Imagism

Imagism, Modernist literary movement that centered on a group of American and English poets whose poetic manifesto was formulated about 1912 by Ezra Pound—in conjunction with fellow poets H.D. (Hilda Doolittle), Richard Aldington, and F.S. Flint. The program of this “school of images” was inspired by the critical views of literary critic and philosopher T.E. Hulme, in revolt against the careless thinking and Romantic optimism that Hulme saw prevailing.

The Imagists wrote succinct verse of dry clarity and hard outline in which an exact visual image made a total poetic statement. The emphasis was on direct and sparse language. Imagism was a successor to the French Symbolist movement, but, whereas Symbolism had an affinity with music, Imagism sought analogy with sculpture. Its other precursors were ancient Greek lyric poetry and Japanese haiku. The three principles of Imagism were as follows:

1. Direct treatment of the “thing” whether subjective or objective.
2. To use absolutely no word that does not contribute to the presentation.
3. As regarding rhythm: to compose in the sequence of the musical phrase, not in sequence of a metronome.

Pound also compiled a list of things that Imagists should avoid while crafting poems, published as “A Few Don’ts” in Poetry magazine in March 1913. Cautions included, “It is better to present one Image in a lifetime than to produce voluminous works” and “Use no superfluous word, no adjective which does not reveal something.”

In 1914 Pound turned to Vorticism, a literary and artistic movement that rejected sentimentality and attempted to relate art to industrialization. Amy Lowell largely took over leadership of the group until it was absorbed by the larger Modernist movement. Among others who wrote Imagist poetry were John Gould Fletcher and Harriet Monroe. Those who were influenced by it in their own poetry include Conrad Aiken, Marianne Moore, Wallace Stevens, D.H. Lawrence, James Joyce, and T.S. Eliot.

The four Imagist anthologies (Des Imagistes, 1914; Some Imagists, 1915, 1916, 1917), and the magazines Poetry (from 1912) and The Egoist (from 1914), in the United States and England, respectively, published the work of a dozen Imagist poets.