Imagism in Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams and Marianne Moore
Q) What philosophy do Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams and Marianne Moore share?
A) Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams and Marianne Moore were all modernist poets. Modernist poetry deals with experiment and innovation. All three were imagists, though at a later stage, William Carlos Williams started disagreeing with Ezra Pound.
Ezra Pound
Ezra Pound was the most aggressive of the modernist poets, who made “Make it new!” his battle cry. He turned to classical Chinese poetry as his source for inspiration. He was the most influential figures of the modernist period, and influenced contemporaries like W. B. Yeats, Robert Frost, William Carlos Williams, Marianne Moore, H. D, James Joyce, Ernest Hemmingway, and most importantly, T. S. Eliot. He promulgated a movement in poetry called Imagism, a movement which derived its technique from classical Chinese and Japanese poetry, and which stressed clarity, precision, and economy of language, forgoing traditional rhyme and metre in order to, in Pound’s words, “compose in the sequence of the musical phrase, not in the sequence of metronome.”
Pound evolved Imagism as a reaction against abstraction and Victorian generalities in favour of the precision and clarity found in Japanese haiku and ancient Greek lyrics. His promulgation of Imagism was aided largely by his encounter with Noh theatre of Japan, and the Chinese written character in the work of the scholar Ernest Fenollosa whose papers were entrusted to him by Fenollosa’s widow.
An example of his imagist poetry is given below:
Green arsenic smeared on an egg-white cloth,
Crushed strawberries! Come, let us feast our eyes.
- “L’art 1910”
The above poem is perhaps the shortest dramatic monologue on record. This poem presents the poet/speaker and his interlocutor before a painting (assumption from the clashing colours on the white cloth). That bright green and red stand in contrast to the canvas. The language registers
A) Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams and Marianne Moore were all modernist poets. Modernist poetry deals with experiment and innovation. All three were imagists, though at a later stage, William Carlos Williams started disagreeing with Ezra Pound.
Ezra Pound
Ezra Pound was the most aggressive of the modernist poets, who made “Make it new!” his battle cry. He turned to classical Chinese poetry as his source for inspiration. He was the most influential figures of the modernist period, and influenced contemporaries like W. B. Yeats, Robert Frost, William Carlos Williams, Marianne Moore, H. D, James Joyce, Ernest Hemmingway, and most importantly, T. S. Eliot. He promulgated a movement in poetry called Imagism, a movement which derived its technique from classical Chinese and Japanese poetry, and which stressed clarity, precision, and economy of language, forgoing traditional rhyme and metre in order to, in Pound’s words, “compose in the sequence of the musical phrase, not in the sequence of metronome.”
Pound evolved Imagism as a reaction against abstraction and Victorian generalities in favour of the precision and clarity found in Japanese haiku and ancient Greek lyrics. His promulgation of Imagism was aided largely by his encounter with Noh theatre of Japan, and the Chinese written character in the work of the scholar Ernest Fenollosa whose papers were entrusted to him by Fenollosa’s widow.
An example of his imagist poetry is given below:
Green arsenic smeared on an egg-white cloth,
Crushed strawberries! Come, let us feast our eyes.
- “L’art 1910”
The above poem is perhaps the shortest dramatic monologue on record. This poem presents the poet/speaker and his interlocutor before a painting (assumption from the clashing colours on the white cloth). That bright green and red stand in contrast to the canvas. The language registers