Suggestion — the implying of something rather than the stating of it, implying it perhaps
under a metaphor, perhaps in an even less obvious way.
This poem of Mr. Fletcher’s is an excellent example of Imagist
suggestion:
THE WELL
The well is not used now
Its waters are tainted.
I remember there was once a man went down
To clean it.
He found it very cold and deep,
With a queer niche in one of its sides,
From which he hauled forth buckets of bricks and dirt.
The picture as given is quite clear and vivid. But the picture we see is not the poem,
the real poem lies beyond, is only suggested.
Of the poets we have been considering in these essays, Mr. Robinson is most nearly
allied to the Imagists in the use of suggestion; but the technique he employs is quite
unlike theirs. In Mr. Sandburg’s " Limited," which I quoted in the last chapter,
suggestion again is the poem, and hi’s treatment of it there is almost Imagistic.
It must not be forgotten that however many rules and tenets we may analyze, such
mechanical labour can never give the touchstone to style. That must lie in a sense which
is beyond reason. As Matthew Arnold said of the grand style, "one must feel it."
It is possible to determine the work of different painters by their brush strokes, but
such knowledge is for the expert alone, and then only for purposes of authenticity. The
layman who had no way of telling the work of Titian from that of Watteau by any other
method than that of brush strokes, would make a poor connoisseur.
I could go minutely into the work of these poets and show how each differs from the
other — the varying modes of expression, the individual ways of using words, the changing
progression of the phrases, the subtle originality of rhythms — but any one who could
intelligently follow such an analysis would have no difficulty in determining Imagist work
per se; and those who could not tell it at a glance, would find such hair-splitting
dissection totally incomprehensible.
A few broad lines, then, shall serve us here, and I trust that, before I have finished,
the reader will be incapable of making the blunder of that recent critic, who placed Mr.
Frost and Mr. Masters in the Imagist group.
I have shown certain aspects of the Imagist idiom, but we must not lose sight of the
fact that all these barriers are arbitrary, and fade somewhat into each other. Much of
this idiom is applicable to the other poets whom we have been considering, as well; some
of it is peculiar to the Imagists. But it is principally in their manner of dealing with
the idiom that we shall find the difference to lie. Let me insist once more that Imagism
is only one section of a larger movement to which the six poets of these essays all
belong. (pp. 235-249)Timothy Materer
In 1914 D. H. Lawrence told Amy Lowell that Ezra Pound’s imagism
was "just an advertising scheme." He might have added, "but what an
advertising scheme!" As we will see, his suspicions of Pound the propagandist were
justified. But Amy Lowell appreciated the importance of imagism better than Lawrence did
because she was still a relatively unknown artist. Pound coined the term imagism in
1912 to help market some poems by H.D. (Hilda Doolittle) that he was sending to Poetry
magazine. Since H.D. had published nothing to date, Pound shrewdly reasoned that her work
would be more readily accepted if she were identified with a group of poets. Pound
appended to the manuscript the words "H.D., Imagiste" and explained to Poetry’s
editor, Harriet Monroe, that H.D.’s poems were written "in the laconic speech of the
Imagistes." When Amy Lowell read H.D.’s poems in the January 1913 Poetry, she
felt her own identity as a poet had been defined. Not only Lowell but all aspiring poets,
including some hostile to Pound’s movement such as Conrad Aiken, now had to define
themselves in relation to this new literary phenomenon. Harriet Monroe referred to the
"battle for Imagism" to indicate the central importance the movement had in the
pages of her journal. More important to Pound, however, was the larger battle to establish
what he called "our modern experiment." The rapid rise and fall of imagism
provided the context in which Pound developed his conception of modernism.
In addition to inventing a catchy name for the movement, Pound used two additional
advertising strategies. When Lowell first heard of the movement, she was intrigued that
its name was French. She was thus seduced by an old but still powerful technique for
publicizing cultural movements using the cachet of a French name. Pound intended the term les
Imagistes to help distinguish the movement from the "mushiness" of les
Symbolistes, but to Amy Lowell and others the name instead suggested a glamorous
association with French poets such as Baudelaire and Mallarm?. The second additional
strategy was to suggest that the movement had a secret or mysterious ingredient or quality
(as advertisers may refer to "secret ingredient X," "xylitol," or
"Fahrvergn?gen") that only the user of the product can appreciate. In imagism
the secret ingredient was referred to in the March 1913 Poetry as a "certain
‘Doctrine of the Image,’" which the imagists had not "committed to writing"
and which "did not concern the public."
Pound’s definition of the image as "that which presents an intellectual and
emotional complex in an instant of time" takes nothing away from the intriguing
mystery of the imagist secret doctrine. Pound explains that he uses the term complex
"rather in the technical sense employed by the newer psychologists, such as
Hart." For even the best-informed reader, this hint that complex is being used in a
psychological sense (as in the term Oedipus complex) would have clarified nothing
about the nature of the image–but it would imply its modernity. Moreover, the generality
of the term thing in the imagist principle of "Direct treatment of the ‘thing’
whether subjective or objective" is even more mysterious or obscure than
"complex." Whether this obscurity was calculated to intrigue, or whether it was
just a product of Pound’s natural ability to mystify, these product descriptions were
brilliantly successful.
From the success of imagism as a movement, however, there emerged a problem that even
Pound’s advertising genius could not surmount. He had invented a name for a new poetic
technique, but of course he could not patent, franchise, or in any way control its use.
Would-be imagists who wrote bad verse were more of a problem for the movement than those
who attacked it for its obscurity or free-verse rhythms. Again, Amy Lowell illustrates the
dynamics of the movement. Armed with an introductory letter from Harriet Monroe, Lowell
sailed to England in 1914 principally to meet Pound and learn about the imagists. Pound
initially welcomed her, introducing her to W. B. Yeats and Ford Madox Ford, and publishing
one of her poems in his anthology Des Imagistes (1914). But Pound did not
feet that Lowell’s poetry was direct and concise enough to exemplify imagist technique.
Nevertheless, to give a sense of a new and influential "movement" Pound was
willing to expand the original imagist group of Richard Aldington, H.D., F. S. Flint, and
himself. The expansion was a mistake because it gave anyone who appeared in the anthology,
including mediocre poets such as Lowell, Skipwith Cannell, and John Cournos, an
authoritative claim to the title of imagist poet. (The title of Pound’s next collection, The
Catholic Anthology of 1915, was meant to suggest no specific literary orientation.)
With the authority of appearing in Des Imagistes, Lowell next used her wealth and
literary connections to publish further imagist anthologies and take over leadership of
the movement. Pound could not match the resources Lowell put into play when she invited a
writer like D. H. Lawrence to dine at her first-class hotel and offer to pay him for a
contribution to a new anthology. Pound admitted her superior propaganda ability when he
conceded to Margaret Anderson in 1917 that she "would advertise us like HELL. It is
her talent." As William Pratt put it, "at the crucial stage of Imagist
development one master propagandist was vanquished by another."
Pound dropped the term imagism and dubbed Lowell’s movement "Amygism," rudely
dismissing her as a "hippopoetess.’ He of course refused to contribute to Lowell’s
proposed second "imagiste" anthology. Lowell’s suggestion that a committee
choose the poems increased rather than lessened Pound’s opposition because, as he wrote to
her, he wanted "the name ‘Imagisme’ to retain some sort of meaning. It stands, or I
should like it to stand for hard light, clear edges. I can not trust any democratized
committee to maintain that standard." Ignoring Pound’s suggestion that her anthology
be called "Vers Libre or something of that sort," Lowell published Some
Imagist Poets (1915), which included a publisher’s blurb implying that she was
leader of the imagist movement. In a complaining letter, Pound rejected Lowell’s apology
for her publisher’s advertisement, noting that it was still appearing: "I don’t
suppose any one will sue you for libel; it is too expensive. If your publishers ‘of good
standing’ tried to advertise cement or soap in this manner they would certainly be
sued."
Yet it was not the Madison Avenue ruthlessness of Amy Lowell that soured him on imagism
as much as his realization that by expanding the number of imagists he had lost, to use
another marketing term, quality control over the new poetic product. He changed the title
of an article he was writing in 1914 from "Imagism" to "Vorticism"
once he decided the earlier movement no longer served his purpose. Vorticism publicized
the newest developments in painting and sculpture as well as literature. But Pound’s
description of literary vorticism in BLAST, the vorticist journal, demonstrates
that the new movement was simply an improved version of imagism. Although he now describes
the image in painterly terms as the "primary pigment" of verbal art, the imagist
principles of "hard light, clear edges" (which well describes Lewis’s geometric
paintings) are the same; and once again he presents H.D.’s poetry as the epitome of the
movement. As Hugh Kenner has observed, the real difference between imagism and vorticism
was that the latter movement distinguished Pound from the mediocre artists that had
overtaken imagism. Vorticism "implied his alliance with his own kind," which
included a brilliant sculptor like Henri Gaudier-Brzeska and the painter Wyndham Lewis. He
rejected Lowell’s "democratized committee" because it would mean accepting
"a certain number of people as my critical and creative equals" who didn’t
deserve the honor. Although World War I spoiled his plans by dispersing his allies, he was
by 1914 determined to keep what he called "our little gang" an elite group.
From "Make It Sell! Ezra Pound Advertises Modernism." In Marketing
Modernisms: Self-Promotion, Canonization, Rereading. Ed. Kevin J.H. Dettmar and
Stephen Watt. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996. Copyright ? 1996 by The
University of Michigan Press.