Ghent University Faculty of Arts and Philosophy Academic year: 2014-2015 (August) “Come Let Us Build a Monument to Ezra.” Imagist Affinities between the Poetics of Ezra Pound and the Poems of Ernest Hemingway: A Modernist Friendship and a Quest for Truth. Supervisor: Dr. Kate Macdonald Master dissertation submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of “Master in de Vergelijkende Moderne Letterkunde” by Birgit Van Asch. Acknowledgements First of all I would like to thank my supervisor, Kate Macdonald. I am convinced that I could not have wished for better guidance. Knowing that she was always there to immediately answer my questions or willing to proofread chapters, I felt reassured and there was nothing more motivational than reading her expert comments on my writings. Secondly, I also owe great gratitude to my parents. For months, they allowed me to use this dissertation as an excuse for every time I burst out into tears or reacted overly annoyed at things they did or said. I want to thank them for their inexhaustible support, for always believing in me and pushing me to my limits ever since I was a child. If it weren’t for them, I would not be the student and person I am now. And although I was never able to convince my mother that literature was by no means inferior to linguistics, she has always allowed me to chase my own dreams. Also all of my friends deserve their spot here, for letting me breathe again when things got on top of me. Especially my best friend and roommate Antje has proven to be irreplaceable: thank you for doing the dishes, thank you for your supportive texts and thank you, just for being you. Also my fellow-VML students Anneleen, Ans and Lore have made this master year and writing this thesis an unforgettable experience. We made an amazing team. Lastly, I want to thank all the professors and teaching assistants that have ignited and throughout the years further nurtured my love for literature. Their classes always showed me that there is so much more to literature than what you get at first sight, no matter how beautiful it may already be on the surface. There is always more underneath and it really does matter. Birgit, August 2015 TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................................................... 3 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................................ 1 STRUCTURE AND METHODOLOGY ................................................................................................... 4 MY POSITION IN RELATION TO EXISTING SCHOLARSHIP .................................................. 7 PART I : LITERARY AND HISTORICAL BACKGROUND ............................................... 8 CHAPTER 1: ERNEST HEMINGWAY, AN UNFAIRLY FORGOTTEN POET ........................... 8 1.1 Hemingway’s attitude towards his poetry ..................................................................................... 8 1.2 Experimenting freely and undermining the myth ......................................................................... 9 1.3 Scholarly reception ..................................................................................................................... 10 1.3.1 “Not particularly important” .................................................................................................................... 10 1.3.2 “Particularly important” ............................................................................................................................ 11 1.3.2.1 Hemingway’s poetry in relation to his prose ................................................................................................. 11 1.3.2.2 Poetry as an indispensable part of Hemingway’s apprenticeship ........................................................... 12 CHAPTER 2: HEMINGWAY AND POUND: A MODERNIST FRIENDSHIP AND QUEST FOR TRUTH .................................................................................................................................... 14 2.1 Meeting Pound, the Parisian dandy who would become his favoured mentor ........................... 14 2.1.1 A literary friendship that survived all the others ............................................................................... 15 2.2 Mutual attraction and admiration ................................................................................................ 16 2.2.1 Hemingway’s admiration for Pound: a major poet ........................................................................... 16 2.2.2 Pound’s admiration for Hemingway: a member of his aesthetic elite ........................................ 17 2.2.2.1 Getting Hemingway published ........................................................................................................................... 17 2.2.2.2 Giving Hemingway literary guidance .............................................................................................................. 18 2.3 Hemingway’s quest for truth ....................................................................................................... 19 2.3.1 A journalist apprenticeship: the fundaments ....................................................................................... 20 2.3.2 Stepping away from journalism .............................................................................................................. 21 2.3.3 The impact of the Great War: a need for truthful representation ................................................. 22 2.3.3.1 Hemingway’s interpretation of truth................................................................................................................. 22 2.3.3.2 Irony and satire ......................................................................................................................................................... 23 CHAPTER 3: EZRA POUND AND IMAGISM .............................................................................. 25 3.1 The importance of Ezra Pound and Imagism in the post-war decade ......................................... 25 3.2 MAKE IT NEW: Pound’s bridge between tradition and innovation .......................................... 26 3.3 Pound’s Imagist principles clarified............................................................................................ 27 3.3.1 Le mot juste ................................................................................................................................................... 28 3.3.2 New rhythms for new ideas ...................................................................................................................... 29 3.3.3 Foreign tongues ............................................................................................................................................ 30 3.3.4 The image: the writer’s primary pigment ............................................................................................ 31 3.3.5 Concentration and discipline .................................................................................................................... 32 3.4 From “Amygism” to Vorticism ................................................................................................... 32 PART II: LITERARY ANALYSIS ............................................................................................. 34 CHAPTER 1: ECONOMY AND LE MOT JUSTE .......................................................................... 35 1.1 In Our Time: reduction on several levels .................................................................................... 35 1.2 Hemingway’s poems ................................................................................................................... 37 1.2.1 The earliest witness of Hemingway’s poetics: make every element count ............................... 37 1.2.2 The right words and the right punctuation marks .............................................................................. 38 1.2.3 Reduction of attributive constructions .................................................................................................. 39 1.2.4 Deviations from the pattern: functional use of adjectives .............................................................. 41 CHAPTER 2: MUSICALITY ........................................................................................................... 43 2.1 In Our Time and The Sun Also Rises: speed, rhythm and rhyme ................................................ 43 2.2 Hemingway’s poems: an early preference of free verse ............................................................. 45 2.2.1 Enjambments and sentences of alternating complexity ................................................................... 47 2.2.2 Rhythm, rhyme and other meaningful consonants ............................................................................ 48 2.2.3 Deviation from the pattern: functional use of rhyme ....................................................................... 50 2.2.4 Residue of sound .......................................................................................................................................... 51 2.3 Foreign tongues ........................................................................................................................... 52 CHAPTER 3: IMAGES AS THE WRITER’S PRIMARY PIGMENT ..........................................