T. E. Hulme's Borrowings from the French

Abstract

i HERE has been a good deal of discussion about the French sources of T. E. Hulme's ideas on poetry. From Herbert Read's introductory note to Hulme's Notes on Language and Style (1925) to Richard Sieburth's book on Pound and Remy de Gourmont (1978),1 critics have generally agreed that Hulme plundered the works of French writers, sometimes transferring his booty merely by translating from French into English. The implication seems to be that Hulme, having no ideas of his own, simply took over the ideas of various nineteenth-century French writers. This notion has held almost as much sway among Hulme's supporters as among his detractors. It is my contention here, based upon a study of the sources, that Hulme did no such thing. I shall attempt to show that while he often borrowed ideas and sometimes even copied out passages, he always put the borrowings into his own context-a context significantly different from that of his source. This is true even when he copied passages word for word.