Ezra Pound, one of the leading figures of the early 20th
century Anglo-American modernist movement, was a known proponent of Imagism – a
creative technique centered on the focus of minimalistic, experimental writing
processes whose historical grandiosity and impact is still disputed. His poem
below, written in the early 1900s, is a great example of the efficient use of
language as opposed to his 19th century romanticist counterparts.
The movement is heavily influenced by Japanese and Chinese writing techniques
in their structures. Pound’s works were likely written on typewriter due to the
mass commercialization of the medium in the late 19th century.
Albatre
This lady in the
white bath-robe which she calls a
peignoir,
Is, for the time being, the mistress of my friend,
And the delicate white feet of her little white dog
Are not more delicate than she is,
Nor would Gautier himself have despised their contrasts
in whiteness
As she sits in the great chair
Between the two indolent candles.
peignoir,
Is, for the time being, the mistress of my friend,
And the delicate white feet of her little white dog
Are not more delicate than she is,
Nor would Gautier himself have despised their contrasts
in whiteness
As she sits in the great chair
Between the two indolent candles.
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Over 300
years earlier, a clergyman and epigrammatist named Thomas Bastard was procuring
what would be considered today to be the most traditional of poetic forms – a
complete structural and linguistic reversion of Ezra Pound’s stylistic
principles. A staple of the time and the inherent education received by a man
of the cloth during the infancy of the age of enlightenment, the rhythmic
phrasing is obvious and predictable to a near fault, and the subject matter mainly
revolves around piety, and salvation. Below is an excerpt from his collection,
“Chrestoleros: Seven Books of Epigrames”, published in 1598. Churches
were still utilizing parchment and quill-pen for most of their written works,
those either published by hand or printing press depending on the funds readily
available to the author.
Book 3, Epigram 36
The peasant Corus of his
wealth does boast,
Yet he’s scarce worth twice twenty pounds
at most.
I chanc’d to word once with this lowly
swain,
He called me base, and beggar in disdain.
To try the truth hereof I rate myself,
And cast the little count of all my wealth.
See how much Hebrew, Greek, and Poetry,
Latin Rhetoric, and Philosophy,
Reading, and sense in sciences profound,
All valued, are not worth forty pounds.
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One of
Ezra Pound’s contemporaries across the pond that was rarely, if ever, mentioned
in lectures throughout this semester is William Butler Yeats. A Nobel Prize
laureate and a leading cultural icon in Ireland, Yeats was both praised and
questioned in his time for his staunch nationalism as an Irishman and for his
fascination with nature and the occult that seeped its way into his sonnets. Below
is a passionate piece from his collection released in 1899 called “The Wind
Among the Reeds”. Classical rhyme schema can be seen here with the a-b-a-b
format – a genuine mark of Yeats that was a stark deviation from Pound’s
influence on him – the phrasing and imagery is much more modernistic in style,
however. Fountain pen was likely the writing instrument of choice, given that
there seems to be a predisposition to eloquence and romanticism in the use of
language in the poem. None of the outward abruptness and efficiency of the
typewriter style can be observed in the stylistic changes that are seen later
on in his career.
HE MOURNS FOR THE CHANGE THAT HAS COME
UPON HIM AND HIS BELOVED, AND LONGS FOR
THE END OF THE WORLD
DO you not hear me calling, white deer with no
horns?
I have been changed to a hound with one red
ear;
I have been in the Path of Stones and the
Wood of Thorns,
For somebody hid hatred and hope and desire
and fear
Under my feet that they follow you night and
day.
A man with a hazel wand came without sound;
He changed me suddenly; I was looking another
way;
And now my calling is but the calling of a
hound;
And Time and Birth and Change are hurrying
by.
I would that the Boar without bristles had
come from the West
And had rooted the sun and moon and stars out
of the sky
And lay in the darkness, grunting, and
turning to his rest.
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In the spirit of paying homage to
the impact of more modern movements and their leaders, Langston Hughes not only
embodies the traits of a great literary influence, but also a cultural
influence. “The Weary Blues”, published in 1926, is a shining
representation of jazz poetry and its components. The movement itself was a reaction
to the emergence of Jazz music and the unprecedented social impact it achieved
in post-WWI America. Poets like Hughes either worked at or enjoyed heading to
the bars and seeing the immediate effect of the unique and liberating rhythm
and sound created by the genre in its heyday. In a way, the poetry was their
tool to reflect upon and emulate the emotions that echoed through the spout of
every brass, the skin of every percussion, and body of every stringed
instrument that howled and moaned into those long, dreary nights of Charleston
dancing. Unsurprisingly, attributions to political plights and causes were
evident in the content of many of the works, especially due to the hardships of
black citizens in the time of racial segregation. Typewriters’ ubiquity and
accessibility was very much solidified by the time of Hughes’ first book which
the poem below was published in, and would be a logical medium for a man of
many talents and a college education in this period. Repetition patterns are
used liberally in the poem, accompanied by traditional rhyme that is
reminiscent of some work by Paul Laurence Dunbar, known as an influence to
Hughes and his writing style.
The
Weary Blues
Droning
a drowsy syncopated tune,
Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon,
I heard a Negro play.
Down on Lenox Avenue the other night
By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light
He did a lazy sway . . .
He did a lazy sway . . .
To the tune o' those Weary Blues.
With his ebony hands on each ivory key
He made that poor piano moan with melody.
O Blues!
Swaying to and fro on his rickety stool
He played that sad raggy tune like a musical fool.
Sweet Blues!
Coming from a black man's soul.
O Blues!
In a deep song voice with a melancholy tone
I heard that Negro sing, that old piano moan—
"Ain't got nobody in all this world,
Ain't got nobody but ma self.
I's gwine to quit ma frownin'
And put ma troubles on the shelf."
Thump, thump, thump, went his foot on the floor.
He played a few chords then he sang some more—
"I got the Weary Blues
And I can't be satisfied.
Got the Weary Blues
And can't be satisfied—
I ain't happy no mo'
And I wish that I had died."
And far into the night he crooned that tune.
The stars went out and so did the moon.
The singer stopped playing and went to bed
While the Weary Blues echoed through his head.
He slept like a rock or a man that's dead.
Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon,
I heard a Negro play.
Down on Lenox Avenue the other night
By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light
He did a lazy sway . . .
He did a lazy sway . . .
To the tune o' those Weary Blues.
With his ebony hands on each ivory key
He made that poor piano moan with melody.
O Blues!
Swaying to and fro on his rickety stool
He played that sad raggy tune like a musical fool.
Sweet Blues!
Coming from a black man's soul.
O Blues!
In a deep song voice with a melancholy tone
I heard that Negro sing, that old piano moan—
"Ain't got nobody in all this world,
Ain't got nobody but ma self.
I's gwine to quit ma frownin'
And put ma troubles on the shelf."
Thump, thump, thump, went his foot on the floor.
He played a few chords then he sang some more—
"I got the Weary Blues
And I can't be satisfied.
Got the Weary Blues
And can't be satisfied—
I ain't happy no mo'
And I wish that I had died."
And far into the night he crooned that tune.
The stars went out and so did the moon.
The singer stopped playing and went to bed
While the Weary Blues echoed through his head.
He slept like a rock or a man that's dead.
