THE IMAGISTS - by Louis Untermeyer
Sandburg established himself as the most daring user
of American words — rude words ranging from the racy metaphors of the soil to the slang of the street. But even
before this, the possibilities of a new vocabulary were being tested. As early as 1865, Whitman was saying, "We must have new words, new potentialities of
speech — an American range of self-expression. . . . The new times, the new people need a tongue according, yes,
and what is more, they will have such a tongue — will
not be satisfied until it is evolved."
It is curious to think that one of the most effective
agents to fulfil Whitman's prophecy and free modern
poetry from its mouldering diction was that little band
of preoccupied specialists, the Imagists. They were, for
all their preciosity and occasional extravagances, prophets of
freedom — liberators in the sense that their programs, pronouncements and propaganda compelled even their
most dogged adversaries to acknowledge the integrity of their aims. Their restatement of old truths was one of
the things which helped the new poetry out of a bog of rhetorical rubbish.
Ezra Pound was the first to gather the insurgents into
a definite group. During the winter of 1913, he collected
a number of poems illustrating the Imagist point of view
and had them printed in a volume: Des Imagistes (1914).
A little later Pound withdrew from the clan. The rather
queerly assorted group began to disintegrate and Amy Lowell,
then in England, brought the best of the younger members together in three yearly anthologies
(Some
Imagist Poets) which appeared in 1915, 1916 and 1917.
There were, in Miss Lowell's new grouping, three Englishmen (D. H.
Lawrence, Richard Aldington, F. S.
Flint), three Americans (" H. D.," John Gould
Fletcher, Amy Lowell), and their creed, summed up in
six articles of faith, was as follows:
1. To use the language of common speech, but to employ
always the exact word, not the merely decorative word.
2. To create new rhythms—as the expression of new moods.
We do not insist upon " free-verse" as the only method of
writing poetry. . . . We do believe that the individuality of
a poet may often be better expressed in free verse than in
conventional forms.
3. To allow absolute freedom in the choice of subject.
4. To present an image (hence the name: "Imagist"). We
are not a school of painters, but we believe that poetry should
render particulars exactly and not deal in vague generalities,
however magnificent and sonorous.
5. To produce poetry that is hard and clear, never blurred
or indefinite.
6. Finally, most of us believe that concentration is the very
essence of poetry.
It does not seem possible that these six obvious and
almost platitudinous principles, which the Imagists so
often neglected in their poetry, could have evoked the
storm of argument, fury and downright vilification that
broke as soon as the militant Amy Lowell began to
champion them. Far from being revolutionary, these
principles were not new; they were not even thought so
by their sponsors. The Imagists themselves realized they
were merely restating ideals which had fallen into
desuetude, and declared, " They are the essentials of all
great poetry, indeed of all great literature." And yet
many conservative critics, joined by the one hundred per
cent reactionaries, rushed wildly to combat these "heresies "!
They forgot that, in trying to protect the
future from such lawlessness as "using the exact word,"
from allowing " freedom in the choice of subject," from
the importance of " concentration," they were actually
attacking the highest traditions of their enshrined past.
The controversy succeeded in doing even more than
the work of the Imagists themselves. " H. D." remained
in England, perfecting her delicate and exquisitely finished
designs. John Gould Fletcher, a more vacillating
expatriate, continued to strengthen his gift and shift his
standards; his later and richer work is in almost flat
opposition to the early pronouncements. Miss Lowell
was left to carry on the battle single -handed; to defend
the theories which, in practice, she was beginning to violate
brilliantly. By all odds, the most energetic and unflagging
experimenter, Miss Lowell's versatility became amazing.
She has wielded a controversial cudgel with one hand
and, with the other, she has written Chaucerian stanzas,
polyphonic prose, monologs in her native New England
dialect, irregular vers libre, conservative couplets, translations
from the French, echoes from the Japanese, even
primitive re-creations of Indian folk-lore!
The work of the Imagists was done. Its members
began to develop themselves by themselves. They had helped to swell the tide of realistic and romantic
naturalism — a tide of which their contribution was merely
one wave, a high breaker that carried its impact far inshore.
reprinted from: Modern American Poetry
copyright 1921, Harcourt, Brace and Company, Inc.
celebrates poetry as a colorful, dramatic and humanistic art form.
