Concetti Chiave
- Modernism emerged as a response to the disillusionment and uncertainty at the turn of the 20th century, seeking new forms of artistic expression.
- This movement encouraged the re-examination of existence, with a focus on subjectivity and the use of symbols and allusions.
- Modern poetry, influenced by Imagism, reacted against Victorian excesses, emphasizing direct treatment of subjects and precise language.
- Pound's Imagist principles included using only essential words, composing with musical rhythm, and allowing complete freedom of subject matter.
- Free verse and common speech were preferred, aiming to capture the exact emotions through techniques like alliteration and assonance.
Disillusion and uncertainty
In the last two decades of the 19th century, and at the beginning of the 20th, a state of disillusion and uncertainty would prevail. The horrors of the war, the previous positivistic faith in progress and science and the death of God, left individuals rootless and without any security. Artists would look for new forms of expression, which led to many experimentalism, in order to overcome the now obsolete culture of the past and to “Make it new!” to quote Pound. Modernism encouraged the re-examination of every aspect of existence. Many concentrated on their own subjectivity and perception, which led to the association of the perceived object with symbols and allusions.
Imagism and poetic evolution
Modern poetry developed with the Imagists at the beginning of the 20th Century, in reaction to the excesses of the Victorian poetry, and were inspired by pre-Romantic poetry. Reversing Wordsworth’s “emotion recollected in tranquillity”, Elliot stated that “poetry is not a turning loose of emotion but an escape from emotions; it is not the expression of personality but an escape from personality”. In one issue of the magazine Poetry, Pound described the essential positions of the literary movement:
1. Direct treatment of the "thing", whether subjective or objective.
2. To use absolutely no word that does not contribute to the presentation.
3. As regarding rhythm: to compose in sequence of the musical phrase, not in sequence of the metronome.
4. Complete freedom of subject matter.
5. Free verse was encouraged along with other new rhythms, it had to correspond “exactly to the emotion or shade of emotion to be expressed”, and thus made use of alliteration and assonance.
6. Common speech-language was used, and the exact word was always to be used, as opposed to the almost exact word.
Domande da interrogazione
- ¿Cuál fue el impacto de la desilusión y la incertidumbre en el arte a finales del siglo XIX y principios del XX?
- ¿Qué principios definieron el movimiento literario del Imagismo?
- ¿Cómo se diferenciaba la poesía moderna de la poesía victoriana según los Imagistas?
La desilusión y la incertidumbre llevaron a los artistas a buscar nuevas formas de expresión, resultando en un experimentalismo que buscaba superar la cultura obsoleta del pasado, promoviendo un reexamen de todos los aspectos de la existencia.
El Imagismo se definió por el tratamiento directo del "objeto", el uso preciso de palabras, la composición rítmica basada en frases musicales, la libertad total de temas, el verso libre, y el uso del lenguaje común con palabras exactas.
La poesía moderna, influenciada por los Imagistas, reaccionó contra los excesos de la poesía victoriana, enfocándose en la precisión y la economía del lenguaje, y promoviendo la libertad temática y rítmica, en contraste con la emotividad y la estructura rígida de la poesía victoriana.
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