Imagism

- Imagism is an Anglo-American movement that had a huge impact on

modern poetry.. Imagism was a successor to the French Symbolist
movement, but while Symbolism was linked with music, Imagism has a
connection with sculpture.

- Imagists, a group of American

and British poets, were famous
from 1909-1917. They employed
in their poems the language of
common speech, new rhythms,
new subject matter and strong,
concrete imagery.
 Imagism
- As a reactionary movement against post- Victorian poetry,
imagism emphasised simplicity, clarity of expression.
- It is a strand of modernism that aimed to replace abstractions
with concrete details that could be further expounded upon
through the use of figuration.
- Imagist poem were typically short poems in free verse. These
poems moved away from
fixed meters and moral
reflections, subordinating
everything to the
“hard, dry image.”
 Imagism
- Ezra pound founded Imagism officially
in 1912. It is said that he was the one
who coined the term "lmagiste" in an
appendix to his Ripostes (1912) and he
also gave a definition of an image.
Pound is considered the father and
founder of the movement.

- Ezra Pound used the term Imagist to

describe the kind of poetry written by
Hilda Doolittle and Richard Aldington,
the American couple who met Pound
in London.
 Imagism
 Pound adapted Hulme’s ideas on poetry for his
imagist movement, which began in earnest in
1912, when he first introduced the term into
the literary lexicon during a meeting with
Hilda Doolittle. After reading her poem
“Hermes of the Ways,” Pound suggested some
revisions and signed the poem “H. D.,
Imagiste” before sending it to Poetry magazine
in October of that year. That November, Pound
himself used the term “Imagiste” in print for
the first time when he published
Hulme’s Complete Poetical Works.
 Imagism
- In 1908, T.E. Hulme, a young
Englishman, founded a Poets' Club
who met in Soho in London every
Wednesday to dine and discuss
poetry. The first poets in the club
were British. They were T.E. Hulme,
F.S. Flint, Edward Storer, E.W.
Tancred, Joseph Campbell and
Florence Farr. Later Ezra Pound
joined through the introduction of
others.
 Imagism
 The Imagists were a group of
poets who were dissatisfied
with works written in the
nineteenth century, and were
interested in finding new
techniques to write often
drawing from foreign poetry.
 The first imagist poems were
said to be written by Edward
Storer, whose poem “ Image”
published in1908 within in a
collection of verse entitled
Mirrors of Illusion.
 Imagism
 T. E. Hulme himself had two poems that meet the
principles of Imagism, which are “ Autumn” and “ A
City Sunset”.

T.E. Hulme, the first Imagist theorist, suggested that

each word must be an image that can be pictured in
the mind. He said a poet should become subtle
enough to record momentary impressions exactly.
 Imagism
 Imagism went through three stages. The first stage
occurred during the first years of the twentieth
century. A small group of English and American
poets got together and discussed the new way of
writing. T.E. Hulme was a core of this period; he
contributed his theory to this school. He was against
the vagueness and softness of Romanticism.
 Imagism
 The second stage of Imagism was from 1912
to 1914. Ezra Pound was its leading
spokesman during these years.
 In 1913, Ezra Pound and F.S. Flint wrote an
Imagist 'manifesto' published in Poetry,
which was a magazine of verse. Then Flint
and Pound put forward the three principles
of imagism. As active advocates and
supports of Imagism, F.S. Flint and Richard
Aldington contributed to the first Imagist
anthology Des Imagistes edited by Ezra
Pound and published in 1914. It included
poets such as Hilda Doolittle(H.D.), Richard
Aldington, F.S. Flint, Amy Lowell, William
Carlos Williams and Ezra Pound.
 Imagism
 From 1914 to 1917, when Pound's attention was turned to
new movements like "Vorticism", Amy Lowell assumed
leadership of the movement and took over from Pound
and pushed the movement into the third stage.
 Amy Lowell was a talented American poet, rather
eccentric. From 1915 to 1917, she edited three books, all
entitled Some Imagists poets.
 Imagism
 Some Imagists poets included six poets’
works: Richard Aldington, H.D.,
J.G. Fletcher, F.S. Flint,
D.H. Lawrence and
Amy Lowell herself.
Features of Imagist Poetry
 Pound’s definition of the image was “that which
presents an intellectual and emotional complex in an
instant of time.” He said, “It is the presentation of
such a ‘complex’ instantaneously which gives the
sense of sudden liberation; that sense of freedom
from time limits and space limits; that sense of
sudden growth, which we experience in the presence
of the greatest works of art.”
 In Imagist poetry, the writer does not talk about
the themes behind the image; they let the image
itself be the focus of the poem.
Features of Imagist Poetry
In March 1913, Poetry published “A Few Don’ts by an Imagiste.” In it, imagist
poet F. S. Flint, quoting Pound, defined the tenets of imagist poetry:
I. The poet had an absolute freedom in choice of subject matter. The subject of
the poem must be expressed in such a way as to remember it and reproduce it as
closely as possible. Direct treatment of the “thing," whether subjective or
objective. That is, the poem should deal directly with what's being talked
about, not try to use fancy words and phrases to talk about it.

II. To use absolutely no word that does not contribute to the presentation. Use
as few words as possible. Each word must be used with great exactness
to produce a precise image and nothing more. Likewise, Simple language
must be used to create an image which the reader can immediately see in his own
imagination..

III. As regarding rhythm: to compose in sequence of the musical phrase, not in

sequence of the metronome. In other words, create new rhythms instead
of relying on the old, boring ones. More specifically, Free Verse, which is
originally a type of unrhymed French verse form, is the most favourite
medium.
 He later expanded on these principles in the preface to Des Imagistes (an
anthology of Imagist poetry) listing what he called “essentials” of Imagism:
 (1) To use the language of common speech, but always the exact word, not the
nearly-exact, not the merely decorative word.
(2) 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 upon “free-verse” as the
only method of writing poetry. We fight for it as 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.
(3) To allow absolute freedom in the choice of subject. It is not good art to write
badly about aeroplanes and automobiles; nor is it necessarily bad art to write well
about the past. We believe passionately in the artistic value of modern life, but we
wish to point out that there is nothing so uninspiring nor so old-fashioned as an
aeroplane of the year 1911.
(4) To present an image (hence the name: “Imagist”). We are not a school of
painters, but we believe that poetry should render particulars exactly and not deal
in vague generalities, however magnificent and sonorous. It is for this reason that
we oppose the cosmic poet, who seems to us to shirk the real difficulties of his art.
(5) To produce poetry that is hard and clear, never blurred nor indefinite.
(6) Finally, most of us believe that concentration is of the very essence of poetry.
Features of Imagist Poetry
Though the three principles were correct in theory,
their works did not follow the rules. The length of poem
became long and the meaning of poem became vague.
After 1920, Imagism became a way of writing.