Ezra Pound, Imagism, And The Influence Of The Orient

Want to read the rest of this paper? Join Essayworld today to view this entire essay and over 50,000 other term papers

or objectively (Spirit of Romance p.219). Pound insisted that the poem must present to the reader an active image, not a mere description of events or setting. Pound’s model for his directness was the prose of nineteenth century French authors such as Flaubert and DeMaupassant (Hakatuni p.48-49).
The second tenet of Imagism is to “use absolutely no word that does not contribute to the presentation” of the image in question. Pound elaborates by saying: “The true poet is most easily distinguished from the false, when he trusts himself to the simplest expression, and when he writes without adjectives” (Spirit of Romance p.219). The image is to be presented in its purest sense, without the obstruction of needless description and “superfluous words”; one “moves the reader by clarity” (Kenner p.60). Pound believed that the timelessness of great writing was a direct result of its precision, and in this sense he took an almost scientific approach to writing. He believed ...

Get instant access to over 50,000 essays. Write better papers. Get better grades. Already a member? Login

images to be “seeds” full of potential energy capable of further metamorphosis, rather than an abstract emblem (like a symbol) (Hakatuni p.48). He believed that symbols are potentially evil because they trade the concrete, physical value of a word for an abstract intellectual concept. He still held to this belief as late as 1948, as this theme is addressed in the Pisan Cantos (Barbarese et al p.288).
Pound’s essay on “Vorticism” further explains his concept of the image as a charged vehicle for beneficial contemplation. The image is not a fixed or rational thought, but a “radiant node or cluster; it is what I can, and must perforce, call a vortex, from which, and through which, ideas ...

Succeed in your coursework without stepping into a library. Get access to a growing library of notes, book reports, and research papers in 2 minutes or less.

CITE THIS PAGE: