Monday, February 2, 2009

The Imagists

I introduced Carl Sandburg in my last post, and I alluded to the Imagist movement of the early 20th Century. Since then, I have received several inquiries regarding the Imagists and what they stood for. In particular, I was asked why the movement did not last very long, yet I make such a big deal out of it. Well, in that spirit, I would like to take a moment to define the Imagists and explain how, even though the movement was short-lived, it was the most influential movement in poetry of the 20th Century.

The Imagist movement started in the 1910s in England, but it was American-born Ezra Pound who, while living in London, really guided the movement to fame. Although "imagism" is a rather vague word in the context of poetry, it essentially defined a movement that directly conflicted the values of Victorian-era poetry. It didn't want to be flowery, it didn't want rhyme as its main component, and it didn't want to allude to something esoteric. In the words of Richard Aldington, Imagist poetry should give a direct treatment of a subject; it should have as few adjectives as possible; it should show the subject with a hardness of treatment as it really is, not as one wished it to be; it should have individuality of rhythm; and it should be precise and use the exact word.

Ezra Pound interpreted this as using simple, everyday language with the use of vivid images that paint a picture of the poem in the mind of the reader. He wanted it to focus on concrete subjects that were a part of everyday life. It was Pound's influence that launched the Imagist movement, and his argument to the high-brow critics was that it was derived from the French symbolist movement along with Chinese, Japanese, and Greek poetry. At this time, translation of poetry from these languages was a popular trend, and he made a successful argument that the Imagist movement was grounded in historical philosophies.

Many new and upcoming poets were testing the Imagist waters, along with some veteran poets who had tired of the elaborate verse of the late 19th Century. Pound edited an anthology of poetry in 1914 called Des Imagistes which included the works of Aldington, Hilda Dolittle, F.S. Flint, William Carlos Williams, James Joyce, and Ford Madox Hueffer.

The avant garde of poetry was as it is today -- very critical of anything that bucks the system. Pound responded to criticism of the lack of rhyming by stating, "One discards rhyme, not because one is incapable of rhyming neat, fleet, sweet, meat, treat, eat, feed, but because there are certain emotions or energies which are not to be represented by the over-familiar devices or patterns."

What Pound was reacting to was a shift in culture. Pound did not share the same beliefs as did Carl Sandburg who was to come to the scene later. Pound was still an elitist to an extent, and he was an odd fellow as well. He ran in social circles where he put himself on the pedestal, and he was as guilty of trying to "own" poetry as any of the critics he fought. At one time, it was necessary for new poets to obtain Pound's approval to have a chance at getting published. This was one reason that Robert Frost moved to England during Pound's time in that country. His relationship with Pound was one of the factors that contributed to his acceptance, even though he did not publish Imagist poetry himself.

Once many poets began to embrace Imagism, Pound turned on his heels on the movement and founded a new movement which took the ideas of Imagism and personalized it more. I believe this was Pound's ego at work. He wanted to see how many people would follow him, so he turned coat on the movement and went in another direction. Sure enough, his influence was powerful enough to draw people away from Imagism, and the "school" of poetry soon dissolved.

However, schools of poetry are nothing more than a group of poets who proclaim the same points of view. Just because the group dissolves doesn't mean the ideas go away. Once Imagism appeared, its effects were long-lasting and remain today. Its ideas paved the way for free verse, for example, and it gave poets the courage to stand up and write from the heart rather than write poetry that sounded musical. It gave poets the ability to write about the world as they saw it, and if that world was as hard as stone and as cold as steel, they had a way to express those feelings.

Enter Carl Sandburg. His was a true American art because he wrote about the American experience from the people's perspective. Had he of been confined to the standards of 19th Century poetry, he would not have been able to write from the heart and to capture the feelings and emotions that he was able to capture. Like I said in the last post, Sandburg used every convention that came out of the Imagists movement. His poetry was as hard as stone, it used everyday language, it never rhymed, and it focused on everyday subjects and material. He also combined metered line with free verse.

So, out of this short-lived movement came a new breed of poet who was free to experiment and explore. Although the movement itself lasted for only a few years, its effects are still felt today. And as was then, the high-brow critics still argue that its not a pure art. Hogwash!

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