Poetry concepts and literary analysis

Imagist poetry is in many ways the essence of what poetry strives to be -- it is concise, concrete, and creates a visual image through carefully selected language. As a poetic movement, Imagism began around 1912 with poetry by Amy Lowell, Ezra Pound, and Hilda Doolittle (usually written H.D.), among others, and the movement carried on into the twentieth century to produce some very popular and highly expressive works. The Imagists produced four anthologies of their work -- Des Imagistes, 1914; Some Imagists, 1915, 1916, 1917; and the magazines Poetry (from 1912) and The Egoist (from 1914); and these included the work of a dozen or more Imagist poets. It has been some time since a strong collection of Imagist poetry has been made, and this anthology is intended to present some of the works that help define this poetic movement.

The approach is largely chronological, carrying the reader from early poems by Ezra Pound and Amy Lowell through later developments in the poetry of Richard Aldington, John Gould Fletcher, DH Lawrence, F.S. Flint, William Carlos Williams, and e.e. cummings. Like the spread of Imagism itself, the anthology also carries the reader from its European origins to the American poets who shaped it and made it their own. Ezra Pound and Hilda Doolittle were two of the American poets who were in Europe and who joined with other poets like the British poet Richard Aldington. This group was intent on starting something new. They liked reading Greek poetry together and also had a knowledge of many other poetic traditions.

They used these traditions in developing their poetic ideas, which Ezra Pound distilled into four principles of Imagism:

1) The poet should offer direct treatment of the thing, the subject of any poem.

2) No word should be used that does not contribute to the presentation.

3) Meter should be shaped according to the idea of a musical phrase rather than in terms of a simple and repetitive beat.

4) The poet should conform to the "doctrine of the image."

This last point was not fully explained, for the Imagists stated that it was too technical for public consumption and would only confuse and lead to useless discussion.

These principles defined what the Imagists believed poetry should be and so what they found missing from most poetry of their time. The earlier French Symbolist movement had taken its cue from music, while Imagists were more aligned with painters and sculptors in creating a central image and in making it precise and clear to the reader. This did not mean that there were no individual differences among these poets, for they were indeed individuals with differing interests and different ways of shaping their material.

Six poets were identified as "official" members of the Imagist movement -- Richard Aldington, H.D., John Gould Fletcher, F.S. Flint, DH Lawrence, and Amy Lowell. Ezra Pound is omitted because by 1914 he had moved on to other poetic ideas. The influence of these central figures is apparent in later works by followers and adapters of the movement, such as William Carlos Williams and e.e. cummings.

Ezra Pound stands as a major creative force in the twentieth century, a poet who influenced many poetic movements and many of the major poets of the era. Works like "The Tree" and "L'Art, 1910" show the Imagist tendencies of Pound, in the first centering on the image of himself as a tree, in the second on a clear image of a smeared table cloth.

Amy Lowell's poems such as "A Lover" or "Meditation" are spare, these two poems shaped around the image of a firefly. Lowell remains a highly controversial poet who is supported by some critics and dismissed by others as too facile to be taken seriously. Clearly, though, she has to be seen as important for her role in creating and transmitting the Imagist movement.

Richard Aldington's poem "Lesbia" shows the Greek influence that shaped much of his poetry. John Gould Fletcher was another Briton who also wrote criticism and biography, and his poem "London Excursion: Station" is representative of his poetry reflecting on life in his home city and doing so using concrete images gathered from direct observation. DH Lawrence, the third Briton in the group, is best known as a novelist, but he contributed a number of poems to Imagist anthologies, including "Nothing to Save."