Major American Writers: Wallace Stevens Poet(s) of the Week: Ezra Pound (1885-1972) and T. S. Eliot (1888-1965) [Presentation TBA]

Major American Writers: Wallace Stevens

Poet(s) of the Week: Ezra Pound (1885-1972) and T. S. Eliot (1888-1965) [Presentation TBA]

http://www.learner.org/catalog/extras/vvspot/Eliot.html


Poet(s) of the Week: Ezra Pound (1885-1972)


Ezra Pound (1885-1972)



Imagism


Amy LowellEzra Pound William Carlos

Williams

H. D. (Hilda Doolittle)

T. E. Hulme

In a Station of the Metro —Ezra Pound

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;Petals on a wet, black bough.

Imagism


The Imagist movement included English and American poets in the early twentieth century who wrote free verse and were devoted to "clarity of expression through the use of precise visual images." A strand of modernism, Imagism was officially launched in 1912 when Ezra Pound read and marked up a poem by Hilda Doolittle, signed it "H.D. Imagiste," and sent it to Harriet Monroe at Poetry.

The movement sprang from ideas developed by T.E. Hulme, who as early as 1908 was proposing to the Poets' Club in London a poetry based on absolutely accurate presentation of its subject with no excess verbiage. The first tenet of the Imagist manifesto was "To use the language of common speech, but to employ always the exact word, not the nearly-exact, nor the merely decorative word.”

Imagism

from poets.orgMajor American Writers: Wallace Stevens

Imagism was a reaction against the flabby abstract language and "careless thinking" of Georgian Romanticism. Imagist poetry aimed to replace muddy abstractions with exactness of observed detail, apt metaphors, and economy of language. For example, Pound's "In a Station of the Metro" started from a glimpse of beautiful faces in a dark subway and elevated that perception into a crisp vision by finding an intensified equivalent image. The metaphor provokes a sharp, intuitive discovery in order to get at the essence of life.

Pound's definition of the image was "that which presents an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time." Pound defined the tenets of Imagist poetry as:

Imagism


The Imagist movement included English and American poets in the early twentieth century who wrote free I. Direct treatment of the "thing," whether subjective or objective. II. To use absolutely no word that does not contribute to the presentation. III. As regarding rhythm: to compose in sequence of the musical phrase, not in sequence of the metronome.

Imagism


An Imagist anthology was published in 1914 that collected work by William Carlos Williams, Richard Aldington, and James Joyce, as well as H.D. and Pound. Other imagists included F. S. Flint, D. H. Lawrence, and John Gould Fletcher. By the time the anthology appeared, Amy Lowell had effectively appropriated Imagism and was seen as the movement's leader. Three years later, even Amy Lowell thought the movement had run its course. Pound by then was claiming that he invented Imagism to launch H.D.'s career. Though Imagism as a movement was over by 1917, the ideas about poetry embedded in the Imagist doctrine profoundly influenced free verse poets throughout the twentieth century.

Imagism




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Poets of the Week: T. S. Eliot (1888-1965)

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http://www.learner.org/catalog/extras/vvspot/Eliot.html

Major American Writers: Wallace Stevens T. S. Eliot (1888-1965)

T. S. Eliot (1888-1965)



Some one said: "The dead writers are remote from us because we know so much more than they did." Precisely, and they are that which we know.

Art is not to express personality, but to overcome it.

To write poetry which should be essentially poetry, with nothing poetic about it, poetry standing naked in its bare bones, or poetry so transparent that we should not see the poetry, but that which we are meant to see through the poetry, poetry so transparent that in reading it we are intent on what the poem points at, and not on the poetry, this seems to me the thing to try for. To get beyond poetry, as Beethoven, in his later works, strove to get beyond music.

“the correction of taste”—Eliot on the function of criticism.—T. S. Eliot


Stevens

T. S. Eliot (1888-1965)

Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”

S'io credesse che mia risposta fosse A persona che mai tornasse al mondo, Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse. Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo Non torno vivo alcun, s'i'odo il vero, Senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo.

Let us go then, you and I,When the evening is spread out against the skyLike a patient etherized upon a table;Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,The muttering retreatsOf restless nights in one-night cheap hotelsAnd sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:Streets that follow like a tedious argumentOf insidious intentTo lead you to an overwhelming question…Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"Let us go and make our visit.

"If I thought that my reply would be to someone who would ever return to earth, this flame would remain without further movement; but as no one has ever returned alive from this gulf, if what I hear is true, I can answer you with no fear of infamy." –Dante’s Inferno

“As beautiful as the chance encounter of a sewing machine and an umbrella on a dissecting table.”—Laurtreamont, Les Chants de Maldoror


Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”In the room the women come and goTalking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panesLicked its tongue into the corners of the evening,Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,And seeing that it was a soft October night,Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be timeFor the yellow smoke that slides along the street,Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;There will be time, there will be timeTo prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;There will be time to murder and create,And time for all the works and days of hands



That lift and drop a question on your plate;Time for you and time for me,And time yet for a hundred indecisions,And for a hundred visions and revisions,Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and goTalking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be timeTo wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?"Time to turn back and descend the stair,With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—[They will say: "How his hair is growing thin!"]My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—[They will say: "But how his arms and legs are thin!”]


Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”Do I dareDisturb the universe?In a minute there is timeFor decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all—Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;I know the voices dying with a dying fallBeneath the music from a farther room. So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all—The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,Then how should I beginTo spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways? And how should I presume?



And I have known the eyes already, known them all—The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,Then how should I beginTo spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways? And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all—Arms that are braceleted and white and bare[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]Is it perfume from a dressThat makes me so digress?Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl. And should I then presume? And how should I begin?

. . . . .



Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streetsAnd watched the smoke that rises from the pipesOf lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? …

I should have been a pair of ragged clawsScuttling across the floors of silent seas.

. . . . .

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!Smoothed by long fingers,Asleep… tired… or it malingers,Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter,I am no prophet—and here's no great matter;



I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,Would it have been worth while,To have bitten off the matter with a smile,To have squeezed the universe into a ballTo roll it toward some overwhelming question,To say: "I am Lazarus, come from the dead,Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all"—If one, settling a pillow by her head, Should say: "That is not what I meant at all. That is not it, at all.”



And would it have been worth it, after all,Would it have been worth while,After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—And this, and so much more?—It is impossible to say just what I mean!But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:Would it have been worth whileIf one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,And turning toward the window, should say: "That is not it at all, That is not what I meant, at all."

. . . . .


Poets of the Week: Ezra Pound (1885-1972)

http://www.learner.org/catalog/extras/vvspot/Pound.html



No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;Am an attendant lord, one that will doTo swell a progress, start a scene or two,Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,Deferential, glad to be of use,Politic, cautious, and meticulous;Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old… I grow old…I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.



I have seen them riding seaward on the wavesCombing the white hair of the waves blown backWhen the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the seaBy sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brownTill human voices wake us, and we drown.


Eliot, from “Little Gidding”VWhat we call the beginning is often the endAnd to make an end is to make a beginning.The end is where we start from. And every phraseAnd sentence that is right (where every word is at home,Taking its place to support the others,The word neither diffident nor ostentatious,An easy commerce of the old and the new,The common word exact without vulgarity,The formal word precise but not pedantic,The complete consort dancing together)Every phrase and every sentence is an end and a beginning,Every poem an epitaph. And any actionIs a step to the block, to the fire, down the sea's throatOr to an illegible stone: and that is where we start.We die with the dying:See, they depart, and we go with them.We are born with the dead:See, they return, and bring us with them.


Eliot, from “Little Gidding”The moment of the rose and the moment of the yew-treeAre of equal duration. A people without historyIs not redeemed from time, for history is a patternOf timeless moments. So, while the light failsOn a winter's afternoon, in a secluded chapelHistory is now and England.With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this CallingWe shall not cease from explorationAnd the end of all our exploringWill be to arrive where we startedAnd know the place for the first time.Through the unknown, unremembered gateWhen the last of earth left to discoverIs that which was the beginning;At the source of the longest riverThe voice of the hidden waterfallAnd the children in the apple-tree


Eliot, from “Little Gidding”

Not known, because not looked forBut heard, half-heard, in the stillnessBetween two waves of the sea.Quick now, here, now, always—A condition of complete simplicity(Costing not less than everything)And all shall be well andAll manner of thing shall be wellWhen the tongues of flame are in-foldedInto the crowned knot of fireAnd the fire and the rose are one.

Documents

Major American Writers: Wallace Stevens Poet(s) of the Week: Ezra Pound (1885-1972) and T. S. Eliot (1888-1965) [Presentation TBA]