Clarity of expression through the use of precise visual images.

Imagism was largely a response to genteel, Victorian verse which imitated Tennyson, using thick, rhetorical language

Such poetics are called “genteel” because of their refusal to deal with gritty issues

A new poetics had to be invented: Imagism To kill the Victorian apathy, Imagists aspired “to

use absolutely no word that does not contribute to the presentation” and “to compose in sequence of the musical phrase, not in sequence of the metronome”

Influenced by T.E. Hume, symbolists, and Asian forms

IN A STATION AT THE METROThe apparition of these faces in the crowd;Petals on a wet, black bough.

•Born in Idaho in 1885•Studied at the University of Pennsylvania and Hamilton College•Travelled throughout Europe in the early 20th Century aiding many different writers—James Joyce and Ernest Hemingway among them•Founded Imagism when he submitted a poem to Poetry for HD, calling her an “Imagiste”•Heavily influenced by Asiatic verse forms—like the haiku and tanku

HD was born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania in 1886

Studied with Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams at the University of Pennsylvania

Left for Europe 1911, intending to stay for only a summer, but spent the rest of her life abroad

Wrote a famous imagist poem titled “Oread”

Was psychoanalyzed by Freud

“[The poet] is and is not outcast, is and is not a social alien, is and is not a normal human being, she is borderline.” ~HD

Williams Carlos Williams, Amy Lowell, Richard Aldington, James Joyce, DH Lawrence

Imagism considered a movement by 1914 with publication of Imagist anthology

Imagism was dead by 1917; its token poets had abandoned it—Ezra Pound calling it “Amyism”

Had lasting effect on Modernists, neo-Symbolists, surrealists, the Beats, and even the New Formalists

http://faculty.gvsu.edu/websterm/imagism.htm http://www.unc.edu/news/archives/jan06/victorian010506.htm http://www.nndb.com/people/655/000103346/ http://www.zazzle.com.au/fin_de_siecle_tattooed_woman_postcard-

239701012746445919 http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/161 http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/21045 http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poet.html?id=80773 http://www.findingdulcinea.com/features/profiles/w/william-carlos-

williams.html http://www.quotesandsayings.com/quotes/dh-lawrence/ http://bluehydrangeas.wordpress.com/2006/10/03/amy-lowell/ http://www.world-class-poetry.com/Imagism.html http://www-sul.stanford.edu/depts/hasrg/ablit/amerlit/ginsberg.html http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5658