Lecture 10:

Imagism

(1900-1910s)

Historical Background:

WWI was the biggest event of the time. People went into it with extreme enthusiasm,

inspired by the ideal of making the world safe for

democracy. There was a tremendous disillusionment because

nothing had changed. There was a popular

contempt for the law. A loss of faith began with

Darwin’s theories of evolution.

Imagism: its development

1. 1908—1909 T. E. Hulme founded a Poets’ Club in 1908. The most effective means to express the mome

ntary impressions is through “the use of one dominant image”.

Imagism: its development

2. 1912—1914 Ezra Pound took over the movement. In 1912,

they published Des Imagistes. a. Direct treatment of the “thing”, whether subje

ctive or objective; b. To use absolutely no word that does not contri

bute to the presentation; c. As regarding rhythm, to compose in the seque

nce of the musical phrase, not in the sequence of a metronome.

1. 1908—1909

Imagism: its development

3. 1914—1917 Amy Lowell took over the movement and deve

loped it into “Amygism”. In 1915, 1916, 1917, three volumes of Some Im

agist Poets came out, containing six principles based on the original three.

1. 1908—1909

2. 1912—1914

Imagism: its definition

T. E. Hulme: The image must enable one “to dwell and linger upon a point of excitement, to achieve the impossible and convert a point into a line”.

Ezra Pound: An image is “that which presents an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time”.

Richard Aldington: The exact word must bring the effect of the object before the reader as it had presented itself to the poet’s mind at the time of writing.

Imagism: its sources

Greek myths Provencal poetry Japanese poetry Chinese poetry, especially the ideographic and

pictographic nature of Chinese language

Imagism: its representatives

T. E. Hulme: “Autumn” F. S. Flint: “The Swan” Richard Aldington Hilda Doolittle: “Oread” Amy Lowell: “Wind and Silver” William Carlos Williams: “The Red Wheelbarrow” Ezra Pound, “In a Station of the Metro”

The Imagist Movement and the artistic characteristics of imagist poems:

Led by the American poet Ezra Pound, Imagist Movement is a poetic movement that flourished in the U.S. and England between 1909-1917. It advances modernism in arts which concentrates on reforming the medium of poetry as opposed to Romanticism, especially Tennyson's worldliness and high-flown language in poetry.

Pound endorsed three main principles as guidelines for Imagism, including direct treatment of poetic subjects, elimination of merely ornamental or superfluous words, and rhythmical composition should be composed with the phrasing of music, not a metronome. The primary Imagist objective is to avoid rhetoric and moralizing, to stick closely to the object or experience being described, and to move from explicit generalization. The leading poets are Ezra Pound, Wallace Stevens, D.H.Lawrence, etc.

The characteristic products of the movement are more easily recognized than its theories defined; they tend to be short, composed of short lines of musical cadence rather than metrical regularity, to avoid abstraction, and to treat the image with a hard, clear precision rather than with overt symbolic intent. The influence of Japanese forms, tanka and haiku, is obvious in many. Most of the imagist poets wrote in free verse and they like to employ common speech. They stressed the freedom in the choice of subject matter and form.

Ezra Pound (1885—1972)

Cantos (1948), a total of 117 poems

Cathay, a collection of Chinese translations, based on the manuscripts of Ernest Fennellosa

Pound was the father of modern poetry.

General Knowledge

Ezra Pound's contribution to American literature: Pound was one of the most important poets and critics of his time and he was regarded as the father of modern American poetry. He is a leading spokesman of the "Imagist Movement", which though short-lived, had a tremendous influence on modern poetry.

His major works Pound composed poems, wrote criticisms and di

d translations. (1) His poetic works: In 1915 Pound began writin

g his great work, The Cantos, which spanned from 1917 to 1959 and were collected in The Cantos of Ezra Pound (1986). He joined a famous literary salon run by an American woman writer Gertrude Stein, and became involved in the experimentations on poetry. His other poetic works include twelve volumes of verse Collected Early Poems of Ezra Pound (1982), and Personae (1909), and some longer pieces such as Hugh Selwyn Mauberley (1920).

(2) His critical essays: Make It New (l934), Literary Essays (l954), The ABC of Reading (1934) and Polite Essays (l937), etc. These essays best reflect Pound's appraisals of literary traditions and of modern writing.

(3) His translations: The Translations of Ezra Pound (1953), Confucius (1969), and Shih-Ching (1954) These translations have not only cast light on Pound's affinity to the Chinese and his strenuous effort in the study of Oriental literature, but also offered us a clue to the understanding of his poetry and literary theory. From the analysis of the Chinese ideogram Pound learned to anchor his poetic language in concrete, perceptual reality, and to organize images into larger patterns through juxtoposition.

In a Station of the Metro

(1) Theme: This poem is an observation of the poet of the human faces seen in a Paris subway station or a description of a moment of sudden emotion at seeing beautiful faces in a Metro in Paris. He sees the faces, turned variously toward light and darkness, like flower petals which are half absorbed by, half resisting, the wet, dark texture of a bough.

(2) The one image in this poem: This poem is probably the most famous of all imagist poems. In two lines it combines a sharp visual image or two juxtoposed images ( 意象叠加 ) "Petals on a wet, black bough" with an implied meaning. The faces in the dim light of the Metro suggest both the impersonality and haste of city life and the greater transience of human life itself. The word "apparition" is a well-chosen one which has a two-fold meaning: Firstly, it means a visible appearance of something real. Secondly, it builds an image of a ghostly sight, a delusive and unexpected appearance.

(3) Pound uses the fewest possible words to convey an accurate image, which is the principle of the Imagist poetry. This poem looks to be a modern adoption of the haiku form of Japanese poetry which adapts the 3-line, 17 syllable and where the title is an intergral part of the whole. The poem succeeds largely because of its internal rhymes: station/apparition; Metro/petals/wet; crowd/bough. Its form was determined by the experience that inspired it, involving organically rather than being chosen arbitrarily.

The River-Merchant's Wife: A Letter (1) Theme: It is an adaptation from the Chinese

Li Po (701-762) named Rihaku in Japanese, which, by means of vivid images and shifting tones, describes the silky shy tenderness of the young wife writing to her absent husband the river-merchant.

The history of her feelings for her husband develops as the following: her bashfulness when she was a young girl, her spiritual affinity with him during the phase of their marriage, the material nature of her love at the time of his departure as well as her longing for his return when she grows old.

(2) use of images and allusion: In this poem Pound uses images such as "hair" "grown moss" "falling leaves" to suggest the passing years and growing age. Besides, Pound employs an allusion to "a story of a woman waiting for her husband on a hill." In Pound's version, the line emphasizes the otherworldly nature of her love during her marriage.

李白 :长干行 妾发初覆额，折花门前剧。

郎骑竹马来，绕床弄青梅。同居长干里，两小无嫌猜。十四为君妇，羞颜未尝开。低头向暗壁，千唤不一回。十五始展眉，愿同尘与灰。常存抱柱信，岂上望夫台。十六君远行，瞿塘滟滪堆。五月不可触，猿声天上哀。门前迟行迹，一一生绿苔。苔深不能扫，落叶秋风早。八月蝴蝶黄，双飞西园草。感此伤妾心，坐愁红颜老。早晚下三巴，预将书报家。相迎不道远，直至长风沙。

【按】全诗活泼动人，感情细腻，缠绵婉转；语言坦白，音节和谐；格调清新隽永，是诗歌艺术上品。尤其“青梅竹马”“两小无猜”为千古佳语。　　【长干】古金陵里巷名　　【剧】游戏　　【抱柱】《庄子 · 杂篇 · 盗跖》“尾生与女子期于梁下，女子不来，水至不去，抱梁柱而死”　　【三巴】巴东、巴郡、巴西　　【长风沙】在今安徽安庆东长江边上