Done by: Juhaina Alshabibi, id # 103044 Course

Sultan Qaboos University
Collage of Arts and Social Sciences
The Department of English
“Rose, harsh rose”:
How is Imagism Reflected in Ezra Pound and Hilda Doolittle's Poetry?


Done by: Juhaina Alshabibi, ID # 103044
Course: ENGL4222/ Modern Poetry
Section: 10
Tutor: Dr. Khadija Hemmy
Semester/year: Fall 2016
Imagism is a literary movement, appeared in early 20^th century and lead by poets such as Ezra Pound, Amy Lowell and many others among whom H.D. The movement aimed at simplicity and brevity of expression through the use detailed visual imagery. There are set of tenets which the poets of imagism agreed to share in their imagist poetry. The first is the use of common and everyday speech with the exclusion of every word that only functions as an ornament without precise purpose. The second is free verse; rhyme or meter because they believed that the poet’s freedom is better expressed when there is no rhyme limitation. The third one is the absolute freedom in the topic choice. Fourth is the depiction of certain image through which the poet displays his ideas and feelings. Fifth is to create poetry that is clear but not vague. In this essay, we will look at the way imagism is reflected in two imagist poets: Ezra Pound and Hilda Doolittle in four poems. They are Pound’s “In a Station of the Metro” and “A Girl”, and H. D.’s “Sheltered Garden” and “Sea Rose”.

Ezra Pound is a pioneer poet in imagism. He is believed to be the first to launch this literary movement when attempting to publish one his colleagues’ poem in Poetry Magazine in 1912. He trusted that an image could function and convey feelings and idea more than a decorated speech would. In fact he defined an image as “that which presents an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time.” His poem “In a Station of the Metro” depicts and applies imagism. In fact it is considered to be quite influential in the course of the movement’s progress. The Japanese and Chinese poetry had a great influence on Pound’s poetry. He was interested in the genre, which inspired him to write in new form of verse and expression and thus other poets of the time were also influenced by the writing style of Pound such as in his “In a Station of the Metro”:

The apparition of these faces in the crowd:

Petals on a wet, black bough.


To start with the title of the poem; it functions as the allocator. It provides the setting of the poem and places the reader in the exact area in which the poet inspired his poem from, which is Paris underground metro station. As any imagist literary work, “In a Station of the Metro” presents no description or explanation that makes the speaker’s ideas behind his lines very obvious. Instead, it offers two images in an equation. The equation compares the two images to each other. The firs image occupies half of the poem, the first line. It draws the image of the faces the speaker encounters in the station that are indulged in crowd and seem like ghosts to the speaker. The association of the faces to the appearance of ghosts captures the speaker’s intense, vivid and spontaneous emotions that are trigged in him by view. It might also be a depiction of modern city life in which its inhabitants are consumed by work and daily routine which make them look lifeless and thus the speaker associates them with ghosts. It seems that the speaker is tackling around the idea of underground life which is the physical reality of the metro and the underground classical mythology, in which underground is known to be the place where dead people go. Hence, these people are going into, returning from the underworld are apparitions, ghosts. The word “crowd” indicates the modernity and the cosmopolitanisms of the place. It also emphasizes the individuality and alienation between people sharing the same air and place which is a significant theme in modern literary works where individuals are no longer connected or feel the presence of nature in their life; an aspect that would be discussed further. While the first line registers the initial impression of the speaker when encountering the scene, the second line shifts to his mental interpretation of the sight into a metaphor through the equation that these faces are petals. He compares the sight of the faces in the first line to the petals laid on a wet branch of tree after a rainy night. When he jumps from the literal image he encounters in the station to a metaphorical one in his imagination, he moves from the urban man-made environment, which is the metro in the middle of the city, to the natural world of tree, flowers and the weather, which is a significant theme in modern literary works as mentioned previously. The image of petals whose color is presumably pale and white placed against a black branch, presents a sharp contrast which symbolically refers to the renewed life in nature specifically spring since there are some flowers growing up, to the darkness and the gloomy sense or mood in the man made cities and underground life represented by the blackness of the branch. Thus, in this poem, what appeared to be straightforward without much significance to it because of its brevity and simplicity turns out to be rich and more complex when paying attention to the words. In fact, even the length of the poem has its own propose. It matches the haste movement of the train. The quick reading of the poem caused by its shortness fits with the situation in the station of the metro where the subway moves in instant motion through the platform, the doors closing and opening very quickly disclosing faces in crowd and then suddenly in moments they disappear as a result of the doors movement. Pound’s “In a Station of the Metro” applies all principals of imagism. First, it reflects the emotions triggered in the speaker without descriptive language but rather using images and very limited amount of words. In fact it is the shortest poem in modern poetry, yet it conveys significant notions. Second, it does not fit with any conventional metrical arrangement; every line has different rhyme scheme. Third, it contains no verbs yet functions as usual poems do despite its simplicity and brevity.

Another poem by Pound that reflects the literary movement of imagism is “A Girl”. He narrates the Greek myth of Apollo and Daphne through two images in the two stanzas of the poem. Apollo the God of sun in the Greek mythology falls in love with the beautiful daughter of the river god but Daphne runs away from Apollo’s advances and calls for help which results in her transformation into a tree. The first stanza depicts the feelings that triggers Daphne the instant of her transformation into a tree:

The tree has entered my hands,

The sap has ascended my arms,
The tree has grown in my breast –
Downward,
The branches grow out of me, like arms.

It is clear that it is Daphne who narrates the stanza. It details the transformation by describing the way wooded branches come out of her form, the growth of the tree in her breast and how her limbs turn into wood with sap. The second stanza, however, displays the lasting love of Apollo towards Daphne despite her transformation:

Tree you are,

Moss you are,
You are violets with wind above them.
A child – so high – you are,
All this is folly to the world.

He still has an intimate relationship with her in spite of his recognition of her new identity transformation from “A child” to be “– so high –” tree. Yet, he laments her selfishness of her choice to escape him, which resulted in her transformation eventually. Therefore, the poem’s simple structure, free verse and its brevity validate the poem effectiveness to narrate the implying myth by two voices. Pound reflects imagism in his “A Girl” by depicting imaginary lines that would’ve been said by the two characters in the myth without much explaining and telling about the myth itself or its whereabouts.

Moving to Hilda Doolittle. She is greatly influenced by Ezra Pound who helped her participate in the field by introducing her poems in Poetry magazine in 1912 as the first published poem in imagism signed under “H. D. Imagiste".

As a proactive feminist, H.D admires but manipulates natural imagery to imply her thoughts about feminism. For instance, in “Sheltered Garden” she speaks on behalf of nature that is overprotected by humans who does not allow natural elements to grow freely. However, at the sometime she is talking about women’s status in a man dominated society using images from nature. The speaker is “fed up” from all the perfection in the garden caused by the coaxing of men, and thus provides two contrasting images. One of the softness fragile flowers in the nurtured-by-man garden in “border-pinks, clove-pinks, wax-lilies, herbs, sweet-cress”. The other is of a garden she would admire to encounter, one that is not contaminated by man-protection in:

“ for some sharp swish of a branch— 

there is no scent of resin 
in this place, 
no taste of bark, of coarse weeds, 
aromatic, astringent— 
only border on border of scented pinks”

The speaker longs to see tree sap on a branch or smell the scent of over-ripened fruits on a dry tree branch as if she is wandering in a wooded forest where only nature takes care and caressing itself without the intervention of men. Further more, the speaker draws an image of pears being coved by clothe in the sixth stanza and asks mankind to allow nature takes its course and stop “coaxing” fruits because it apparently makes them “bitter”. Implying that women too must be given freedom in the man-dominated society. The speaker asks directly in the same stanza that pears should cling to their branches from which they are made and should be allowed to ripen without chemicals that fasten their growth. The plants, in the garden, as the speaker attempts to make clear, should be naked, not covered or protected because they must be given space and an opportunity to encounter and face their existence and strength. The previous notion is an implied call from the speaker to set women free from all conventions of society so they can find their strength and power. She demonstrates the idea further in:

“For this beauty, 
beauty without strength, 
chokes out life.”

She displays that the beauty of the protected garden which is a representation of women, is a beauty without strengths and thus without life. H.D believes that women’s beauty is nothing without strength and that there is no liveliness with only being beautiful. The natural, not contaminated-by-men beauty is the sincere essence of life. Therefore, through the use of natural imagery, H.D calls for the emancipation of women in society when she reveals her displeasure of man-controlled gardens.

In another poem, H.D. displays her feminist views again through natural imagery. This time with roses in “Sea Rose”. In the poem, the speaker reveals two contrasting images of two different kinds of roses, a domestic rose and a sea rose. The domestic rose appears to be very beautiful, perfect, and delicate and is the type of roses that a gentleman would give his beloved. While the sea rose is described to be ‘harsh’, ‘meager', ‘sparse', and ‘marred':

“Rose, harsh rose, 

marred and with stint of petals, 
meagre flower, thin, 
sparse of leaf, “
However the speaker in the poem discloses her admiration to the sea rose which she believes to be worth praising and admiration because it is strong enough to face difficulties in its environment such as the haste winds and the constantly moving waves:

“Stunted, with small leaf, 

you are flung on the sand, 
you are lifted 
in the crisp sand” 

The contrast between the two flowers is intended to be a metaphor for a contrast between the conventional classical women and the new free identity of women. When the domestic rose is a metaphor for the conventional rose which is characterized with merely its beautiful appearance, the sea rose is metaphor for the new identity of femininity that is attributed with the strength to face and overcome obstacles just like the sea rose does against winds and waves. Therefore, the speaker seems to favor the sea rose in the poem as opposed to the domestic rose despite its appearance that exceeds that of the sea rose because the speaker believes that beauty is not the essence of life but it’s the ability to fight for freedom that must be glorified:

“more precious 

than a wet rose 
single on a stem— 
you are caught in the drift.”
Both Ezra Pound and Hilda Doolittle manifest their interest of topics in their poetry through the writing style and principals of imagism. H. D. displays her thoughts about feminism by using images in her poetry such as representing the roses as metaphor for women. Similarly, Pound displays modernity and individual’s alienation from nature by presenting images he inspired from modern life sights such as the subway scene.

References:

Primary sources:

PoetryFoundation. (n.d.). Sheltered Garden by H.D. Retrieved from:
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/48189


PoetryFoundation. (n.d.). Sea Rose by H.D. Retrieved from: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/48188


PoetryFoundation. (n.d.). In a Station of the Metro by Ezra Pound. Retrieved from: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/detail/12675


PoetryFoundation. (n.d.). A Girl by Ezra Pound. Retrieved from: https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-girl/

Secondary sources:

Kaur, S. 2016. The Imagist Movement in English Literature. International Journal of
Humanities. BEST Journals. Vol. 4(5), 65-68.

Skaff, W. 1985. Pound’s Imagism and the Surreal. Journal of Modern Literature. Vol. 12(2),185–210. Retrieved from: http://ezproxysrv.squ.edu.om:2048/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=6898303&site=eds-live&scope=site.

Lowell, A. (1920). Tendencies in modern American poetry. Macmillan.


Pondrom, C. N. (1985). HD and the Origins of Imagism. Sagetrieb, 4(1), 7375.


Gumpert, S. S. (2003). Natural Imagery and the Construction of a New Femininity in HD’s Early Verse. Amerikan Kulturu, 43, 67-81.


PoetsOrg. (n.d.). On “In a Station of the Metro”. Retrieved from: https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/station-metro