Imagism, Free Verse, and Ancient Metre

Abstract This chapter surveys two related aspects of Aldington’s engagement with Imagism. First, it summarizes his involvement in the creation and development of the Imagist movement and his interactions with Ezra Pound, Harriet Monroe, and Amy Lowell and analyses some of his own early Imagist poems. Second, the chapter critiques Aldington’s claim (which other Imagists also made) that the Imagists’ free verse was actually based directly on ancient metre. This claim about ancient metre is of course mistaken, and Aldington’s belief that Greek lyric poetry and tragic choruses used a form of ‘free verse’ cannot withstand examination. The chapter goes into some detail on the mechanics of Greek and Latin quantitative metre, since one part of the book’s target audience (those interested primarily in Modernism) will probably be unfamiliar with how quantity functioned in ancient metre. The chapter also considers a possible ancient source, the second-century ce grammarian Hephaestion, for Aldington’s mistaken claim that modern free verse revived ancient metrical practice. Although it is mistaken, this claim illustrates Aldington’s fervent wish to establish a classical pedigree for his poetry, even when he was working in innovative forms. There is a crucial tension between his desire to pioneer new forms and his desire to claim the mantle of traditional poetic practice, and he negotiates that tension (as does Pound as well) by asserting that their innovations in fact are traditional.