Durham E-Theses Imagism reconsidered, with special reference to the early poetry of H. D. Kita, Yoshiko How to cite: Kita, Yoshiko (1995) Imagism reconsidered, with special reference to the early poetry of H. D., Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/4885/ Use policy Thefull-textmaybeusedand/orreproduced,andgiventothirdpartiesinanyformatormedium,withoutpriorpermissionor charge,forpersonalresearchorstudy,educational,ornot-for-pro(cid:28)tpurposesprovidedthat: • afullbibliographicreferenceismadetotheoriginalsource • alinkismadetothemetadatarecordinDurhamE-Theses • thefull-textisnotchangedinanyway Thefull-textmustnotbesoldinanyformatormediumwithouttheformalpermissionofthecopyrightholders. PleaseconsultthefullDurhamE-Thesespolicyforfurtherdetails. AcademicSupportO(cid:30)ce,DurhamUniversity,UniversityO(cid:30)ce,OldElvet,DurhamDH13HP e-mail: [email protected]: +4401913346107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk Imagism Reconsidered, with Special Reference to the Early Poetry of H. D. Yoshiko Kita A thesis submitted in candidature for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. University of Durham Department of English Studies 1995 The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be pubUshed without his prior written consent and information derived from it should be acknowledged. m FEB Imagism Reconsidered, with Special Reference to the Early Poetry of H. D. Yoshiko Kita Thesis Abstract. Ph. D. (University of Durham) 1995. The main aim of this thesis is to examine how H. D. developed her poetics during the Imagist movement by looking especially at her work in the Imagist anthologies (1915-1917). In order to identify the distinctive qualities of H. D.'s poetry, I shall compare it with that of other Imagists, notably Richard Aldington, John Gould Fletcher, F. S. Flint and Amy Lowell. Previous discussions of H. D.'s early poetics have been held within the context of Ezra Pound's aesthetics, and the characteristics of her poems which are inconsistent with Pound's criteria have been ignored. Hence, one of the most useful strategies to reinterpret H. D.'s poetry is, first and foremost to reconsider Pound's Imagist theory from a different viewpoint. Because of this, in the first half of this thesis, I will consider Imagism in respect of Japanese poetics; for as regards the relationship between Pound's theory and the haiku and the Chinese ideograph, there are some important issues which have been hardly discussed. So, these issues provide room for reconsidering the formation of Imagism. Since H. D. left behind hardly any literary criticism, her poems are the most useful source from which to draw clarification of her poetic criteria. Moreover, her correspondence with Amy Lowell provides significant evidence for an examination of H. D.'s poetic practice at this time. In the second half of the thesis, by quoting her own words in letters to Lowell, I identify the characteristics of H.D.'s Imagism which obviously differ from Pound's theory, and trace her development within the Imagist period. By raising a number of critical issues, I intend to illuminate the diversity of Imagism. CONTENTS. Declaration i Acknowledgements ii-iii Overview 1-11 Chapter 1. Introduction: Imagism and Feminism from "the Odd Angle" 12-32 I. Imagism Reconsidered in Relation to Japanese Poetics Chapter 2. The "Image" in Relation to the Japanese Haiku 33-61 Chapter 3. Imagism and the Chinese Ideograph 62-92 II. The Distinctive Qualities of H. D. 's Early Poetry, 1913-1919 Chapter 4. Ezra Pound and H. D.: Imagist Theory and Poetic Practice 93-127 Chapter 5. Amy Lowell and H. D.: The Imagist Anthology and Their Correspondence, 1914-1917 128-186 Chapter 6. Afterword: "My Own Spirit for Light" 187-196 Bibliography 197-215 Appendix: Annotated Transcription of the Correspondence between H. D. and Amy Lowell 216-249 DECLARATION. This thesis is original work of the author except where acknowledged by reference, and no part of the thesis has been previously submitted for a degree in this or any other university. The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published without his prior written consent and information derived from it should be acknowledged. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. I would like to acknowledge with heartfelt thanks Prof. Akira Yasukawa and Prof. Peter Makin of Kansai University, Osaka, Japan; for recommending me to study under the guidance of Dr. Diana Collecott at Durham University, and for their thoughtful advice and sustaining encouragement. I also wish to acknowledge the help of people at St. Aidan's College where I spent most of my research life as a member of Senior Common Room; especially the kindness of Lt. Cmd. John Bull and his wife Tosca. I would like to thank all colleagues of the H. D. Reading Party, including Harriet Tarlo, and all friends in Durham. I thank especially Lorna Jowett for her help in reading the final typescript and for the effort she made for me; also her husband Gavin Walker for his help with computing. Most of all, however, I want to thank my supervisor. Dr. Collecott for her guidance, advice, help and encouragement, which were always appropriate and insightful: I cannot thank her enough. I make grateful acknowledgement to the Houghton Library at Harvard University, Boston, for permission to use the correspondence between H. D. and Amy Lowell in this thesis (in the form of quotations and an appendbc) which I first encountered in the course of my research trip to the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University, New Haven, in 1989. 11 I make grateful acknowledgement to the Amy Lowell Trustees for permission to quote her unpublished correspondence under the Will of Amy Lowell. Grateful acknowledgement is also given to New Directions Publishing Corporation for permission to quote from previously unpublished correspondence of H. D. I am also grateful to a grant from Kansai University and Overseas Research Students Awards from the Committee of Vice-chancellors and Principals of the Universities of the United Kingdom. Finally, my thanks to my husband, Kazuyuki Kita, with whom I have shared the joy of this project, for everything through the years of my studying in Durham. ni OVERVIEW In a letter to Amy Lowell (February 1916; no exact date), H. D. refers to the tense atmosphere in which the Imagist poets lived at that time, in the midst of the First World War: You see, this war period, our joint income is about 3 pounds a week — We live here extremely comfortably on it. And because we live simply, really poor "artists" have no feeling of pride in asking us for little loans! — You see what I mean? ... — I can not write you what I think, feel & know about this terrible war. ... — We are all weakened by this continual strain!"" These words survive as a record of the voice of H. D., a young expatriate American female poet in quest of her own poetics, being involved in the Imagist movement in London. They provide a striking contradiction to the conventional opinion of H. D. as in Glenn Hughes' words below: H. D. is a lonely figure, and her loneliness cries out from her poems. She is not of this world, but of one long past, and we must not look to her for an interpretation of modern life. All that she brings to the twentieth century is a vision of beauty which has not altered since the days of Homer, and which may be perceived only by those who have within themselves something likewise fixed and immutable. Her shyness and her incapacity to assimilate the life of today have caused her much pain, but this has been made to serve the purpose of her art.2 There is the enormous gap between H. D.'s own words and Hughes'. So, the main purpose of this thesis is to reconsider H. D.'s early poetry during the Imagist movement based on a major premise that her early poems should be discussed from a completely different angle from the conventional one. H. D.'s biographical details during the Imagist period have been examined carefully. For instance, in the Introduction to Collected Poems, 1912-1944, Louis L. Martz takes them into account in order to interpret H. D.'s works. As regards the importance of her early days in London, in the foreword to Tribute to Freud, Norman Holmes Pearson comments as follows: 'The past is literally blasted into consciousness with the Blitz in London,' H. D. said. Her sessions with Sigmund Freud, when she first wrote about them in 1944, were a part of the past. With him, the desk and walls of his consulting room filled with bibelots which were tokens of history, she had gone back to her childhood, back to the breakup of her marriage and the birth of her child, back to the death of her brother in service in France, and the consequent death, from shock, of her father, and back to the breakup of her literary circle in London ~ Aldington, Pound, Lawrence, each gone his way. In the Vienna of the early 1930s, with its lengthening shadows, she was putting together the shards of her own history, facing a new war, knowing it would come, fearing it as she had feared its predecessor.^ H. D.'s early days in London are thus significant throughout her Uterary career. My aim here is especially concerning her poetic technique during this period; to examine how H.D. developed her poetics in relation to other Imagist poets. I will examine this issue by looking at her early poems, especially those in the Imagist anthologies (1915- 1917). In the present work, I would Hke to clarify the distinctive qualities of H. D.'s early poetry through my discussion. First, however, I wish to explicate a method which I shall adopt throughout my discussion. There are two sections: Part I, "Imagism Reconsidered in Relation to Japanese Poetics"; and Part II, "The Distinctive Qualities of H. D.'s Early Poetry, 1913-1919." The reason that I have placed the section on Japanese poetics before that on H. D. is to reconsider the formation of Imagist aesthetics in the first place. Generally speaking, Ezra Pound's acknowledgement of the role of H. D. in the Imagist movement has been widely accepted: "The name [Imagiste] was invented to launch H. D. and Aldington before either had enough stuff for a volume."^ More crucially, the characteristics of H. D.'s later Imagist poetry have been judged by Pound's account: "She [H. D.] has also (under I suppose the flow-contamination of Amy and Fletcher) let loose dilutations and repetitions, so that she has spoiled the 'few but perfect' position which she might have held on to."5 In most cases, the discussions on H. D.'s early poetics have been held within Pound's aesthetics, and the characteristics of her poems which are inconsistent with