle 1886 – 1961
Wallace Stevens 1879 – 1955
William Carlos Williams 1883 – 1963
e.e. cummings – 1894 – 1962 Edward Estin
(played around with form, punctuation, spelling, type style, grammar, imagery, rhythm, syntax)
MODERNISM AND IMAGISM
Modernism in America began with the publication of Thomas Stearns Eliot’s poem “Portrait of Lady” in 1911 and proceeded with the publication of the trilogy titled “Des Imagistes” (1914) a ..... poems by British and American .... publishing the anthology. Ezra Pound advocated the new school of poetry known as Imagism. Imagism was inspired by oriental poetry (Japanese Haiku), showed connections with impressionsim (light, colour, feelings, mood) and opposed sentimentality (sadness, sympathy, love- unsuitable and obvious)
Imagist movement
ð Emphases on extreme concision
ð Emphases on certain neutrality of description
ð Precision
ð Restraint
Imagism:
Poet focuses on strong, concrete images
“Image is something that presents an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time” Ezra Pound
A poem concentrates on... is to objectively present an intellectual and ... reaction caused by a simple object, experience or phenomenon without referring to abstract or clichés
“Objective correlative” – expressing emotion “through a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events”. T.S. Eliot Prufrock thinks to himself that he has “measured out his life in coffee spoons”. Using coffee spoons to reflect a humdrum existence and a wasted lifetime.
Examples:
- Ezra Pound’s “In Station of the Metro” (1913) with its title serving as the poem’s first line
The apparition of these faces in the crowd; Petals on a wet, black bough.
- “The Red Wheelbarrow” (1923)
“so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens”
(.............................................)and descriptive neutrality.
John Gould Fletcher (1886 – 1950)
is a clear example of imagism’s less widely recognized, loosely descriptive, and impressionistic mode.
Flickering of incessant rain
On flashing pavements
Sudden scurry of umbrellas
Bending, recurved blossoms of the storm
Amy Lowell (1874- 1925)
“Peace’
Perched upon the mazzle of a cannon,
A yellow butterfly is slowly opening and
Shutting its wings
The beginnings of formulating the principles of imagism may be traced to November 1908, when Ezra Pound outlined them to a letter to Williams Carlos Williams:
“1. To paint the thing as I see it.
2. Beauty.
3. Freedom from didactism.
4. It is only good manners if you repeat, a few other men at least do it better or more briefly.”
IMAGISM
In 1911, Pound was looking for some good poems to send to Harriet Monroe in Chicago for her Poetry: A Magazine of Verse (Pound was both a contributor to the magazine and the editor of its London edition). He found the poems in work of Hilda Doolittle (American) and Richard Aldington (British). In 1912, to their surprise, Pound informed them that they were Imagists.
In the January 1913 edition of Poetry, “Three Poems” were published by Hilda Doolittle under the pseudonym H.D. Imagiste, and Ezra Pound announced “the Imagistes” as the newest school in his article “Status Rerum”. Two months later, again in Poetry, F.S. Flint wrote “Imagisme”, known as the “Imagist Manifesto”. It defined the new movement and elaborated the rules.
“1. Direct treatment of the “thing” whether subjective or objective
2. To use absolutely no word that does not contribute to the presentation
3. As regarding rhythm to compose in the sequence of the musical phrase, not in sequence of a metronome.”
Following Flint’s article in the same issue was “A Few Don’ts by an Imagiste”, an article written by Pound in which he defined the image as “that which presents an emotional and intellectual complex in an instant of time”
- So according to Imagists, poets had to present firm, concrete images and stick closely to the object described. Imagism advocated free verse ... rhythmic effects, and colloquial, clear language. When Ezra Pound moved on to Vorticism, Amy Lowell assumed control of the movement.
Adrienne Munich and Melissa Brandshaw, in the “introduction” to Amy Lowell. American Modern, explain the reasons of the famous feud between Pound and Lowell:
-Initially, Lowell and Pound enjoyed a cordial relationship. When she travelled to England in the summer of 1913 to meet the enigmatic Imagiste poets whose poems ..... had appeared in several issues of Harriet Monroe .... magazine, Pound arranged her introductions, read... offered editorial suggestions and included her poem ... “ in his anthology Des Imagaistes (1914). Their brief ... quickly collapsed when Lowell announced plans to publish a yearly imagist anthology to be brought out by major U.S publishing house, with each poet receiving an equal ... of poems and sharing editorial responsibilities. Pound argued that such a project would dilute the concept of imagism, conflating it with any poem written in vers libre
Having nominally acceded to Pound’s wishes by dropping the final e in imagiste, Lowell went on to edit three anthologies of some Imagist Poets (1915, 1916 and 1917)
Amy Lowell “Amygism”
Additionally, the battle was fueled by the fact, that Lowell aimed to include and celebrate more poets representing Am... voices, but Pound wanted to limit ... only to the elite. Lowell played a very important role in the development of the New Poetry. By editing the imagist anthologies, Lowell was promoting the imagist movement, brought it to public attention, and explained its principles. She did it in the two Prefaces to Some Imagist Poets (1915, 1916). In the 1st one she wrote:
Preface
“In March 1914, a volume appeared entitled “Des Images”. It was a collection of the work of various young poets, presented together .... school. This school has been widely ... those interested in new movements in the arts ... already become a household word. Difference ... and judgment, however, have arisen among ... contributors to that book: growing tendencies are forcing them along different paths. Those of us, whose work appears in this volume have therefore decided to publish our collection under a new title, and we have been joined by two or three poets who did not contribute to the first volume, our wider scope making this possible’.
Then Lowell mentions that the poets were free to choose their own selections of poems and restates the imagist
Principles:
“These principles are not new, they have fallen into desuetude. They are the essentials of all great poetry, indeed of all great literature ... they are simply these:
To use the language of co... speech, but to employ always the exact word, not the ... exact, not the merely decorative word.
To create new rhythms – as the expression of new moods – and not to copy old rhythms, which merely echo old moods. We do not insist on “free – verse” as the only method of writing poetry. We fight for it as for a principle of liberty. We believe that the individuality of a poet may often be better expressed in free – verse than in conventional forms. In poetry, a new cadence means a new idea.
Restating imagist principles
ð To allow absolute freedom in the choice of subject. It is not good art to write badly about aeroplanes and automobiles; not is it necessarily bad art to write well about the past. We believe passionately in the artistic value... life, but we wish to point out that there is nothing ..., not so old –fashioned as an aeroplane of the rear...
ð To present an image (hence... imagist”). We are not a school of painters, but we believe ... should render particular exactly and not deal ... generalities, however magnificent and sonorous. It’s for this reason that we oppose the cosmic poet, who seems to us to shirk the real difficulties of art.
ð to produce poetry that is hard and clear, never blurred nor indefinite.
ð Finally, most of us believe that concentration is of the very essence of poetry”
The preface to the 1915 anthology of Some Imagist Poets, drafted by Fletcher and edited by Lowell, included extensive explanation of poetic purpose. Imagism was defined as
“ a clear presentation of whatever the author wishes to convey. Now he may wish to ... a mood of indecision, in which case the ... should be indecisive, he may wish to bring before ... the constantly shifting and changing lights over a landscape, or the emotion, then his poem must shift and change to present this clearly,”
Amy Lowell
In order to achieve the desired effect, the poet may manipulate the poetic cadence Reading the poem aloud also may help him. The ... edition of “Some imagist Poets” was published ... a preface. In comparison to the success ... previous collections, this one did not ... impressive sales and marked the end of the “imagist” project. Lowell’s commitment to the imagist movement was essential. She sponsored the publication of the anthologies, explained “imagists” principles, wrote promotional articles and gave public lectures. By doing so, she placed the movement permanently in the literary cannon and brought the poetry to broad public attention (not just the elite) making a lasting difference in the reception of modern poetry.
The practitioners of Imagism:
- T.E Hulme,
- E Pound,
- R. Arlington,
- H.D (Hilda Doolittle)
- F.S Flint,
- Amy Lowell,
- J. G. Fletcher
- D.H Lawrence
T.S. Eliot 1888 – 1965
· came from a prominent New England family
· educated at Harvard, Sorbonne, Oxford
· Prestigious career as a poet and critic
· became an English subject in 1927
· cosmopolitan, international, urban, polyglot, elitist, literary
· set the terms for the poetry (and prose) of high modernism)
· published poetry, plays and essays
· worked for a time with Lloyd’s Bank
· editor of The Criterion until late 1930s
· became a director of the London house Faber and Faber
· awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1947
· in 1928 he made this utterance: “ I am Anglo-Catholic in religion, Royalist in politics and Classicist in Literature”
· he was also anti – Semitic
· he speaks of high culture, of canonical works of the European past
· His poetry is a tribute to ... tradition that reaches back to classical antiquity
· He is modern as well, because his themes are ... crisis of belief and the breakdown in culture
· Eliot fuses religious and secular, has conversational voice in his poems, delights in associative logic.
· His lyricism is checked and choked, but also enriched by this ironic cutting
“The love song of J. Alfred Prufrock” 1915
“The evening is spread out against the sky like a patient etherized upon the table”
ð opening lines – imagery of disease, urban anomie, alienation
ð Eliot has a gift for epigrams, ditties ... songs), refrains
ð Culture; sterile, superficial, vain ...
“In the room that women come ...
Talking of Michelangelo”
ð Chit-chat, cocktail parties, degrades status of high art, recycling of culture
ð Prufrock is honoured by doubts and anxiety, about the possibility of passion or direct utterance.
ð Prufrock is a new kind of protagonist, the second – rater, the man of margins, the onlooker who cannot act
“Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse...”
“I have measured my life in coffee spoons”
“The Waste Land” 1922
v The poem changed the form of modern literature. It consisted of a mix of references, allusions and quotations from earlier texts, ... with Eliot’s own lyricism
v There are several pages of notes to this poem, explaining his allusions, telling where to look, published with the poem
v It is the most elitist poem ever written
v It uses 6 languages: data means “give, dayadhvam means “sympathize” etc...
v The fragments are given in its original form
v There are fragments of apocalypse, of purification, of purgative moments and somehow of the restoration of wholeness
“ I have shored against my ruins. Then I’ll fit you”
v “Waste Land” is a metaphor of spiritual sterility, a metaphor of cultural pessimism and sterility. It depicts culture that is dying and longs for vitality or rebirth.
v He expresses this sterility by means of old myths and rituals, involving sacrificial legends, the story of the Grail and vegetation rites, all intended to provide a choral view of culture’s need for vitality and rebirth
v He presents the situation as a landscape of drought and ruin, a heap of stones, broken beliefs, “a heap of broken images. Can they be made whole?”
v The past always remains us as residual texts that we either can or cannot read
v There are direct references to the Fisher King, to sacrificial myths (the hanged Man deaths by drowning and by the fire – restorative) to nursery ...
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