ENG340b
Professor V. Levchev
Final Paper
Imagism and Symbolism: American Poets in Europe
The key aspects discussed in this paper are American Imagists in Europe in the beginning and the middle of 20th century. However, everything has its roots and its beginnings. The same way imagism movement initially developed from symbolism, very popular literary movement of the end of 19th century, which influenced most of the imagist poets.
Symbolism was an art movement originated in France, Belgium and Russia in the end of the
19th century, which remained prominent almost until the end of the World War II. This movement was a reaction to the predominating at that time standards and rules of realism. It appeared as a new manifestation of the romanticism and was concerned about preserving individualism in the modern world, absorbed by the mass culture.1 Usually being enclosed in free verse, symbolism was about expression of author’s personal emotions. It handled very composite feelings that appeared from the everyday life in the world and was rather about evoking than about describing. It used an object, person, colour or just a word in order to represent or describe something else. It was used when an author wanted to create some specific mood or any given emotion in his piece.2
Being tired of realism, Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot, introduced symbolism to the America.
Nevertheless, Pound was looking for something else, for something new in his poetry and, along with some other British and American poets, created imagism in 1910–1912. Keeping free verse taken from symbolism, these poets were long for the “clarity of expression through the use of precise visual images”.3 Their main goal was to use common language and exact words in their poems, avoiding nearly-exact and decorative words. They advised using the direct meaning and

treatment of the word instead of objective or subjective, getting rid of the unnecessary words that contribute nothing to the piece and creating an image, instead of pompous and fussy text. In 1913,
Ezra Pound, published his suggestion for enthusiastic imagist poets: “An 'Image' is that which presents an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time. . . . It is the presentation of such a 'complex' instantaneously which gives the sense of sudden liberation; that sense of freedom from time limits and space limits; that sense of sudden growth, which we experience in the greatest works of art.”
The founder and the the chief theorist of the imagism is considered to be Ezra Pound.
Throughout his life he found a lot of the followers and soon imagism became one of the most influential literary movements of the 20th century. Nevertheless, there are not that many names in the list to mention. Even though this movement was very popular at the time, it was rather a small group of people who moved it forward. Those are Hilda Doolittle (H.D), Amy Lowell, William
Carlos Williams and a few others.
Ezra Pound, one of the most influential writers of the 20th century in English and American literature, was born in Idaho, USA, in 1885. In 1901 he entered the University of Pennsylvania, but later transferred to the Hamilton College in New York, where he studied philosophy. At this point of life, Pound understood that he wants to write poetry, but couldn’t develop himself as a poet in culturally stagnated America. In 1908 with only $100 he sailed to Europe. His first destination was
Venice, Italy. Being confident that Europe is the place to make his own name in the world of poetry,
Pound published his first book “A Lume Spento.” Even though his first try was not very successful, poet did not despair and decided to move to London. There he found success he was looking for and his later works justified his hopes and made him famous. As his friend and colleague T.S. Eliot said,
“During a crucial decade in the history of modern literature, approximately 1912–1922, Pound was the most influential and in some ways the best poet and critic in England or America.”4

One of the most interesting examples of imagism in the poetry of Ezra Pound can be found in his poem “The Return.” This poem, realised in the free verse and tempered by metrical accuracy, is the centrepiece of his art. It is about seasoned hunters, who decided to return to a hunt, which they didn’t participate in for a while, and are now scared to try their powers again. The most interesting thing about this poem is that the it has absolutely no outside reference or explanation, as the idea just evoked the whole atmosphere by itself without support on any external plot.
Furthermore, the hunters’ uncertainty regarding returning to a hunt is matched to the readers’ uncertainty regarding recognising acquainted scenario in the poem. This sense of uncertainty that
Pound tries to transmit helps to feel the movement and the mode (in other words the image) of his poem rather than its content.5
“See, they return; ah, see the tentative
Movements, and the slow feet,
The trouble in the pace and the uncertain
Wavering!”
Another very notable imagist poet, who was very famous in the poetic circles during her life and became even more famous in her afterlife, is Hilda Doolittle (also known as “H.D.” as she signed her poetry this way). H.D was born in Pennsylvania, USA in 1886. During her high school years she met and befriended Ezra Pound, who was important in her private life and in her emergence as a writer. In 1907 she and Pound engaged, but when he went to Europe their engagement was broke. After living for a few more years in America she decided to move to Europe as well, and upon arrival to London she started writing as professional more seriously. Pound played a huge role in her standing as an imagist and shared his ideas with her. Together they created
“H.D.” signature as a label of her new imagist poetry and achieved success. Nevertheless, during the WWI, Hilda’s brother died and her marriage with the poet Richard Adlington fell apart. These events influenced her poetry heavily by making it more sad and lonely. She was interested in

Ancient Greek art, and her poetry sometimes had elements of Greek culture and mythology. She was famous for bringing natural scenes to the poetry, which helped a reader to evoke some particular feeling or emotion. During the 1930s she became friends with Sigmund Freud, who helped her to understand her bisexuality. She was married only once, but had a lot of different relationships and connections with men and women. She never regretted her bisexuality and later became an idol for the gay rights movements. In the 1970s and 1980s her essays and poems were rediscovered and she became even more popular, especially among feminist movements.6
One of the earliest and most notable H.D.’s poems is “Oread”. Even though it is very short and concise (it is only 26 words long), it creates an image of an ocean in the brain. As it was mentioned above, imagism is all about “direct treatment of the thing”. Poets of this movement get directly to the main idea of the matter, avoiding any pompous and fussy words or rhymes. They write about the matter itself. In the given poem there are only two objects: the shore, and the sea.
There is nothing else. And this is how imagist poem is supposed to look like. The great thing about this piece is how amazingly visual it is, as while reading it you look at the picture of this ocean.
There is a whole world concluded in these six lines and twenty six words.7
“Whirl up, sea— whirl your pointed pines, splash your great pines on our rocks, hurl your green over us, cover us with your pools of fir.”
And the last, but not the least poet to be discussed in this paper is Amy Lowell. She was born in Massachusetts in 1874. In her childhood she was educated at home and then went to the private school. During this age she traveled a few times with her family to Europe. From an early age she knew she is going to be a poet.8 Later on she admitted her homosexuality and intimate

relationship with Ada Russell. A lot of Lowell’s poetry containing sexual implications were dedicated to Russell. In 1912 they moved together to London, where Amy got acquainted with the poetry of Ezra Pound. His work impressed her much and later influenced her own poetry. She became very interested in the imagist movement. However, Pound himself believed that her poetry lacks true imagism ideas and called her “Amygist”. Nevertheless, her words that “concentration is of the very essence of poetry” and “produce poetry that is hard and clear, never blurred nor indefinite” were greatly supported by other imagist pioneers. After the return to America she successfully campaigned imagist movement there. As she explored the movement even further, she discovered “polyphonic prose”, mixing free with formal verse. In 1925 she died, and won Pulitzer
Prize post mortem.9
What can be specifically mentioned about Amy Lowell is her wonderful ability to reflect her feelings in light and colour of a poem. For example, one of her most famous poems “Patterns.” This poem has full gamma of lights, shadows and colours, but they are used not to describe, but rather to reflect emotional and intellectual state of the poet at a certain moment.8 The relationship between colours and shadows in the poem draws a parallel to the emotions and loneliness of Lowell. The author uses external objects as an objective correlative to her inner state. The polyphonic prose mentioned above can be noticed here.10
“For my passion
Wars against the stiff brocade.
The daffodils and squalls
Flutter in the breeze
As they please”
To conclude with, imagism movement emerged very fast and indeed broke most of the concepts of realism. It successfully established the idea of creating an image or a picture of the poem instead of writing long and complicated sentences. Imagist poets get right to the matter,

instead of walking around. They use only exact words to describe an object or a feeling, avoiding excessive conglomerations. Movement’s main theorist Ezra Pound along with his followers successfully brought their ideas to life and founded new, unlike anything before style of poetry, which will forever remain in the history of literature.

Bibliography
1. “Poetic Modes: Symbolism, Imagism, Modernism.” Poetic Modes: Symbolism, Imagism,
Modernism. Web. 3 May 2015. .
2. “Symbolism.” Writers History. Web. 3 May 2015. .
3. “Imagism.” Poets.org. Academy of American Poets. Web. 3 May 2015. .
4. “Ezra Pound.” Bio.com. A&E Networks Television. Web. 3 May 2015. .
5. “The Return.” Poets.org. Academy of American Poets. Web. 3 May 2015. .
6. “H. D.” Poetry Foundation. Poetry Foundation. Web. 3 May 2015. .
7. “Oread.” Poetry Foundation. Poetry Foundation. Web. 3 May 2015. .
8. “Amy Lowell.” Poets.org. Academy of American Poets. Web. 3 May 2015. .
9. “On Lowell, Pound, and Imagism.” On Lowell, Pound, and Imagism. Web. 3 May 2015. .
10. “Patterns.” Poetry Foundation. Poetry Foundation. Web. 3 May 2015. .