Modernist Poetry. Imagism

Question 1

Imagist aesthetics (6)

Answer 1

1. Poetry of the hard image
2. Rejection of narrative of discursive elements
3. Rejection of metaphysics
4. Against subjectivity and emotion
5. Conciseness and freedom
6. Revival of antiquity and “primitive”

Question 2

Imagism: Ezra Pound

Answer 2

Started with imagist poetry producing hard images, juxtapositions.
Turned to focus on translations and adaptations. (“Cathay”)

1920s:
-Left imagism + similarities with T.S. Eliot
- Poems complaining about world, society, etc.
- Disillusion with society.
- Pessimistic view, art has no place in this modern society.
“Hugh Selwyn Mauberley”

By the end of his work life his language become even more extreme and harder to follow
Mid 19th century: “Cantos”

Question 3

Imagism: T.S. Eliot (NOT IMAGIST POET)

Answer 3

Expert on metaphysical poetry and empirical and rationalist writing.

• Early work
• Critics about Elizabethan drama
  - Problem: dissociation of sensibility
  - Solution: art
  - Poetry can unify dissociated sensibility and establish a dialogue between past and present
  - “The Waste Land”