Imagist Poetry Is in Many Ways the Term Paper

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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.

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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….....

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