Pound’s Poetics and his Theory of Imagism

Abstract

No poet in this century — in fact none since Goethe, Coleridge and Leopardi — has been so concerned with the business of investigating, analysing and defining the various aspects of the art of writing poetry as Ezra Pound. ‘I spend the greater part of my time meditating the arts’, he wrote in 1915, ‘and I should find this very dull if it were not possible for me occasionally to solve some corner of the mystery, or, at least to formulate more clearly my own thoughts as to the nature of some mystery or equation.’ He argued about the nature of poetry with a sense of personal commitment and of authority derived from his own experience as a poet, and what he had to say throws light not only on his own poetry, but also on that of some of his greatest contemporaries. Pound’s missionary zeal in renovating and modernising the art of poetry was accompanied by a profound insight into his own art as well as into that of others he was personally interested in. On his discussion of poetry, Pound brought to bear his acute sense of contemporaneity as well as of his personal view of tradition as represented by Homer, Ovid, Dante, Chaucer and Shakespeare. Quite early in his poetic career he had come into contact with Chinese poetry which not only widened his frame of reference, but also exercised a considerable influence on his own poetry and on his thinking about poetry.