Preludes Imagism

Preludes experiments with techniques of Imagism, a poetic movement first formulated by Eliot’s friend Ezra Pound in 1913. Other practitioners included T.E. Hulme, H.D., Richard Aldington, F.S. Flint, and William Carlos Williams. Imagism was a reaction against the sentimentality of Romantic and Victorian poetry. It worked for clarity, precision, economy, and dryness, and it permitted free verse instead of meter. Imagism attempted to focus on a single image to reveal its essence. The movement was influenced by French symbolist and Japanese poetry. Imagism later inspired the Objectivist poets, Beat poets, and Language poets.