The Egoist, May 1915

In May, The Egoist hosted a special issue on Imagism, now without the terminal -e of Imagisme. It is epic. It contains articles on F.S. Flint, Ezra Pound, H.D., John Gould Fletcher, D.H. Lawrence, and Amy Lowell. It has an essay on the history of Imagism by F.S. Flint, and criticism of Imagism by Harold Monro. As an act of canon formation, it is notable for how it downplays Pound's position in the movement. Critics went a long time before rediscovering that Pound was not as single-handedly responsible for the movement as he can sometimes appear.

I wanted to write a post on this issue, but it is too much. Check out the table of contents:

This is must-read material for scholars, fans, and enemies of Imagism. Apologies for not being quite up to the task of posting on eight or so essays, and a set of poems. I'll be teaching this in the fall and into the future, no doubt. 

Before realizing that there was just too much to cover in a blog post, I finished my section on F.S. Flint's first essay, "The History of Imagism." I'll post it because I managed to ferret out one of his obscure epigraphs. 

It upends completely the standard narrative of imagism, and clearly sets out this intent with an epigraph from Tacitus' Agricola, which translates to:

"And so matters, which as being still not accurately known my predecessors embellished with their eloquence, shall now be related on the evidence of facts."

The second epigraph is harder to track: "Chi compra Manfredi?" or, "Who will buy Manfred?" John Addington Symonds wrote about this in Renaissance in Italy, which I take as Flint's source. Here's an excerpt:

"Our knowledge of the earliest Italo-Provencal poetry is vague, owing to the lack of genuine Sicilian monuments. We can only trace faint indications of a progress toward greater freedom and more spontaneous inspiration, as the 'courtly makers' yielded to the singers of the people. The battle of Benevento extinguished at one blow both the hopes of the Suabian dynasty and the development of Sicilian poetry. When Manfred's body had been borne naked on a donkey form the battle-field to his nameless grave, amid the cries of "Chi compra Manfredi? a foreign troubador, Amerigo di Peguilhan, composed his lament..." (27)

The context in Symonds explains why Flint places this here: the death of Manfred ended a developing poetic that was transplanted to northern Italy, which became famous for its innovations, while the true innovators were forgotten. Clever, Flint.

Flint gives the credit to Hulme, who is currently "in the trenches of Ypres," claiming that they founded a "Poet's Club" in 1908, to impress women. Pound didn't show up until 1909 (by a printer's error, it is 7909 in the text!). Flint is clearly upset by Pound's conquest of the term. I wonder how the poetic justice of Amy Lowell's theft of the movement felt for Flint. Intriguingly, Flint implies that he did not write the contribution to the March 1913 Poetry text published under his name and which contained the three rules of Imagism. After a few more barbs at Pound, Flint stops.