Modernism (The Imagists and more)

As you have seen with some of this initial reading, Modernism ushers in a style of poetry and thinking that sought, actively in some cases, to erase or turn a back on many of the main philosophies of the Romantic Tradition. This can be evidenced in the Ezra Pound poem "The Pact," which was written to Walt Whitman, whom Pound often criticized. Pound along with others (H. D. among them) championed a "school" of poetry known as imagism. The following excerpt from some of Pound's essays dictates three of the main philosophies of imagism (see bolded portion of the essay). Pound, as well as being a strong poet, was a figure that was not only important in scholarship/criticism, and for championing a poetic style/"school", but he was also responsible for discovering poets and helping gain them noteriety and furthering their careers. Famously, Pound severely edited T. S. Eliot's "The wasteland," a poem that has become "THE" poem that is associated with Modernism as a movement - it is the public face of Modernism, as it were.

The Modern period was also known as being a period in which radical experimentation takes place, with kanguage, syntax, the primacy of the self as represented by the poet's various speakers'. Think of the vast array of styles we've seen, just in the last week--from WCW's "no ideas but in things," to Stein's language object experiments, to Pound and Eliot's highly and densely Allusive collage-style poems, to Pound's one-image poem "In a Station of the Metro." And this is just the beginning; we'll see more variances as we stay with the Moderns for a couple more weeks.


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Ezra Pound - "A Retrospect"

[A group of early essays and notes which appeared under this title in Pavannes and Divagations (1918). 'A Few Don'ts' was first printed in Poetry, I, 6 (March 1913).

There has been so much scribbling about a new fashion in poetry, that I may perhaps be pardoned this brief recapitulation and retrospect.

In the spring or early summer of 1912, 'H.D.', Richard Aldington and myself decided that we were agreed upon the three principles following:

1. Direct treatment of the 'thing' whether subjective or objective.
2. To use absolutely no word that does not contribute to the presentation.
3.As regarding rhythm: to compose in the sequence of the musical phrase, not in sequence of a metronome.

Upon many points of taste and of predilection we differed, but agreeing upon these three positions we thought we had as much right to a group name, at least as much right, as a number of French 'schools' proclaimed by Mr Flint in the August number of Harold Monro's magazine for 1911.

This school has since been 'joined' or 'followed' by numerous people who, whatever their merits, do not show any signs of agreeing with the second specification. Indeed vers libre has become as prolix and as verbose as any of the flaccid varieties that preceded it. It has brought faults of its own. The actual language and phrasing is often as bad as that of our elders without even the excuse that the words are shovelled in to fill a metric pattern or to complete the noise of a rhyme-sound. Whether or no the phrases followed by the followers are musical must be left to the reader's decision. At times I can find a marked metre in 'vers libres', as stale and hackneyed as any pseudo-Swinburnian, at times the writers seem to follow no musical structure whatever. But it is, on the whole, good that the field should be ploughed. Perhaps a few good poems have come from the new method, and if so it is justified.

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As to Twentieth century poetry, and the poetry which I expect to see written during the next decade or so, it will, I think, move against poppy-cock, it will be harder and saner, it will be what Mr Hewlett calls 'nearer the bone'. It will be as much like granite as it can be, its force will lie in its truth, its interpretative power (of course, poetic force does always rest there); I mean it will not try to seem forcible by rhetorical din, and luxurious riot. We will have fewer painted adjectives impeding the shock and stroke of it. At least for myself, I want it so, austere, direct, free from emotional slither.

What is there now, in 1917, to be added?

WebCT Access Issues

Due to the Issues everyone has had (including myself) with the access to WebCT and other UH websites, I will be extending the deadlines for this week's Blog and discussion for an extra 48-hours.

The due date for the first Paper will not be affected.

Victorians to Modern

Just a few brief statements regarding the Victorians/Early Moderns--as we've been exploring, with passing generations the poetic climate changes, sometimes on a large scale, sometimes on a smaller scale. At times the change is a continuation of past philosophies and techniques, while at other times we a see a sort of erasure--a turning away from precursors. These zigs and zags happen not only as reactions to precursor-poets/poetry, but also as a result of outside cultural/historical influences.

For the Victorian Era (commonly marked out by Queen Victoria's rule of England from 1837-1901), we see a literature that is at least partly affected by changes in technology, which affected Industry (this is after all the height of the Industrial Revolution in Britain); changes also in the sciences, notably the publication of The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin in 1859, which had an effect, among other things on the way people began to view organized religion. Not to say that this applies to all poets, but you can see the questioning of faith in the poems by Hopkins (a Jesuit Minister) and Thomas Hardy (see "Hap" among other poems). The poems of E. A. Robinson also seem to deal with an increasingly urban and industrial England, and the down-trodden characters associated with it.

These are just a few examples-- of course others exist in the poems by Hardy, Yeats and others that deal with War (WW I was obviously a major cultural/historical event that happened at the end of the Victorian era and helped usher in the Modernism (which we will visit in the coming weeks)). As it stands, one contrast to take is the contrast between the lush landscapes of the Romantics and the ones detailed by the poets we read for this week.

A letter from Dickinson to Thomas Wentworth Higginson

Higginson was a a Unitarian minister, an abolitionist, and a well-known literary critic at the time. Dickinson wrote him a letter, accompanied by four of her poems, asking Mr. Higginson to comment on them and tell her if her "Verse is alive." This sparked a correspondence that lasted over 20 years. One thing this goes against is the idea that was once pervaded that Dickinson was hermetic, that she wrote in near-total isolation.

Higginson wrote her back after her initial letter and asked Dickinson to tell him about her background. What follows is Dickinson's response, which, though cryptic and elusive, offers some insight into her make-up as a poet.

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25 April 1862


Mr Higginson,

Your kindness claimed earlier gratitude-but I was ill-and write today, from my pillow.

Thank you for the surgery- it was not so painful as I supposed. I bring you others-as you ask-though they might not differ-

While my thought is undressed-I can make the distinction, but when I put them in the Gown - they look alike, and numb.

You asked how old I was? I made no verse-but one or two-until this winter - Sir-

I had a terror-since September-I could tell to none-and so I sing, as the Boy does by the Burying Ground-because I am afraid- You inquire my Books-For Poets-I have Keats-and Mr and Mrs Browning. For Prose - Mr Ruskin - Sir Thomas Browne - and the Revelations. I went to school-but in your manner of the phrase-had no education. When a little Girl, I had a friend, who taught me Im- mortality-but venturing too near, himself-he never returned-Soon after, my Tutor, died - and for several years, my Lexicon - was my only companion-Then I found one more-but he was not contented I be his scholar-so he left the Land.

You ask of my Companions Hills- Sir-and the Sundown-and a Dog-large as myself, that my Father bought me-They are better than Beings-because they know-but do not tell-and the noise in the Pool, at Noon - excels my Piano. I have a Brother and Sister - My Mother does not care for thought-and Father, too busy with his Briefs - to notice what we do - He buys me many Books - but begs me not to rcad thcm-because he fears they joggle the Mind. They are religious-except me-and address an Eclipse, every morning-whom they call their "Father." But I fear my story fatigues you-I would like to learn-Could you tell me how to grow-or is it unconveyed- like Melody-or Witchcraft?

You speak of Mr Whitman-I never read his Book-but was told that he was disgraceful-

I read Miss Prcscott's "Circumstance," but it followed me, in the Dark-so I avoided her-

Two Editors of Journals came to my Father's House, this winter- and asked me for my Mind-and when I asked them "Why," they said I was penurious - and they, would use it for the World -

I could not weigh myself-Myself-

My size felt small- to me- I read your Chapters in the Atlantic- and experienced honor for you-I was sure you would not reject a confiding question-

Is this- Sir-what you asked me to tell you?

Your friend,
E - Dickinson.

Whitman - A National Poet

For the most part, Whitman wrote one book of poems, Leaves of Grass, which he revised and published in multiple editions throughout the course of his life. With Whitman, whom you just got done reading, we see a lot of the philosophies of the British Romantics given an American twist. By American I mean the kind of Manifest Destiny, conquering the untold wilds of a young and idealistic nation. Whitman felt that "In poems, the young men of The States shall be represented, for they out-rival the best of the rest of the earth." Whitman wrote this in a letter to Emerson in 1856, as a prefatory correspondence to Leaves of Grass.

Following are some of Whitman's own comments concerning his poetry (excerpted from the Norton Critical Edition of Leaves of Grass (pp. 763-770))--

"My poems when complete should be a unity, in the same sense that the earth is, or that the human body, (senses, soul, head, trunk, feet, blood, viscera, man-root, eyes, hair) or that of a perfect musical composition is."

"Indeed, the qualities which characterize "Leaves of Grass" are not the qualities of a fine book or poem or any work of art but the qualities of a living and full-blooded man, amativeness, pride, adhesiveness, curiosity, yearning for immortality, joyousness and sometimes uncertainty."

"Even as a boy, I had the fancy, the wish, to write a piece, perhaps a poem, about the seashore--that suggesting, dividing line, contact, junction, the solid marrying the liquid--that curious, lurking something (as doubtless every objective form finally becomes to the subjective spirit) which means far more than its mere first sight, grand as that is--blending the real and ideal, and each made portion of the other. Hours, days, in my Long Island youth and early manhood, I hunted the shores of Rockaway or Coney Island, or away east to the Hamptons or Montauk. Once, at the latter lace (by the old lighthouse, nothing but sea-tossings in sight in every direction as far as the eye could reach), I remember well, I felt that I must one day write a book expressing this liquid, mystic theme. Afterward, I recollect, how it came to me that insead of any special lyrical or epical or literary attempt, the seashore should be an invisible influence, a pervading gauge and tally for me, in my composition."

"I will not reject any theme or subject because the treatment is too personal. As my stuff settles into sae, I am told (and sometimes myself discover, uneasily, but feel all right abut it in calmer moments) it is mainly autobiographic, and even egotistic after all--which i finally accept, and am contented so."