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Imagism was a movement in early-20th-century Anglo-American poetry that favored precision of and clear, sharp language. It is considered to be the first organized modernist literary movement in the English language. Imagism is sometimes viewed as "a succession of creative moments" rather than a continuous or sustained period of development. The French academic René Taupin remarked that "it is more accurate to consider Imagism not as a doctrine, nor even as a poetic school, but as the association of a few poets who were for a certain time in agreement on a small number of important principles". The Imagists rejected the sentiment and discursiveness typical of Romantic and Victorian poetry. In contrast to the contemporary Georgian poets, who were generally content to work within that tradition, Imagists called for a return to more Classical values, such as directness of presentation, economy of language, and a willingness to experiment with non-traditional verse forms; Imagists used free verse. A characteristic feature of the form is its attempt to isolate a single image to reveal its essence. This mirrors contemporary developments in avant-garde art, especially Cubism. Although these poets isolate objects through the use of what the American poet Ezra Pound called "luminous details", Pound's ideogrammic method of juxtaposing concrete instances to express an abstraction is similar to Cubism's manner of synthesizing multiple perspectives into a single image. Imagist publications appearing between 1914 and 1917 featured works by many of the most prominent modernist figures in poetry and other fields, including Pound, H.D. (Hilda Doolittle), Amy Lowell, Ford Madox Ford, William Carlos Williams, F. S. Flint, and T. E. Hulme. The Imagists were centered in London, with members from Great Britain, Ireland and the United States. Somewhat unusually for the time, a number of women writers were major Imagist figures. The origins of Imagism are to be found in two poems, Autumn and A City Sunset by T. E. Hulme.

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Related concepts (15)

Imagism

Modernist poetry

Modernist poetry refers to poetry written between 1890 and 1950 in the tradition of modernist literature, but the dates of the term depend upon a number of factors, including the nation of origin, the particular school in question, and the biases of the critic setting the dates. The critic/poet C. H. Sisson observed in his essay Poetry and Sincerity that "Modernity has been going on for a long time. Not within living memory has there ever been a day when young writers were not coming up, in a threat of iconoclasm.

Ezra Pound

Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an expatriate American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a collaborator in Fascist Italy and the Salò Republic during World War II. His works include Ripostes (1912), Hugh Selwyn Mauberley (1920), and his 800-page epic poem, The Cantos (1917–1962). Pound's contribution to poetry began in the early 20th century with his role in developing Imagism, a movement stressing precision and economy of language.