Toward a Cognitive Rhetoric of Imagism
2004; University of Arkansas Press; Volume: 38; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
2374-6629
Autores Tópico(s)Discourse Analysis in Language Studies
Resumois dead; long live Imagists! --Glenn Hughes (Imagist 23) 1. On Imagism was Imagism? is not an easy question to answer. For example, Ezra Pound called Stanley Coffman's 1951 book, Imagism: A Chapter for History of Modern Poetry, nuts several times (Cole 248), and Pound would no doubt take issue with most histories of Imagism. Even so, this has not prevented critics from trying to understand Imagism. For John Fuller, although seems absurdly provincial, its aims were at centre of whole modernist programme in (72). Likewise, David Perkins calls Imagism the grammar school of modern (329), while Jacob Korg sees Imagism as a corrective to nineteenth-and early twentieth-century poetry (127). For his part, Joseph Frank claims Imagism opened way for later developments by its clean break with sentimental Victorian verbiage (10-11). Because Imagism succeeds Symbolism yet precedes Surrealism, it is situated at dawn of classical literary modernism (Zach 229), (1) which is why teleological literary histories regard Imagism as the beginning of modern literature in English (Pratt 75). If such claims are true, then clearly Imagism mattered regardless of whatever else might be said about movement. Most of poets involved with Imagism were based in London between 1912 and 1918. Three British poets (Richard Aldington, F. S. Flint, and D. H. Lawrence) and four American poets (Pound, H. D., Amy Lowell, and John Gould Fletcher) were more or less core group members (Jones 13). T. E. Hulme, a British writer who died in 1917 in World War I, was an influential figure for before 1914. (2) The word itself might have been used publicly for first time in 1912, when Pound wrote HD, Imagiste at bottom of Hermes of Ways before sending H. D.'s poem to Harriet Monroe at Poetry in Chicago. In 1915 F. S. Flint claimed, however, that Hulme had actually used term first at his Poet's Club meetings before 1912 (de Chasca 75), so origin of term remains in dispute. What do know for sure is that four Imagist anthologies were published between 1914 and 1918. Pound edited March 1914 anthology, Des Imagistes, while Lowell edited remaining three anthologies, all titled Some Imagist Poets, which appeared in April 1915, May 1916, and April 1917, respectively. Although nearly became known as Quintessentials in early 1915 when Lowell was negotiating with Ferris Greenslet, Houghton Mifflin's poetry editor, Greenslet rejected name change due to his sense that 'Imagism' had a certain mercantile value (de Chasca 75). This may be why some see Imagism as little more than publicity stunt even if it was more than that. To keep my terms clear for purposes of this article, by I mean a poet whose poetry appeared in one of four original Imagist anthologies. Between Pound's collection (which had eleven contributors) and Lowell's three collections (which each had same six contributors), we have a total of thirteen writers who may possibly be considered Imagists (Imagist 24). There were 35 poems in 1914 anthology, 37 poems in 1915 anthology, 32 poems in 1916 anthology, and 26 poems in 1917 anthology. Thus, there were 130 Imagist poems written by thirteen bona fide Imagist poets. That excludes Imagist poems published elsewhere as well as thirty new poems published in Imagist Anthology 1930. (3) These tallies remind us that number of Imagist poems and number of Imagist poets are rather limited ones. Why, then, should such a small movement receive so much attention over years? One answer comes from literary history: Imagism, a campaign for free verse (Roberts, Lawrence 82), included some major twentieth-century writers. In his Foreword to Imagist Anthology 1930, Glenn Hughes argued that many became well-known world figures after Imagism (24), which is one reason why Imagism has not been forgotten. …
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