Imagism

Imagism was a movement in early 20th-century Anglo-American poetry that rejected the sentiment and artifice of Romantic and Victorian poetry as well as the contemporary Georgian poets in favour of precision of imagery in clear, sharp language. Group publication of work under the Imagist name in magazines and in four anthologies appearing between 1914 and 1917 featured writing by many of the most significant figures in Modernist poetry in English, as well as a number of other Modernist figures who were to be prominent in fields other than poetry.

Des Imagistes

Determined to promote the work of the Imagists, and particularly of Aldington and H.D., Pound decided to publish an anthology under the title Des Imagistes. This was published in 1914 by the Poetry Bookshop in London. In addition to ten poems by Aldington, seven by H.D. and six by Pound, the book included work by Flint, Skipwith Cannell, Amy Lowell, William Carlos Williams, James Joyce, Ford Madox Ford, Allen Upward and John Cournos.

Related Topics:
Des Imagistes - 1914 - Poetry Bookshop - Skipwith Cannell - Amy Lowell - William Carlos Williams - James Joyce - Ford Madox Ford - Allen Upward - John Cournos

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Pound's editorial choices were based on what he saw as the degree of sympathy that these writers displayed with Imagist precepts, rather than active participation in a group as such. Williams, who was based in the United States, had not participated in any of the discussions of the Eiffel Tower group. However, he and Pound had long been corresponding on the question of the renewal of poetry along similar lines. Ford was included at least partly because of his strong influence on Pound as the younger poet made the transition from his earlier, Pre-Raphaelite influenced, style towards a harder, more modern way of writing.

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The inclusion of a poem by Joyce, I Hear an Army which was sent to Pound by W.B. Yeats, took on a wider importance in the history of literary modernism as the subsequent correspondence between the two led to the serial publication, at Pound's behest, of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man in The Egoist. Joyce's poem is not written in free verse, but in rhyming quatrains. However, it does strongly reflect Pound's interest in poems written to be sung to music, such as the troubadours and Cavalcanti.

Related Topics:
W.B. Yeats - A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - The Egoist - Rhyming - Quatrain - Music

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The book met with little popular or critical success, at least partly because it had no introduction or commentary to explain what the poets were attempting to do, and a number of copies were returned to the publisher.

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