Imagism

“ In the preface to Imagist Poets (1915) , and in Miss Amy Lowell's Tendencies in Modern American Poetry (1917) the tenets of imagism are stated briefly and clearly. Imagism, we are told, aims to use always the language of common speech, but to employ always the exact word, not the nearly-exact nor the merely decorative word; to create new rhythms—as the expression of new moods—and not to copy old rhythms, which merely echo old moods; to allow absolute freedom in the choice of a subject; to present an image, rendering particulars exactly ”

“ As I said it converts him into poetry. Now the reason why Imagism fails as poetry is precisely because it shifts the interest from the world in solution to a group of too, too solid poets. My conclusion is obvious. Before the Imagists can claim that they are making an absolutely new start in poetry, they must learn to obliterate their corporeal natures. The moment they do so obliterate themselves, that moment one can safely say “Now we are coming to poetry.”
I intended to show that one cannot write free-verse unless one is a free poet. ”

“ In saying this I do not wish to appear to be attacking the Imagists. On the contrary, I am anxious to pay them every possible compliment. The fact that they are sinning against themselves must be its own punishment.
The tendency of The Egoist towards Imagism flowered in the May issue. This issue was in fact “organized” (if I may use a trade term) from cover to cover to provide an honest and profitable discussion of the so-called “new” thing in poetry. As if poetry can be new. I had an idea that God made poetry when the world was very young indeed. ”

“ Some discerning persons have asserted that “Imagism” is derived from haikai or hokku poetry. We shall leave to them the pleasant futility of discussing that theory. They may eventually discover that they are building on the shaky premise that “Imagism” exists other than as a clever word. ”

“ I must farther ask you to read, in the same volume, the close of the chapter 'Of Imagination Penetrative,' pp. 120 to 130, of which the gist, which I must give as the first principle from which we start in our to-day's inquiry, is that "Imagination, rightly so called, has no food, no delight, no care, no perception, except of truth; it is for ever looking under masks, and burning up mists; no fairness of form, no majesty of seeming, will satisfy it; the first condition of its existence is incapability of being deceived." ”

“ Let this suffice as my protest against the popular fallacy that the Imagination is an abnormal faculty, limited to poets and painters and "artists," mostly illusive, and always to be subordinated in the search after truth. I maintain, on the contrary, that it lies at the basis of all knowledge; that it is no less necessary for science, for morals, and for religion, than for artistic success; and that the illusions of Imagination are the stepping-stones to Truths. ”

“ And though we continually assume that every one is capable of thinking, do we not all feel that there is somehow a fallacy in this assumption? Do we not feel that what people set up as their ‘reasons’ for disbelieving or believing are often nothing of the sort?... The Art faculty is Imagination, the power of seeing the unseen, the power also of putting ourselves out of the centre, of reducing ourselves to our true proportions, of truly using our own impressions. And is not this in reality the chief element in the work of the thinker?... Science is poetry. ”

“ Let us pay tribute to the gifted poet who taught us to contrast the insignificance of a fact with the sublime signification of a truth. No one may imagine for a moment that the imaginative faculty is an imaginary thing, or doubt the reality of imagination, because it is immaterial and immeasurable, inscrutable to the physical senses, unsusceptible of analysis or synthesis, triable by no test, overriding logic, outwitting philosophy, laughing at science—this imperious mistress of mind, this fertile mother of all art! ”

“ In other words, they will return with rich experiences lit by the flame of poetry. It seems then that the reason I could not feel the Imagist verse was because I was trying it by a law or principle which told me that poetry makes itself felt through the senses, not through the intellect. Furthermore, it makes itself felt not only by passionately initiating us into some mystery or other of reality, but by making us an active part of that mystery. The poet is a signature of poetic reality. ”

“ The “exact” word does not mean the word which exactly describes the object in itself, it means the “exact” word which brings the effect of that object before the reader as it presented itself to the poet's mind at the time of writing the poem. Imagists deal but little with similes, although much of their poetry is metaphorical. The reason for this is that while acknowledging the figure to be an integral part of all poetry, they feel that the constant imposing of one figure upon another in the same poem blurs the central effect. ”

“ Still, on reflection, one finds it is all part of the modern “game” of confusing content with form. One must be grateful to the Imagists for one thing. For some time there has been a movement among poets of a certain school to shift the interest from poetry to themselves considered as deputies. The errors of the Imagists, who, apparently, are mistaken in their conception of poetry and the business of poetry, enables one to shift the interest from these poets to poetry itself. One can say to them, “We are not interested in you, but in poetry. ”

“ ELDER SIDNEY RIGDON IN OHIO. ”Imagination is a mental power of extensive influence. if it be allowed to wander at discretion, through scenes of imagined wealth, ambition, frivolity or pleasure, it tends to withdraw the mind from the important pursuits of life, to weaken the habit of attention, and to impair the judgment. ”

“ This gay attirer of thought, that decks passion and sentiment, is also the prolific parent of fiction;—and justly banished from the retreats of sober demonstration.—To the science of numbers,—to mathematical precision, and to the whole range of experimental philosophy,—Imagination does not lend her glowing and gaudy tints. ”

“ All our other science concerns matters of fact, that is, recorded impressions of our experience, with such rational observations as we can make upon them. Does the inner life pretend to more than this, to more than a knowledge of impressions and ideas, — then what is this pretense but sophistry and illusion? ”

“ To sum up: in treating of illusions we shall assume, what science as distinguished from philosophy is bound to assume, namely, that human experience is consistent; that men's perceptions and beliefs fall into a consensus. From this point of view illusion is seen to arise through some exceptional feature in the situation or condition of the individual, which, for the time, breaks the chain of intellectual solidarity which under ordinary circumstances binds the single member to the collective body. ”

“ Even if the reason repudiates, the imagination retains, the feeling of some more intimate connection, of some peculiar tie, or mysterious constraint exercised by the antecedent over the consequent. Now this it is which, considered as applying to the human will, conflicts with our consciousness, and revolts our feelings. We are certain that, in the case of our volitions, there is not this mysterious constraint. We know that we are not compelled, as by a magical spell, to obey any particular motive. ”

“ For all ordinary purposes, this mode of speaking is correct enough; but let us ask, Why is imagination so weak?—why are its suggestions so evanescent? Simply because it is under the control of reason. But if the action of reason could be suspended, we should then see how great, and even formidable, is the imaginative power. ”

“ There is no sufficient distinction between his intellectual and his imaginative faculties. He confounds the truths of imagination with those of fact, the processes of argument with those of feeling, the immunities of intellect with those of virtue. ”

“ Until very recent years it was supposed by philosophers that there was a typical human mind which all individual minds were like, and that propositions of universal validity could be laid down about such faculties as 'the Imagination.' Lately, however, a mass of revelations have poured in which make us see how false a view this is. There are imaginations, not 'the Imagination,' and they must be studied in detail. ”

“ Opinion subsists between science and ignorance; but sense is as the tetrad. For the touch which is common to all the senses being fourfold, all the senses energize according to contact.
The ninth tetractys is that from which the animal is composed, the soul and the body. For the parts of the soul, indeed, are the rational, the irascible, and the epithymetic, or that which desires external good; and the fourth is the body in which the soul subsists. ”

“ And as if he had not written enough when the world still considered him of sound mind, must men still try to glean from the time when his brain was already visibly clouded?
“How few there are who can pick out of the desolate morass of growing imbecility the scanty grains of higher intelligence! There will always be people who will be impressed, not by the sound part of his thought, but by his paradoxical nonsense. ”

“ Another and still more fundamental fact that some of the rationalists perceived and that militated against their own position, is that the dominant element in man is not reason, but imagination, or if one prefers, the element of illusion. ”

“ Their sharply-marked individualities, their clear-cut outlines have not yet begun, under the powerful solvent of philosophy, to melt and coalesce into that single unknown substratum of phenomena which, according to the qualities with which our imagination invests it, goes by one or other of the high-sounding names which the wit of man has devised to hide his ignorance. ”

“ If illusion is the essential condition of human activity, if the intellect, the very instrument of truth, {72} is itself affected, what is to save us from universal scepticism? If the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? The intellect with its frames and moulds shapes living change and movement into fixed immobile states; the process of knowing alters profoundly the reality known. Must we not conclude that knowledge, however useful, is not true? ”

“ So pernicious it is to common sense, reason, truth, virtue, order, and religion, when men of genius and learning employ their pens in spreading nonsense, absurdity, and falsehood; vice, disorder, and irreligion. If a writer of this sort were to take a cool and dispassionate view of the talents he has received, and the acts which he has done, the amount might probably be, nature has bestowed on him a mind competent to the acquisition of valuable and deep knowledge. ”

“ The first requisites in a healthy, well-developed Imagination are truth and distinctness. To those who deem Imagination but another name for fiction and falsehood, it may seem a contradiction in terms to talk of a true Imagination; but it is not so. Works of fiction charm us always in proportion as they seem true, and it is the morbid Imagination only that delights in falsehood. We sometimes see persons who, without apparent intention of falsehood, seem incapable of speaking the truth. ”

“ If there seem to be no malicious or evil design in all this, such persons are commonly called very imaginative; they should be called persons of unregulated, unprincipled Imaginations. They do not bring Imagination under the sway of conscience, and their power of appreciating the truth will grow less and less until Imagination becomes a living lie. ”

“ But the unexplainable power by means of which a human mind grasps a bundle of bare, dry facts, sorts them over speculatively and then pieces them together into a new, luminous bit of mind stuff, different from anything seen, or heard or handled by that personality before—this is the miracle working of what we know as constructive imagination. ”

“ We are hurried away by the lively imagination of our author or companion; and even be himself is often a victim to his own fire and genius.
Nor will it be amiss to remark, that as a lively imagination very often degenerates into madness or folly, and bears it a great resemblance in its operations; so they influence the judgment after the same manner, and produce belief from the very same principles. ”

“ And again I thought about that illusion which all are subjected to, especially people whose activity is reflected on others—the illusion that, having been accustomed to see the effects of your acts on others, you verify the correctness of your acts by their effect on others. ”

“ Now, although any original construction, selected and put together to gratify an Æsthetic emotion, is a work of Imagination, yet imagination is not exhausted by fine art. The picture that an angry man draws of his enemy would be called an effort of imagination, but not a work of fine art. All our emotions,—Wonder, Fear, Love, Anger, Vanity—determine the constructions of the intellect, when called into active exercise; and for these constructions we have no other name but imagination, whether they may, or may not give pleasure as works of art. ”

“ It must be confessed that our study has tended to bring home to the mind the wide range of the illusory and unreal in our intellectual life. In sense-perception, in the introspection of the mind's own feelings, in the reading of others' feelings, in memory, and finally in belief, we have found a large field for illusory cognition. And while illusion has thus so great a depth in the individual mind, it has a no less striking [Pg 329] breadth or extent in the collective human mind. ”