The Road to Imagism, Pt. 1: 19th Century Origins

Topics discussed in this episode include:

-What is Modernism?

-Various dichotomies

-The French origins of Modernism

-Charles Baudelaire and the Decadent movement

-Stephane Mallarme and Symbolism/Impressionism

-Eliot, Laforgue, Corbiere, and "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

-Hugo vs. Baudelaire

-Edgar Poe's "The Philosophy of Composition" and "On the Poetic Principle"

-Theophile Gautier's "Emaux et Camees" and Aestheticism

-"L'Art" by Theophile Gautier

-Parnassianism, pseudo-classicism, and convergent evolution

-Immanuel Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason" and "Critique of Judgement"

-Noumenal vs. Phenomenal

-Buddhism and the Four Noble Truths

-Arthur Schopenhauer's "The World as Will and Representation"

-Interested and Disinterested Pleasure 

-"Le Vent Froid de la Nuit" by Leconte de Lisle

-"The Convergence of the Twain" by Thomas Hardy

-"The Eagle" and "The Kraken" by Alfred Lord Tennyson

-"La Mort de L'Aigle" by Jose Maria de Heredia

-Dinggedicht and Rilke's "Neue Gedichte"

-"Schlangen-Beschworung" by Rainer Maria Rilke

-"On Naive and Sentimental Poetry" by Friedrich Schiller

-The second coming of Parnassianism...