On H.D.'s page the site defines Imagist poems as "austere in structure and diction, [blending] mythology and symbolist techniques to create a verse form that was classical yet modern, spare yet complex" [VIEW PAGE].
The timeline shows that Amy Lowell hosted a "rival" party on July 30, 1914, following the Blast celebration dinner on July 15. Lowell's party was attended not by Ezra Pound, but by H.D., Richard Aldington, D.H. Lawrence, and John Gould Fletcher [VIEW PAGE].
The term "rival party" indicates a competition between Pound, Lewis, and the Blast gang on the one hand, and the others mentioned above. Yet Pound had already published Des Imagistes in March 1914. He engaged in a skirmish with Lowell about who "invented" Imagism:
- My dear Amy: Are you going to get onto the Band Wagon?
You tried to stampede me into accepting as my artistic equals various people whom it would have been rank hypocrisy for me to accept in any such manner. There is no democracy in the arts. And now what is this nonsense you write to Miss Anderson about "bitterest" enmities? - (from The Letters of Ezra Pound, 1907-1941)
I find a difference of attitude between the way in which Modernist ideas are presented in Blast and the way the same types of ideas are presented in the imagist poetry. Blast directly renounces the elitism and snobbery of England that Pound and Lewis are fervently against, whereas the imagist poetry takes a more subtle stance against wealth and class because the themes of the imagist poems are centered around nature and perception, not directly renouncing anything in particular, but focusing on themes that are opposite of the things that they disdain. Indirectly, the imagist poetry entirely excludes any notion of elitist attitudes or class disparities, instead focusing primarily on universal beauty and ideas that transcend money or status. Nature is free and beautiful to all, regardless of class or ideals.
ReplyDeleteIf Archibald Macleish’s “Ars Poetica” is an encapsulation of Imagism, than H.D.’s definition of Imagism is incredibly skewed. Following MacLeish’s message that if a poem has no meaning, but just is, then categorization and description are futile and an attempt to austerely define the structure and content of an imagist poem is useless. No, Macleish’s poem is not consistent with H.D.’s rigid description of what an imagist poem is or should be. Although, this is only true if there is a general concensus that “Ars Poetica” is the manifesto poem that is used as a guideline for what an imagist poem is, something that merely is.
I notice of the selections that we read from Blaisdell’s Imagist Anthology, H.D. appears to be the only poet that has a penchant for writing her poems around the ideas of mythology. Nearly every one of her poems makes one or more reference to Greek mythological characters and places. Because of this, I thought that her poems stood apart from the rest. This fact leads me to believe that she had a steadfast and unchangeable notion of what Imagism is and should be, whereas the others like Pound, Stevens and Willams seemed to observe the potential malleability and shaping of what Imagism meant to them.
Blast declares that "WE ONLY WANT THE WORLD TO LIVE, and to feel it's crude energy flowing through us." (With all those capitals, do you get the sense that Pound and Eliot would be terrible at texting?) This idea seems to be directly paralleled in "Ars Poetica" and MacLeish's claim that poems "should not mean / But be." The whole thing feels like an early iteration of the hippie attitude, the granola mentality as applied to literature.
ReplyDeleteI'm drawn to Signi Lenea Falk's assertion that "Ars Poetica" is the "ultimate expression of the art-for-art's-sake tenet." I often wonder what these authors would think of the way their work is analyzed by critics. The notion that a poem can simply exist without meaning--or at least without the dissection that attempts to imply meaning--almost feels like a luxury. Since we're all trained to look for meaning, I recognize the paradox in MacLeish's sentiment, but it would be nice to take a more res ipsa loquitor approach to poetry, which is something the Imagists, with their bent toward directness, seem to do. Let the thing speak for itself and just be in the world.
I agree with Shanna in that there's an openness to the Imagism of Pound, Stevens, and Williams that doesn't seem to exist in H.D.'s poems. Hers is a more narrow definition of Imagism where others seem to regard it as a combination of free-flow and structure, what Richard Aldington describes in the introduction to our text as "a hardness... individuality of rhythm... a whole lot of don'ts." This definition feels at once prescriptive and unconditional, an odd juxtaposition that seems to fit with the spirit of Modernism.
H.D.'s definition of Imagist Poetry seems wholly conducive to the kinds of verse she writes--but this is not true for the other Imagist poets. As Shanna has expressed, H.D.'s poetry seems to consistently call upon mythology and allusion ("Eurydice"...epigraphs from Sappho) but I don't think that this focus on symbolic imagery is actually what MacLeish's "Ars Poetica" calls for. Indeed while MacLeish calls for a poem to be "...motionless in time / As the moon climbs"--arguably an alignment with H.D.'s focus on recollections of mythology that "transcend" time--MacLeish's "poem" is also "An empty doorway and a maple leaf" in SPITE of any "history of grief." H.D.'s need to DEFINE imagist poetry, I think, inherently sets boundaries and frameworks that limit the extent to which her verse can branch outwards. I think that her "spare but complex" ideology contrasts with a much more simplistic "being" or existence that MacLeish calls for. The poem can be silent--not austere.
ReplyDeleteIlyssa, I like how you used MacLeish's door/leaf metaphor to reveal the inherent flimsiness of H.D's definition of Imagism. As you said H.D "inherently sets boundaries and frameworks that limit the extent to which her verse can branch outwards."
DeleteThe difference between H.D's definition and MacLeish's also reveals how difficult it is to reconcile poets from opposing factions. Take, for example, Pound, Lowell and BLAST! vs. Lowell and the "rivals." These people didn't like each other. Pound's letter to Lowell suggests as much.
Pound's modernist mantra is "make it new." Accordingly, the need to always be new, may have meant trampling on fellow poets in order to get to uncharted territory. To that point, I love this line from Pound's letter to Lowell: "There is no democracy in the arts."
I also found H.D's use of mythology interesting in that it significantly opposes MacLeish's insistence that a poem "should not mean, but be". H.D's allusions to mythological characters and events makes us refer to the past. As I was reading H.D., I found myself constantly looking up the Greek names of her poems, and what they could possibly allude to.
ReplyDeleteBy refering to any kind of history, the piece is no longer "motionless in time". Stylistically, H.D's treatment of the past does "make it new", as Pound later demanded, but I felt that a "direct treatment of the subject" was missing. By doing this, H.D. doesn't seem to be as concerned with fastening herself to specific manifesto limitations, in the same way Pound and MacLeish do.
And so, the ideas expounded in BLAST! are compatible with imagist principles, but they are extremist versions of these principles that transcend just the treatment of poetry writing to a whole kind of avant-garde lifestyle that may have been difficult for many to adhere to.