Peter Jones (14)

This is a good introductory volume on Imagist Poetry, including an introduction, a selection of poems from most of the main poets, as well as an appendix with a couple of their letters and the prefaces to the original anthologies, and a brief biography of each poet featured.
The introduction of 30 pages gives a concise history of the movement, which was started by Ezra Pound and some like-minded contemporaries around 1912. They published their own Imagist anthologies between 1914 and 1917, shifting leadership from Pound who left early on to join the Vorticism movement. Most of the members were either Americans that came over to London, or British poets also living in London. Some of the original members went on to become very big names in modernist poetry, some faded into obscurity, and others became well-known writers of other sorts.
The stated aims of the Imagist movement focused around the use of clearly described, precise images, together with the use of "free verse" where appopriate. They believed that this gave more freedom than the constraints of particular meters and styles, allowing more focus to be placed on saying exactly what they wanted to say. However they were not too dogmatic, and some wrote in prose, while others did write in standard verse sometimes. They were characterised to some degree by both their experimental approach to format, as well as their fixed belief in a lack of ornamentation and symbolism, while cutting to the point in presenting directly to the senses.
Though the movement did not last long, it had a substantial influence on Modernist poetry in general, both because its gave momentum towards the break away from old-fashioned formats and sentiments of poetry, and because some of the leading figures in Modernism such as T.S. Elliot, Ezra Pound, and William Carlos Williams originally had an association with Imagism, as well as Modernist writers James Joyce and DH Lawrence.
The poems themselves are presented in three general eras. From the Imagist poets before they joined the Imagism, then from the period of the Imagist Anthologies, and finally from the Imagist poets after Imagism had come to an end. This is of some historical interest in the development of modernism as well as showing the lasting effect that Imagism had even after it had faded.
Not all the poems here are great, but there are enough good ones, and a few exceptional ones to make this volume of interest. Those who have any further interest in reading in more depth the works of any of the given poets, or more on the history of the movement, can find all the neccessary references in the bibliography and further suggested reading.
In all, this is a very good introduction to imagism, containing as it does the history and some highlights of the movement, which despite its short life has left a lasting mark on the development of poetry to this day.… (meer)

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Imagism was a movement in early 20th-century Anglo-American poetry that favored precision of imagery and clear, sharp language. The Imagists rejected the sentiment and discursiveness typical of much Romantic and Victorian poetry. This was in contrast to their contemporaries, the Georgian poets, who were by and large content to work within that tradition. Group publication of work under the Imagist name appearing between 1914 and 1917 featured writing by many of the most significant figures in Modernist poetry in English, as well as a number of other Modernist figures prominent in fields other than poetry.

Länk: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imagism… (meer)