An article by Abayomi Folaranmi.
"A line will take us hours maybe;
Yet if it does not seem a moment's thought,
Our stitching and unstitching has been naught."
-W.B YEATS
The short-lived Imagist movement was one the most influential of the 20th century. Spearheaded complicated iconoclast and literary talent hunter, Ezra Pound (who I daresay is one the greatest literary figures of the last century), the movement set out its principles as such:
- Direct treatment of the "thing" whether subjective or objective.
- To use absolutely no word that does not contribute to the presentation.
- As regarding rhythm: to compose in the sequence of the musical phrase, not in sequence of a metronome.
These rules were first outlined by Pound and two other founding Imagists, H.D. (as was Hilda Doolittle’s pseudonym) and Richard Adlington in 1912. The manifesto of the original group is set out in more detail and clarity by Pound in his essays ‘Retrospect’ and ‘A Few Don’ts’ than I can hope to achieve in this article; they are worth looking into. (I say ‘original group’ in the previous sentence because of what Pound considered the corruption of the movement by American poet Amy Lowell. This he called ‘amygism’, and after failing to persuade Lowell to drop the title ‘Imagist’, he renounced the movement altogether.)
That said, the aims of Imagism may be summarized sparsely as this; the imagists sought to recreate images with words, using clear, precise language. Perhaps the poem that best illustrates this ethos is Pound’s own ‘In a Station of the Metro’:
The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.
The poem, written in the style of Japanese haiku (Pound was greatly influenced by Oriental art, though he sought to ‘make it new’, rather than simply imitate) is striking in its simplicity. It is presented in such a way that one feels as though no word or phrase is wasted, something reminiscent of Gustave Flaubert’s concept of le mot juste, ‘the right word’. In Flaubert’s own words, “if you knew precisely what you wanted to say, you would say it well” (“Si vous saviez précisément ce que vous voulez dire, vous le diriez bien”). He expressed elsewhere that “[all] talent for writing consists, after all, of nothing more than choosing words. It’s precision that gives writing power.” This sort of thinking suggested that there was only one word to convey a certain image or emotion within a particular context. Perhaps indeed, there are no words for some things, or perhaps the words might only be found in another language. Writers like James Joyce and Oscar Wilde played with this idea of precision, as can be evinced from two relatively popular literary anecdotes:
“I've been working hard on [Ulysses] all day," said Joyce.
Does that mean that you have written a great deal?" I said.
Two sentences," said Joyce.
I looked sideways but Joyce was not smiling. I thought of [French novelist Gustave] Flaubert. "You've been seeking the mot juste?" I said.
No," said Joyce. "I have the words already. What I am seeking is the perfect order of words in the sentence.”
“Well, Mr. Wilde,” said Oscar’s bugbear one day at lunch, “and pray how have you been passing your morning?” “Oh! I have been immensely busy,” said Oscar with great gravity. “I have spent my whole time over the proof sheets of my book of poems.” The Philistine with a growl inquired the result of that.
“Well, it was very important,” said Oscar. “I took out a comma.” “Indeed,” returned the enemy of literature, “is that all you did?” Oscar, with a sweet smile, said, “By no means; on mature reflection I put back the comma.” This was too much for the Philistine, who took the next train to London.
These witticisms suggest the very essence of Pound’s creative philosophy, and he seems to be more in affinity with Oscar Wilde’s comments on punctuation, indeed taking the idea of le mot juste a step further than words alone. Indeed, barring Pound’s claim that the poem was 30 lines long at the first draft, and that he edited it down to just the 2 at the final stage over the period of a year, there is something else quite noteworthy about ‘In a Station of the Metro’. This is the fact that it comes in more than one form:
The apparition of these faces in the crowd:
Petals on a wet, black bough.
This version of the poem is immediately different. The spaces between the words jump out as the most obvious distinction. They slow the poem down somewhat, and the reader is compelled to consider the words in isolation before visualizing the image in the poem in a holistic manner. Beyond that, Pound has made a subtle change to the punctuation, that is, the semicolon in the first version has become a full colon. The effect this has in interesting and debatable, but it certainly does have an effect, however minuscule. Whereas in the first version, the metaphor is suggestive (faces in the crowd are perhaps like petals on a bough), this version is prescriptive, like an equation (the faces in the crowd are petals on a wet, black bough).
I will not go into any attempt at analysis or interpretation of the poem in this article; the point is to draw attention to how the ‘text’ (with a deconstructionist connotation) conveys the precise image. Everything considered, what may be well said, as of now, is that Pound’s precision with his choice of words and punctuation captures the essence of that scene at the Metro station is a manner that a longer poem with unnecessarily superfluous language and affectations probably would not have. Ezra Pound remains one of the most criminally underrated poets, at least in popular knowledge of literature. His insistence on using only the right word, which may be considered pedantry by some, is a great part of his genius. His writing is incredibly important for anyone interested in understanding poetry, or writing it - and writing it well, whatever that may mean.
It is interesting to compare the ideas behind this practice with other artistic theories such as the Impressionist movement, and T.S. Eliot’s objective correlative, but that remains for another article entirely, or perhaps a number of them.
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