Wikipedia:Today's featured article/December 30, 2005

Imagism was a movement in early 20th-century Anglo-American poetry that favoured precision of imagery, and clear, sharp language. The Imagists rejected the sentiment and artifice typical of much Romantic and Victorian poetry. This was in contrast to their contemporaries, the Georgian poets, who were by and large content to work within that tradition. Group publication of work under the Imagist name in magazines and in four anthologies appearing between 1914 and 1917 featured writing by many of the most significant figures in Modernist poetry in English, as well as a number of other Modernist figures who were to be prominent in fields other than poetry. Based in London, the Imagists were drawn from Britain, Ireland and the United States and, somewhat unusually for the time, featured a number of women writers amongst their major figures. Historically, Imagism is also significant because it was the first organised Modernist English-language literary movement or group. At the time Imagism emerged Longfellow and Tennyson were considered the paragons for poetry, and the public valued the sometimes moralising tone of their writings. In contrast to this, Imagism called for a return to what were seen as more classical values, such as directness of presentation and economy of language, as well as a willingness to experiment with non-traditional verse forms.

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