Aesthetic Visions of Vicente Huidobro's Altazor & Ezra Pound's Ripostes

UNIVERSIDAD DE SANTIAGO DE CHILE
FACULTAD DE HUMANIDADES
DEPARTAMENTO DE LINGSTICA Y LITERATURA
AESTHETIC VISIONS OF VICENTE HUIDOBROS ALTAZOR AND

EZRA POUNDS RIPOSTES
A Comparative Analysis Based on Paul Valrys Aesthetic-Poetic View
MIGUEL NGEL HORMAZBAL CEPEDA

OSCAR ANDRS SALGADO FLORES
Profesor Gua:
Sra. Andrea Campaa
Mg. En Literatura
Tesis para optar al grado acadmico

de Licenciado en Educacin en Ingls
y al ttulo profesional de Profesor de
Estado en Ingls
Santiago Chile
2011
Miguel ngel Hormazbal Cepeda y Oscar Andrs Salgado Flores

Se autoriza la reproduccin parcial o total de esta obra, con fines acadmicos,
por cualquier forma, medio o procedimiento, siempre y cuando se incluya la cita
bibliogrfica del documento.
UNIVERSIDAD DE SANTIAGO DE CHILE

FACULTAD DE HUMANIDADES
DEPARTAMENTO DE LINGSTICA Y LITERATURA
AESTHETIC VISIONS OF VICENTE HUIDOBROS ALTAZOR AND

EZRA POUNDS RIPOSTES
A Comparative Analysis Based on Paul Valrys Aesthetic-Poetic View
MIGUEL NGEL HORMAZBAL CEPEDA

OSCAR ANDRS SALGADO FLORES
Profesor Gua:
Sra. Andrea Campaa
Mg. En Literatura
Tesis para optar al grado acadmico

de Licenciado en Educacin en Ingls
y al ttulo profesional de Profesor de
Estado en Ingls
Santiago Chile
2011
HOJAS DE CALIFICACION (ANEXAR)
Hormazabal and Salgado
Acknowledgement
I would like to express my gratitude to all of those who supported me in any
respect during the realization of this project, especially to our guide teacher,
Andrea Campaa, for her significant guidance through all these years; to my
thesis partner and friend, Oscar Salgado, for making this investigation possible;
and to my parents, Rosa Cepeda and Mateo Hormazbal, for the freedom they
have always given me.
Miguel Hormazbal
First and foremost, I would like to thank all the people who have helped and
supported me during the realization of this investigation. Im deeply grateful for
the guidence of Ms. Andrea Campaa and the incredible work of my friend and
thesis-partner, Miguel Hormazabal; without them, this crazy literary idea I had
once wouldnt have seen the light. Additionally, I would like to express my
gratitude to Mr. Manuel Santibaez and Ms. Connie Colwell for their support. I,
also, thank my friends William Baker and Gwen De La Kethulle for sharing with
me their unlimited love for arts. Finally, I would like to acknowledge and extend
my wholehearted gratitude to my parents, M. Angelica Flores and Oscar
Salgado, for leading me on the arduous path that is life and supporting me
during the whole process of this investigation.
Oscar Salgado
Hormazabal and Salgado ii
Table of Contents
Acknowledgement
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Table of Contents
Abstract
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Chapter 1: Introduction
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Chapter 2: Theoretical Framework
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2.1. Aesthetics
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2.1.1. General Difficulties in Defining the Idea of Aesthetics
2.1.2. Valrys Aesthetics Notions
2.1.2.1. The Idea of Beauty
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2.1.2.2. The Idea of Pleasure
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2.1.3. Valrys Poetic Notions
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2.1.3.1. Valrys idea of Poetry
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2.1.3.2. Practical Language and Poetic Language
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2.1.3.3. Form and Content
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2.1.3.4. The Poetic Elements
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2.1.3.4.1. The Poetic State
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2.1.3.4.2. The Poet
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2.1.3.4.3. The Poem
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2.1.3.4.4. The Poetic Process
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2.1.4. Aesthetic Vision of the Poet
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2.2. Diction and Imagery

Chapter 3: Individual Analysis
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3.1. Vicente Huidobros Altazor

3.1.1. Preface
3.1.1.1. Diction and Imagery
3.1.2. Canto I
3.1.3. Canto II
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3.1.4. Canto III
3.1.5. Canto IV
3.1.6. Canto V
3.1.7. Canto VI
3.1.8. Canto VII
3.2. Ezra Pounds Ripostes
3.2.1. Silet
3.2.2. In Exitum Cuiusdam
3.2.3. Apparuit
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3.2.4. The Tomb At Akr aar
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3.2.5. Portrait Dune Femme
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3.2.6. N.Y.
3.2.7. A Girl
3.2.8. Phasellus Ille
3.2.9. An Object
3.2.10. Quies
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3.2.11. Echoes I
3.2.12. Echoes II
3.2.13. An Immorality
3.2.14. Salve Pontifex
3.2.15.
3.2.16. The Needle
3.2.17. Sub Mare
3.2.18. Plunge
3.2.19. A Virginal
3.2.20. Pan Is Dead
3.2.21. The Picture
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3.2.22. Of Jacopo Del Sellaio
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3.2.23. The Return

3.2.24. Effects of Music Upon a Company of People
3.2.24.1. I Deux Movements
3.2.24.1.1. Diction and Imagery
3.2.24.2. II From A Thing By Schumann
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Chapter 4: Contrastive Analysis

4.1. Content
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4.1.2. Ezra Pounds Ripostes
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4.2. Diction
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4.2.1. Vicente Huidobros Altazor
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4.3. Imagery
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Chapter 5: Conclusions
Notes
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Works Consulted
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Works Cited
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Hormazabal and Salgado vi
Abstract
This thesis presents a study of two important poetical works of the 20th
century: Altazor of the Chilean poet Vicente Huidobro and Ripostes of the
American poet Ezra Pound. Its objective is to compare both poets by taking as a
central element the use of language of the authors in terms of diction and
imagery. This analysis looks to establish the individual aesthetic visions of these
two fine poets, as well as to discover their similarities and diferences, explaining
why these works were so influent in generations thereafter.
Chapter 1: Introduction
It is undeniable for any person to feel, at least in one moment of their
fallible lives, an intense, overwhelming, truly unexplainable desire of expressing
the most profound thoughts and feelings of their human condition. This complex
situation may be translated into what so many thinkers have understood
throughout history, as an internal, intrinsic human call: maybe, a call to reflect
experience, a call to reflect inner struggles or a call to reflect beauty. No matter
what the genuine significance of this calling might be, it is certain that it is an
essential necessity deeply rooted in our hominal constitution a driving force
that is constantly aiming for a way to be released.
Diverse modes of expression have been born from this abstruse and
eruptive need: forms such as music and its heavenly sound; painting and its
magnificent intensity; photography and its vivid depiction; film and its fascinating
motion; or writing and its immortal charm. All these modes, and many others,
have been packed together into a friendly but, at the same time, vague linguistic
component we call art a short, yet tremendous term used to portray an
authentic substantial meaning.
It is among all these modes of expression, understood as exclusive
mediums essentially begotten from the depth of the human character, where we
find the sphere around which this analysis circumnavigates: the art of writing.
The written process is one of the most universally recognized and fundamental
vehicles of the never-ending human reflection. Subtle in its constitution, yet
carrier of a sole voice, poetry is a big part of this mesmerizing action and, since
the moment it came out of the living self, it has become a vital tool for the human
being reason why the ship of this investigation drops its anchor in the sea of
writing, and docks at poetrys apollonian harbour.
Let us appreciate, then, poetrys inherent complexity: from the core of its
expressive use of language to its stunning delivery of meaning, poetry may
articulate not only a message, but mostly, a state of uttermost sensibility which
enables us to reach a sublime sensation of beauty. It is this beauty that poets
have tried to convey in their experiences, observations and thoughts a beauty
that, no matter how much we may recognize, is still unexplainable and totally
enigmatic.
A fundamental question echoes in the inquiry room: what is beauty? No
explanation has ever satisfied all human souls, so an acceptable answer still
remains implausible. But why does this happen? Why is there no agreement on
this matter? One possible answer is that the idea of beauty may not be static
but, on the contrary, it may be in constant movement. Another probable
explanation may lie on the idea that not all humans experience sensations the
same way. Whatever answer there may be, it is clear that there is no defined
pattern of understanding beauty universally.
Nevertheless, it could be said that poets do have a certain vision of
beauty, and it could also be said that there may be as many visions of beauty as
there are of men drawing letters on a blank page. We could go further and state
that, possibly, it is this perspective the one they attempt to express in their
writings. When poets write, they not only intend to communicate something, they
also take into account how and why that message needs to be expressed the
conjunction of all this is what we called an artists Aesthetic Vision1.
If we understand, in this context, that from each artist a unique vision is
able to be found, human logic will certainly denote the existence of perspectives
that are totally different from each other, as well as highlight the presence of
those that share similar characteristics. Furthermore, an artists vision, in broad
terms, may also approximate another artists perspective on a common
distinctive trace, creating worlds of different size, yet constructed under the
same galaxies that can affect the poetical universe. Few of these visions have
been, in fact, responsible for the initiation of paradigms that can transform
significantly the stream of poetry. The visions of the American Ezra Pound and
the Chilean Vicente Huidobro were examples of these. Both artists not only
produced critical essays about their views, but also were the authors and
creators of revolutionary and complex works of poetry. The uniqueness and
brilliance of both writers and their work are the main reasons for selecting them
as the core of this investigation.
But, what makes Pounds and Huidobros visions so important? Is there
something in common that may connect both of them? Can we establish
similarities between the two of them that might give us clues to answer these
and further questions? Even when establishing such connections is a difficult
task, especially if we consider that both poets originally wrote their oeuvre in
different languages, creating parallels among their work seems like an
interesting venture. It is precisely this eagerness for poetic knowledge, the one
that motivates us to carry out an analysis in this direction. For this, two of their
most recognized and representative works have been selected and carefully
studied: Altazor in the case of Vicente Huidobro and Ripostes in the case of
Ezra Pound.
This research satisfies two different aims: one exclusively investigative
and the other one strictly personal. The first corresponds to a comparative study
focused on the use of language of these two powerful poetic creations that could
determine elemental connections between the authors, and the second to a
fulfilment of our significant interest in carrying out an analysis that could put
together two artists that come from different contexts and linguistic backgrounds.
Considering what has been stated, we postulate that substantial
similarities between the Aesthetic Visions of Vicente Huidobros Altazor and
Ezra Pounds Ripostes can be established. The objectives for this work of
investigation have been set as follows:
To present a definition of Aesthetic Vision of the Poet based on Paul
Valrys ideas.
To identify the elements that constitute the Aesthetic Vision of an author
in a written work.
To describe the Aesthetic Visions of both poets in the works selected
To describe the parallels drawn between the poets selected works in

terms of their Aesthetic Visions, focusing on their differences and
similarities.
Following the defiant vision of the authors selected, we have conceived
this investigation as one that breaks the traditional logic of poetic analyses. By
comparing two poetic works of a visible linguistic difference, Altazor being
written in Spanish and Ripostes in English, this thesis attempts to join these two
distinctive heritages in one literary connection. In order to achieve this and the
objectives previously established, this investigation takes into account the
diverse elements of poetic creation with the intention of exposing Huidobros and
Pounds principal interests and motivations when writing their pieces of art.
For investigative purposes, this study has been divided into three different
chapters: a theoretical framework is presented firstly, providing all the necessary
theoretical inputs to achieve the objectives already set; an analysis of Altazor
and Ripostes is exposed in the second chapter, discussing separately the
principal characteristic of these two poetical works; and, a comparative analysis
of both compositions is presented in the third and final chapter, exposing and
paralleling the findings regarding the Aesthetic Visions of the two literary works.
As well as these introductory lines, conclusions are then presented at the end of
the document.
Chapter 2: Theoretical Framework

This chapter sets the boundaries to analyze the selected works under the
concept of Aesthetic Vision. This investigation is based on the ideas of Paul
Valry and R.S. Gwynn. The topics selected for discussion are divided into two
major sections: Aesthetics and Diction.
2.1. Aesthetics
Broadly related with abstract terms such as beauty or perception, many
have questioned the implications of the word aesthetics and its contemporary
interpretation. Etymology points out to the sensitive meaning of the word as
being both (aisthetikos) and (aisthanomai), Greek for
perceive and feel - a classic denotation of the ancient thoughts on arts which
Greek philosophers used to derive from a sense of symmetry and harmony.
Even though this idea has not been radically transformed from its origin,
substantial difficulties still appear when trying to define the term aesthetics.
2.1.1. General Difficulties in Defining the Idea of Aesthetics
According to Oxford University Press, aesthetics may be defined as the
branch of philosophy which deals with questions of beauty and artistic taste
(Aesthetics). Concise as it may sound, this definition generates, in the
immediate second it is read and processed by our cognitive system, a set of
diffuse images which elevates the mind to a state of intriguing wondering. A
crucial question, innate to any person with a minimal thirst for knowledge, arises
from this situation: what is beauty? The problems in finding a satisfactory
answer for this enigmatic construct begin when taking into account the incredible
depth of this concept which has generated a great number of positions regarding
its significance throughout history. Discussions about the idea of Beauty date
from the exact moment in which men began to elaborate, in a methodical and
systematic manner, their thoughts. However different the conceptions of the
distinct paradigms may be, there is a notion that has always been present:
beauty is in tight connection with sensations, especially that of Pleasure. It is in
this junction where the prime problem of Aesthetics is unfolded: sensations and
ideas move around in completely different realms; while the first have to do with
what an individual feels, the others refer to what a person understands; while the
first flirt with the mysterious and the inexplicable, the second bloom with logic
and reason. There is a tight relation between these two dimensions, but when
put together in order to establish a universal truth, a battle of contradictions is
inevitable. To define the indefinable represents the inborn conflict of this area of
knowledge. How to explain, for instance, the pleasure produced by a specific
melody that makes hearts feel lifted up to a state of satisfaction? Why the
intensity of our breathing increases after we feel the strong wind stroking our
hair when watching the symmetrical perfection of a flower in the green fields of
an open grassland? What is that unknown part of our spirit that is stimulated
when we travel to an unclassified cosmos by penetrating into the portals of

another persons eyes?
Experts in the fields of philosophy and arts have come across with
answers throughout history, in attempts that take the possibilities of the intellect
to the limit, constantly elaborating more on accepted conceptions, introducing
new ideas and criticizing others, but always leaving room for a sentiment of
incompleteness and inaccuracy. This antinomy exists for the contradiction
produced when the mind in search of universal truth, follower of the path of
logic, faces objects of study that can only be felt particularly by individuals, and
explained if possible just by themselves to themselves. The seeker of this
truth finds at the end of this quest just the shadow of what had been sought for
at the very beginning; for there is something regarding the idea of Beauty and
Pleasure probably its essence that cannot be explained in linguistic or
physiological terms.
This is why, in formal terms, this investigation does not intended to
establish a definition of what Aesthetics is or what its objects of study are and
mean. To take that route would be a deviation of the central core of the
objectives of this study. Nevertheless, and for the purposes of this investigative
adventure, it is indispensable to situate this idea under some specific notions
that could articulate a body of logical coherence in order to present the
necessary arguments. In an exploration that started in the region of philosophy
and went through the fields of almost every area of knowledge possible, the
ideas of Paul Valry appeared, whether as a product of chance or inevitable

cause, in front of the eyes of those who wrote these lines. Valry was a French
poet, essayist, and philosopher, whose devotion for arts was gathered in
countless writings and passages that demonstrate a full command of a sublime
poetic knowledge, and that depict an incredible understanding of Aesthetic
notions. A relevant question may emanate: why is Valry's point of view
selected for this analysis instead of any one elses? The answer, simple in its
construct, yet never simplistic, will point out two main reasons: first, the solid
bonds settled between his ideas of Aesthetics and Poetry expressed in a
harmonic juxtaposition of these two worlds; second, the period in which his
ideas were written, since they correspond to the artistic context of Pound and
Huidobros works.
2.1.2. Valrys Aesthetics Notions
Valrys main concern about Aesthetics does not come from the
geometric action of squaring the vital thoughts of humanitys concept of pure
Beauty into a system that can be universally understood. On the contrary, it
comes from the uncertainty (Valry, Introduccin 12)2; the conclusive act of
thinking outside the given rules of the artistic-circles demands. It is in this logical
uniformity where the thinker is commonly settled and where Valry initiates his
contemplation of Aesthetics. However, Valry figures that in order to
comprehend the notion of such abstract term, it is first needed to define the
Hormazabal and Salgado 10
essence from which it is actually formed, for the author must take distance from
the subject being questioned, as he explains:
Ill strive to carry out a <very complete list> and a revision of
general character, as it is recommended in Descartes Discourse.
Ill stay outside of the building from which Aesthetic is being
elaborated and Ill observe what comes out from it. (Discurso 45)
By doing this, Valrys first conclusion on the matter gets a hold of metaphysical
knowledge through which he discovers the true fuel of Aesthetic existence. For
Valry, the essence of such concept is the result of an act of initial philosophical
curiosity which was progressively transformed into a speculative thinking of
highly complex problems (Discurso 47-48). The thinker seems to posses an
intuitive desire for initiating elaborated thoughts on some matter, a sort of natural
gift which requires the exaltation of the thinkers logical essence. It is in this act
of questioning, which involves the thinkers use of reason, where Valry
observes a deep connection between Aesthetics and the idea of Beauty.
2.1.2.1. The Idea of Beauty
Now that the notion of such mystic process has been presented, Valry
continues breaking the origins of Aesthetics down. After observing how the initial
curiosity of the philosopher pushes himself towards logic, he concludes that the
thinkers nature has conceived the main purpose of categorizing, rationally, any
phenomena. The thinkers and their dialectics will try to grant logic to the related
elements of their philosophical curiosity. This process of enormous human effort

will, somehow, try to give form to the Idea of Beauty (Valry, Discurso 51),
indispensable for the general appreciation of Aesthetics. Valry sees such
Beauty as an ideal rooted in an undetermined field: he understands that this
Beauty is unexplainable, incommunicable, and irrational the main reason why
it becomes an attractive object of study for the philosopher. Valry observes that
such phenomenon is not of minor importance, considering it extraordinary for
the history of art, yet he alludes to it an inevitable condition:
Without a doubt, the application of dialectic analysis on problems
that are not contained in a determined field, and that are not
expressed in exact terms, would fatally produce truths inside the
temple of a conventional doctrine, and beautiful refusing realities
would always come to disturb the sovereignty of the Beautiful Ideal
and the serenity of its definition. (Discurso 51)
When the thinker has given rationality to the unrational with these so-called
truths, which Valry has understood as rationalized Aesthetic (Discurso 57),
the concept of Beauty is being locked in a cage of squared lines, attributing to it
formulas, calculus, precepts and principles that would pin authority on its own
structures. The thinker, in an act that can not take distance from a methodical
way of artistry, would operate under these guidelines and would elevate his
necessity for a logical truth over the incommunicable, which is for Valry the
essence of Beauty. In the manifestation of such act, the logical thinker would try
to universalize his own principles, inventing a truth of beauty (Valry,

Discurso 60). This concept of rationalized Aesthetic, that reacts more as a
dogma than as a free interpretation of the unknown, is not strictly condemned
in Valrys appreciation. In fact, he attributes the establishment of such view as
being beneficial for the practice of art throughout history. Yet under philosophical
terms, Valry would consider this logical thought as being no more than the
edification of a dogmatic Aesthetic (Discurso 61), a seductive necessity for
the rational. Valry concludes that, although unanswerably creative, the
philosophical Aesthetics does not talk about what it thinks it talks about
because it has not even been demonstrated to be possible to talk about it
(Discurso 63). By understanding that rationalized Aesthetics is separated from
the indefinable form of Beauty, that is one of Valrys main ideas, it becomes
clear that presenting a definition of Beauty would be a contradiction. However,
what is indefinable is not necessary deniable (Valry, Discurso 64): Beauty
exists, yet not in the realm of logic and reason; it exists in the realm of
sensations. When someone is able to reach that Beauty, according to Valry, a
special sensation becomes directly stimulated: the sensation of Pleasure.
2.1.2.2. The Idea of Pleasure
Now that Valry has defined the origin of the classic Aesthetic notions,
which he has called rationalized Aesthetics, he is prepared to attribute his
personal ideas on the matter. It is in the relation that ties the thinker with the
thing being questioned in the fields of an indescribable Beauty where the main
core of Aesthetic understanding appears, the principle of Pleasure:
There is a form of pleasure that is not explainable; which does not
circumscribe; which is not allocated in the organ of senses from
which it was born, neither in the realms of sensitivity; which differs
from nature, intensity, importance and consequence, according to
people, circumstances, time, culture, age and mediums; which
incites to actions without a universal validated cause, and is
ordered for uncertain purposes, to individuals randomly distributed
on a group of people; and those actions gender products of diverse
order whose value of use and change depend very little of what
they really are. (Discurso 65-66)
It is important to understand the fact that the concept of Pleasure that Valry
elucidates is not the one strictly attached to the pleasure generated by the libido
or any other physiological need. Even though this form of pleasure had been
normally assigned to the function of conservation of the species, conventionally
related to a reasonable finality (Valry, Discurso 48), it has not been the type
of pleasure that stimulates and requests all human abilities for its existence.
Valrys principle refers to this sort of Pleasure which presents itself more as a
phenomenon a state without a central purpose more than its own existence; a
sensation that could never be attached to any physiological convention. This
Pleasure does not have an end and provokes an exaltation of the senses,
challenging the intellect while equalizing matter, form, thought, action and
passion (Valry, Discurso 49). Pleasure is revealed to the creator in the
awaken desire of creating for the only purpose of it, as Valry will define: a
desire and its reward regenerating the one from the other (Discurso 49); a
loop in which Pleasure satisfies itself through its own creation.
When understanding Valrys concept of Pleasure is when we realize that
the rigor of a dogmatic Aesthetic does not only interfere with the idea of pure
Beauty, but also with the one of Pleasure; such orthodox conception of a single
truth dictates us an order of the incommunicable which is not possible. Pleasure
is being understood as equal for all humans, given the people who believe in
such idea the ability to determinate true from fake Pleasure (Valry, Discurso
60). This is what Valry would condemn, as already mentioned, on his view,
which gives us the notion of Aesthetics as being born of an incommunicable
Pleasure.
2.1.3. Valrys Poetic Notions
Even though there are many theoretical poetic figures that can be easily
presented and inextricably linked to Valrys conception of Aesthetic, it becomes
necessary to establish first the concepts from which the Aesthetic thinker
conceives the idea of Poetry: what is being understood as Poetry must be
presented with the main purpose of dissolving the thick mist which separates the
already-given terminologies to the meanings the poet has derived from his
artistry.
2.1.3.1. Valrys idea of Poetry
Humanities have always stood out as being the sole knowledge that
embraces subjectivity as its core, as its main constitution. As well as philosophy
and its Aesthetics, literary arts are a big part of such special attribution; a gene
from which Poetry has adopted a variety of definitions. Now that Valrys notion
of Aesthetics has been exposed for the purpose of getting to know his
philosophical perceptions, it becomes essential to scrutinize the appreciation he
has formed about the art he worked upon all his life: Poetry. Valry takes a
different path from those poets that are used to taking distance from definitions
of the elements that surround their own art (maybe as an act of their artistic spirit
that does not allow facts or certainties in their comprehension of life, or
maybe just as a manifestation of their own impossibility). On the contrary, the
French author does not hesitate to summarize Poetry as simply as it could get:
in Valrys own words, Poetry is nothing more than an art of language (Poetry
214). For many, such convention may not excite revolutionary changes in
history, but what follows those exact words defies the literary thought: Poetry is
an art of Language; certain combinations of words can produce an emotion that
others do not produce (Valry, Poetry 214). Such lines, under a simple view,
may reduce Poetry to a process of pure and effective selection of words: but we
must not mislead the authors intentions, for such reduction is a questionable
condensation of deeper thoughts: the tip of an immeasurable iceberg of
knowledge.
2.1.3.2. Practical Language and Poetic Language
According to Valry, Poetry is the art of language. But language is a
practical creation (Poetry 218), yet it is outside the practical world where
Valry finds that some traces of language seem to have a life of their own. To
elucidate this apparent contradiction, Valry identifies two types of Language:
Practical and Poetic; the first is a means to an end or purpose, whereas the
second is an end in itself. The objective of Practical Language is to convey a
meaning, to communicate something through a code. Once the message has
been received and comprehended, the code has no longer utility for it has
served its purpose the Language has cancelled itself by transforming into a
non-language (Valry, Poetry 219), a particular act, a reaction to what was
said. In Valrys words:
In other terms, in practical or abstract uses of language, the form
that is the physical, the concrete part, the very act of the speech
does not last; it does not outlive understanding; it dissolves in the
light: it has acted; it has done its work; it has brought
understanding; it has lived. (Poetry 219)
On the other hand, in the Poetic Language, the sensitive form acquires, by its
own effect, such an importance that imposes and makes itself respected, for it
situates the artist in a special state in which the laws are no longer working
under a practical order and in which nothing that may occur would be resolved,
finished or abolished by a specific act (Valry, Poetry 219). When this
happens, when the poetic universe is created, a desire of reproducing the code
is born inside the poet. It is in this type of Language where Poetry is relevant
and understood as such; it is in this universe, in this language within a
language (Valry, Poetry 218), where the verses are created.
These two types of Language, also referred as prose and poetry, inhabit
the same world and utilize the same code but the way they stimulate their
components is entirely dissimilar. Valry explains that prose and poetry use the
same words, the same syntax, the same forms, and the same sounds or tones,
but differently co-ordinated and differently aroused (Poetry 223). In prose the
discourse dies once the meaning is conveyed, for the code is totally replaced by
its sense. To say it in more precise terms, the substance of prose is content.
On the contrary, the code of the poem does not die after being expressed; just
as the phoenix that rises from its own ashes with renewed youth, the poem has
a special quality that creates a deep desire of reproducing it. There is something
in the combination of words and sounds that creates a special atmosphere that
goes beyond its significance. The substance of poetry then is not only content
but also form (Valry, Poetry 224).
2.1.3.3. Form and Content

Content and form are two crucial concepts in Valrys understanding of
Poetry, for it is by these two dimensions that Language, whether Practical or
Poetic, is constituted. To illustrate how these two ideas coexist and interrelate,
Valry invites the reader to imagine a pendulum that oscillates between two
symmetrical points:
Suppose that one of these extremes represents form: the concrete
characteristics of the language, sound, rhythm, accent, tone,
movementin a word, the Voice in action. Then associate with the
other point, the acnode of the first, all significant values, images
and ideas, stimuli of feeling and memory, virtual impulses, and
structures of understandingin short, everything that makes the
content, the meaning of discourse. (Poetry 224)
What differentiates poetry from prose is that the first moves equally between the
two ends of the pendulum while the second is situated just in the end of content.
Here lies the essence of the poem: there is a symmetry manifested between
form and content, an equality of importance, value and power that is not found in
prose (Valry, Poetry 224). For Valry then, the value of a poem resides in the
indissolubility of sound and the sense (Poetry 225) or, in other words, in the
strength created by the harmony between form and content. This distinction is
fundamental since it situates us in the realm of poetry with all the necessary
elements for it to occur, and sets the arcane scenery where this wonderful world
takes place.
2.1.3.4. The Poetic Elements
The battlefield has been finally mapped, being its general surface entirely
analyzed. But in war it is not only essential to know the surroundings in which
the battle would take place; it also becomes indispensable to know all the forces
that would take part in it as well. In other words, a homogenous consideration is
needed after describing Valrys conception of Poetry, for different elements
need to be introduced in order to comprehend the verses existence and
development.
2.1.3.4.1. The Poetic State
So far, Valry has conceived an idea of Poetry that moves along many
peculiar concepts: different ideas of Language; differences between the practical
and the unpractical; and pendulums that oscillate between poetic ideas. Now
that a remarkable distinction has been drawn between the art of Language and
other concepts, it is time to understand how poetry is bred, how does it become
alive. Valry digs in the dirt of his own life seeking to encounter the essence of
such nature. It is in this reflective act where Valry finds himself as a Poet and
thinker, a duality of characters which composes one entity: his identity. These
two souls are different in the sense that both act distinctly, yet they are born
from one similar emotion. Such emotion is the point of encounter of both figures,
the deviation from that entirely unattached state which is superficially in accord
with exterior surroundings and which is the average state of our existence
(Valry, Poetry 214). This state of mind and emotion signifies the birth of his
artistry, the birth of the poetic essence from which words and feelings nurture.
Valry concludes
So I have observed in myself such states I would call Poetic,
because some of them have ended up in the form of poems. They
have been produced with no apparent cause, from any kind of
accident; they have developed according to their nature. . . .
(Poetry 213)
As explained, this Poetic State feeds from the accidental: it is born, in essence,
just like an incident. Without expectations, the Poetic State comes from a place
that crosses the boundaries of reality, of any artistic preparation. It can capture
poets standing off guard, asking for no specific time or place. When the poets
prepare themselves to embrace such sensation, decorating their temples and
standing at their entrance with welcoming arms, they are nothing more than
producing a piece of work that lacks poetic sensibility. By understanding this
difference, the Poetic State can be distinguished from what Valry infers as a
poetic production: the first being an unexplainable and unexpected intimate
modification, and the other being the fabrication of works (Valry, Poetry
217). At the same time, he remarks its unexpected and accidental essence.
Valry adds to this inborn and out-born incidental inspiration other important
features: the Poetic State is perfectly irregular, inconsistent, involuntary, fragile,

and we lose it, as well as we gain it, just by accident (Valry, Poetry 215).
Here lies another characteristic of the true nature of this state: it manifests itself,
yet it does not appear with a form in particular. This inconsistency denotes how
the effect of Poetry acts analogically as the one of a dream, fluctuating among
all human faculties, requiring the exaltation of all the poets senses. Such notion
of inconsistency and indeterminacy, leads us to understand the Poetic State as
the maximum unexplainable and unlimited manifestation of artistic spirit; yet,
such definition would be against its own indefinable and unexpected nature.
2.1.3.4.2. The Poet
If the Poetic State does not discern when to manifest itself,
consequently it does not discern to whom either. Such reasonable situation
leads to a closer analysis of Valrys idea of the Poet, one essential element of
the poetic universe. At a rough estimate, logical reasoning would deduce that
the manifestation of such Poetic State in the spirit of the Poet is the essence of
the writers artistic function. Valry would take distance from such axiom,
considering the Poetic State not the aim of the Poet:
A poet dont be shocked by my words does not have the
function of feeling such poetic state: thats a private matter. The
poet has for function to create it in others. Poets can be recognized
or at least, every person would recognize his or her for the
simple fact that they have transformed the reader into the inspired
one. (Poetry 215)
The Poetic State manifests itself in the Poet who, lately, will transmit all the
sensations felt when creating the verse, being this the essential function of the
artist. The Poet must be aware of how this transformation takes place. For him
or her the transmission of such state is primordial, yet impossible in the practical
arena where the verse would never have all the Poetic States sensitive qualities
of the its unexplainable nature. In this respect, Valrys idea of a practical and a
sensational language is reborn and becomes necessary to understand and,
somehow, to demonstrate another main characteristic of the Poet: the versifier
becomes the arranger of the sensations felt, being his responsibility to capture
and organize the substance of the Poetic State through Language (Valry,
Poetry 217). The decisions about the articulation and selection of linguistic
terms are clearly the main contribution of the Poet, who is willing to transmit the
state through his or her artistry. Valry figures that the task of the poet is to give
us the sensation of intimate unity between words and mind (Poetry 225). This
strenuous operation, this rigorous work, oscillates from side to side in the poetic
pendulum, demanding the Poet to assume his or her position on nourishing the
artistic spirit. In order to dimension the real task of the Poet, it is important to
detach the functionality of the artist away from the logics of inspiration. This
rationale, for Valry, has just managed to conceive an image of a Poet who is
not capable of fluctuating among all human faculties. When attributing
inspiration to the artist, the oppressiveness of the term flashes: inspiration puts
the Poet just as a medium between a magic force and the work of art, not giving
priority to the Poets capacity of abstract thinking, the Poets capacity of
manipulation of such inspiration and how he or she presents it to others (Valry,
Poetry 227). This manipulation, which shrouds all the poetic and human
abilities, is what defines the Poet. The artist of the Language is the organizer,
manipulator and transmitter of the Poetic State that has expressed the infinite
sensations into finite terms (Valry, Primera Leccin 128), into acts, into his
work: the Poem.
2.1.3.4.3. The Poem
In Valrys notion of the work of art, there is room for two constitutions:
those whose existence can not be expressed in acts and those that have been
articulated (Valry, La Invencin Esttica 203). The authors definition of the
poetic work goes under the final description, yet vacillates between the two. In
Valrys own lines, a poem is really a kind of machine producing the poetic
state of mind by means of words (Poetry 228). In substance, the Poem is,
indeed, no more than the production of the Poet, but a production that has been
triggered by the unexplainable. What has been conceived in the Poem is no
more than the transmission of the Poetic State shaped by the Poet, which is no
longer the Poetic State itself. In a more functional and logical definition, it
becomes important to recognize the Poem as the action of the Poet after
experimenting the Poetic State: the Poem is the work of the spirit (Primera
Leccin 108), a piece of art that the spirit has produced for its own use through
all the mediums available in the Poets abilities.
2.1.3.4.4. The Poetic Process
Now that the poetic elements have been finally described, it is time to
proceed with the presentation of the Poetic Process: the way how all these
elements are connected. As Valry sketches, such process can be divided into
two parts:
So, on the one hand, we have the indefinable, on the other, an
action necessarily finite; on the one hand a state, in occasions just
one productive sensation of value and impulse, a state which
unique temper does not belong to any finite term of our experience;
on the other, the act, this is to say the essential determination, for
an act is a miraculous escape from the closed world of the possible
and an introduction to the universe of fact. (Primera Leccin 127)
The indefinable, then, is born in the Poets soul as the ignition of this process,
in which Beauty manifests itself through the Poetic State. The versifier reaches
the first part of this course of poetic actions in which an impulse is born within
the Poets artistic passion an impulse that seeks to express through Language
all the sensations felt. This sense of execution of an act leads the poet to the
second part of the Poetic Procedure: the transmission or the action. Once the
artist has felt the unexplainable, he or she moves onwards to a natural artistic
impulse of execution to condense the Poetic State into finite terms:
A voluntary action that comes to be adapted in the operations of
art to a state of the being which is in itself irreducible, to a finite
expression that does not belong to any localizable object, that can
be determined or achievable under systems of uniform and
determined acts. (Valry, Primera Leccin 127)
These acts that have reduced the irreducible into a finite expression
create a recognizable difference between the Poetic State and the Poetic
Creation. As Valry mentions, everything that can be defined distinguishes itself
immediately from the productive spirit and opposes to it (Valry, Primera
Leccin 116). During this act, Pleasure appears as an important element: for
the Poet, constant satisfaction can be found not only in the Poetic State itself,
but also in the transmutation of inexpressible feelings. Language will be the
Poets main tool of execution, through which the Poem will be built up and
carefully treated, but the artist must deal with more than mere linguistic
components. In fact, as Valry explains, the artist realizes that the same
internal movement of production gives him, the impulse, the immediate exterior
aim and the mediums or technical devices (Primera Leccin 128) from which
he would finally transmit the state. The Poet finds himself in a constant dialect
among different elements and different realms. Valry continues
Generally, a regime of execution is established during which there

is an exchange among the requirements, the knowledge, the
intentions, the mediums, everything that is mental and
instrumental, all the elements of action of an action in which the
stimulant is not situated in the world in which the ends of ordinary
action are situated. (Primera Leccin 128)
This regime of execution has been settled in an indescribable arena, where
formulas or methods to convey the Poetic State are only manipulated by the
authors preferences. After dealing with all these internal and external sensitive,
logical and linguistic elements, the process finishes with the execution of the
Poem, the fabrication of the work of art; the Poem is being impressed with the
sensational state of the artist through words, through an action that has come
from the indefinable, finding Beauty and Pleasure in reaching such state and
expressing it as a piece of poetry.
2.1.4. Aesthetic Vision of the Poet
So far, a skeleton of Paul Valrys ideas regarding Aesthetics and Poetry
has been sculpted. It has been said that there are certain elements vital for the
elaboration of a Work of the Spirit. On the one hand, where feelings can be
touched beyond time and space, Beauty arises as the generator of a sublime
sensation that incites the one that feels it to revive it: the sensation of Pleasure.
It is when this sensation is felt that the Poetic State finds a metaphysical room
for existence in the individuality of the artists, modifying their perception of the
macrocosms that surrounds them. On the other hand, the Work of the Spirit
presents itself on the material world as the result of the Poetic Process, as the
consequence of the action made by the connector of these two dimensions: the
Poet. In the middle of all this amalgam of states and situations, of decisions and
actions, it is Language the element that appears as the instrument the Poet uses
to reflect and produce such exceptional exaltation of the senses. Yet, each Poet
coordinates the mentioned elements differently, being every process unique and
unrepeatable. But, what is that feature that gives each Poet his or her
characteristic identity? What is that individuality that defines the very essence of
Poetry that will be born out of all this chaos? That distinctive feature, that
defining individuality, will be introduced in this investigation under the concept of
Aesthetic Vision of the Poet. The Aesthetic Vision would be understood as what
the Poet considers to be the vital elements of the Language in terms of form and
content which reflect and produce the Poetic State. The result of this, structured
by the decisions made by the Poet during the Poetic Process, is the Poem, and
it is in that extraordinary product of human existence where the Aesthetic Vision
of the Poet is presented in its more comprehensible state. Through this idea,
then, it would be possible to perform an analysis focused on the elements that
represent the most distinctive characteristic of the Poets work and, therefore,
identify an important constituent of the Poets essence.
2.2. Diction and Imagery

Through the history of Poetry, there has been an amount of recognizable
word patterns that the poetic experts have categorized in order to analyze the
aspects of a written verse. The concept of diction comes from these types of
categorization.
Diction has been broadly classified, being the most recognized of its
divisions poetic diction, abstract diction and concrete diction. Poetic diction
refers pragmatically to the linguistic style used in the verse: word choices and
other elements that depict the voice of the poet and, obviously, remark the
vocabulary norms of a period. Abstract diction upholds words that are largely
subjective in their meanings: recognizable words such as love or hate appear
with no substantial form. For concrete diction, words essentially evoke
discernible traits, detailed descriptions felt by the senses that are mainly solid
and posses an image (words such as heart or water are an example of concrete
diction since they bring a tangible meaning). It is under the thin line between
abstract and concrete diction where the understanding of imagery lies.
For the author and publisher Mr. Richard Gill, imagery is a heteromorphic
terminology that makes use of an understanding of prescriptive poetic
knowledge. In Gills own words, the imagery of a poem covers simile, metaphor,
conceit, personification and symbol (33). It is the terms broad identity and its
innate essence that explain why imagery has been universally recognized as
any use of a word, expression or description that may evoke a mental image:
but it is in the analytic poetic field where this definition may not be presented as
accurate enough. R. S. Gwynn, Americas new formalist poet and anthologist,
delineates and illustrates a more meticulous description of imagery, supporting
its definition not only in the prescriptive and descriptive essence of poetic
analysis, but in the natural form of the language. For the author, it is in concrete
diction where imagery finds, logically, most of its ways: concrete words denote
that which can be perceived by the senses, and the vividness of a poems
language resides primarily in the way it uses imagery, sensory details denoting
specific physical experiences (Gwynn 16). It is important here not to assume
that imagery, then, is just the mere use of concrete diction. As already defined,
imagerys essence is connected to the awakening of sensorial experiences, and
the use of both abstract and concrete words may encounter and produce such.
So, consequently to what has been repeatedly mentioned, imagery is divided
the same way senses are, prevailing six main forms of it: tactile imagery, being
the words or expressions that stimulate tactition; auditory imagery, the one that
excites sounds perception; olfactory imagery, which includes smell as its focus;
gustatory imagery, being the taste the central poetic stimulator; kinetic imagery,
concerning movement or motion; and finally, visual imagery, the one that
predominates in poems (Gwynn 16) and that is connected to the images, the
mental visual representation of poetic inferring.
All these forms of imagery are absolutely significant for the aims of this
investigation, for the artists word selection and use of imagery is in tight relation
with the stimulation of the senses needed in the comprehension of the Aesthetic
Vision of the poets.
Chapter 3: Individual Analysis

The objective of this chapter is to analyze both Altazor and Ripostes
individually in terms of content, and specifically in the use of diction and
imagery, with the intention of finding the representative features that conform
and define the poets Aesthetic Visions present in the works.
At this point, it is important to remember that the Aesthetic Vision is
understood as the elements of language that poets consider to be of vital
importance in terms of form and content when writing, in order to reflect and
produce a Poetic State. The Aesthetic Vision also represents the most
distinctive and recognizable characteristics of the poets and their poetry. As the
idea of getting inside the mind of the writers in the exact moment when they are
making their poetical decisions is, to say the least, unachievable, it is in the
poem, which is the final result of the Poetic Process, where this analysis
pretends to find the necessary evidence to establish which the unique and
defining elements of each work are. Since it is evident that a poem embodies an
immense and intricate universe, and that therefore, there are infinite ways of
approaching an investigation like this one, a delimitation of the field on which
this study will be based becomes necessary. Content has been selected as the
principal scope of our analysis (although, at times, some aspects of form are
also discussed) because of its importance in the understanding of a poetic work
and the possibilities it allows for this type of investigation. Along these lines, the
arrangement and selection of diction arises as our most valuable tool since it is
strictly related to all the aspects concerning the content of a poem: significant
values, images, ideas, excitements of feelings and memory, and virtual
impulses.
The chapter is divided into two sections: the first one dedicated to the
analysis of Altazor and the second to the analysis of Ripostes. The analysis of
Altazor is constituted by eight sections, one for the preface and one for each of
the cantos. The analysis of Ripostes consists of twenty four sections, one for
each poem of the book (The Seafarer, Dieu! Quil La Fait and The Complete
Poetical Works Of T. E. Hulme are not included since they are not of Pounds
authorship).
3.1. Vicente Huidobros Altazor
3.1.1. Preface
The preface begins with an unorthodox description of the main speaker
that immediately transports the reader to the puzzling atmosphere of this epic
poem: I was born at the age of 33, on the day Christ died: I was born at the
Equinox, under the hydrangeas and the aeroplanes in the heat (1)3. After a brief
description of his parents is made in the same tone, it can be easily inferred that
logical coherence is not the vehicle which carries the message of the story, and
that the poems principles of functioning go beyond the constraints of reason.
Within this atmosphere, the poem frees itself from the conventional, generating
an ample space for the elaboration of a new discourse, a new language a

mood that opens the possibilities to the unexpected. Once the scenery has been
set, the speaker, who later presents himself as Altazor, the great poet (52),
starts to wander around his world with the object that will accompany him
throughout the whole epic: his parachute. During this meandering, Altazor meets
several characters: an unknown bird, a charming aeroplane, the Creator, and
the Virgin. All these encounters affect Altazor and somehow prompt him to
forsake his current state in order to meet his fate: a trip to his destiny, a fall to
death through poetry. This sequence of events lead him to realize one truth Life
is a parachute voyage and not what youd like to think it is / So lets fall, falling
from our heights to our depths (71-72). The preface ends with a question that
incites Altazor to begin his travel:
What are you waiting for?
But here is the secret of the Gloom that forgot how to smile.
The parachute waits tied to the gate like the endlessly runaway
horse. (81-83)
From the very beginning Huidobro arranges words to provoke a surprising
effect of vagueness. The selection of diction focuses on two main territories: on
the one hand, words that belong to the description and representation of the
natural world, such as animals and geographical aspects, and on the other
hand, words that belong to the description and representation of modern life
elements, such as different types of human inventions and everyday-use
artificial devices. The scenery is set in an ambiguous place surrounded by all
these elements that Huidobro combines, without making differences among
them, as if they were constituents of the same realm: At around two that
afternoon, I met a charming aeroplane, full of fishscales and shells. It was
searching for some corner of the sky to take shelter from the rain (11). The
aeroplane full of fishscales and shells appears as a natural entity within the logic
of the poem, which forces the readers to carry out a transformation in their
expectations of reasoning in order to follow Altazor in his journey. The artificial
entity is also given human attributes with no special treatment, reinforcing the
idea of the naturality of the hybridization of distinct elements, and therefore, the
indeterminateness of the poems atmosphere.
Another important aspect of the preface is the use of combinations of
words that do not relate under the rules of logical coherence. Sentences have
the quality of leading nowhere but the destination of its own construction. My
mother spoke like dawn, like blimps about to fall. Her hair was the color of a flag
and her eyes were full of far-off ships (6) or Ive never had a beard as white as
beautiful nurses and frozen streams (57) are verses in which Huidobro makes
arbitrary comparisons, joining words in a way that make no logical sense,
entering into the region of the incoherent. The verses open the paths of
interpretation and serve as independent branches in the story-line of the poem.
When it comes to the use of imagery, Huidobro possesses a full

command of diction, both in the concrete and the abstract. The creation of
images is centered in the visual type, yet the conformation of those images is
expanded with the addition of abstract terms. The combination of concrete and
abstract concepts, then, is the most significant aspect of the treatment of
imagery in the preface. I had the soulful gaze of a pigeon, a tunnel, a
sentimental motorcar. I heaved sighs like an acrobat. / I love the night, the hat of
everyday (2-3). The verses evoke multiple images coming together. The
pigeon, the tunnel, the motorcar, the acrobat and the hat are concepts that can
be easily replaced in the mind of the reader by concrete items, and so the
construction of one image begins to be elaborated. Nevertheless, the
incorporation of the word sentimental adds an abstract characteristic to the
sentence. As a result, the concept cannot be clearly represented as a concrete
image: the reader perceives it as open and it remains an enigma. In the next
line, the night and the hat are being juxtaposed, but since the night is
infinite, it becomes almost impossible to place its endless continuity under the
physical constitution of a hat; however, the image of both obscure elements is
still there reflected, abstractly declared and visually stimulated.
I created a great crashing sound and that sound formed the
oceans and the ocean waves.
..................................................
Then I braided a great cord of luminous rays to stitch each day
to the next; the days with their original or reconstructed, yet

undeniable dawns. (15,17)
When the Creator (14) appears, Altazor listens to how the nameless (14)
carries the lines above with his voice: lines that, once again are soaked of
senses. The crashing sound (15) echoes the scenery and the waves are
pictured through the mind as a movie clip. This use of imagery does not bring
difficulties in its mental reconstruction, for both the sounds and visuals are of a
concrete type. But, Huidobros diction and style of representing the abstract
through imagery surprises in the verses that follow. Here the rays act as
knitting needles and are pictured as them, yet what has been weaved are
days, another abstract non-physical element.
Clear imagery, as seen, is not totally excluded from Huidobros verses.
Throughout the poem, it appears in sort of a balanced way with the abstract
evocation of senses: lines like Look at my hands, as transparent as light bulbs.
Do you see the filaments where blood of my pure light flows? (37) or From
each bead of swat on my forehead I give birth to stars (57), defy the laws of
physics in generating scenes that cannot be seen in the world of reality.
3.1.2. Canto I
Altazor why did you ever lose your young serenity? (1) is the initial
question that opens the first of the cantos: an introductory doubt that presents
the speakers inner struggle while setting the intentions of his falling odyssey. In
this section of the epic poem, Altazor appears as a reflective agitated character
whose introspection establishes a brief description of his travel, as well as a
depiction of his ideas on different subjects, such as Christianity and death.
Altazor am I / Altazor (82-83), the speaker claims, Altazor am I the double of
my self (123), he emphasizes before announcing the solitude of his free-fall:
Im alone
The distance that stretches from body to body
Is as great as that from soul to soul
Alone
Alone
Alone
Im alone standing at the tip of the slow-dying year . . . (134-140)
In the solitude of his canto, Altazor, breaks away from his fears and
preoccupations, exclaiming No Its enough (230) in the middle of his
meditation: a moment which gives the story line a turn. It is throughout his travel,
the perpetual falling over death (273), that Altazor describes his purpose,
depicting himself as the total man (357), the Antipoet (370). Altazor is willing
to set himself free from the inner limitations of language landmarks: A brutal
painful grammar walks through my brain (278). The speakers verbiage, then,
becomes exuberant as the poem slowly announces the birth of a tree, which is
the conclusion of the chapters story line.

Surrounded with an obscure atmosphere, the lines of this canto are
predominantly constructed with abstract terminologies: serenity(1), evil(2),
affliction(4), terror of being (5), alive (6), pain (7), stupor (8), affliction
(14), solitude (16), eternity (18), die (20), fear (22), darkness (29),
mystery (30), infinite (35), time (36), soul (41) and desperate (41) are just
few of the many ambiguous words that charge and set the mood of Altazors
uncertain behaviour distress which would later justify the origin of his falling
odyssey. Not only the subsequent use of such abstract diction conveys Altazors
anguish, the use of grief-related terminology also becomes essential to amplify
his affliction. An example of this is visible in the following lines, where Altazors
pain becomes almost tangible: The open wound of the last beliefs / Bleeds
when the melancholic rifle in the human blind / Brings down the birds from the
sky (445-447).
In these lines, the open wounds can be seen bleeding, and all the rest
of the terms used magnify such painful situation. As portrayed in the previous
example, the selection of words seems to be strictly attached to Altazors
feelings and concerns, consequently, to the many topics of his thoughts. While
different ideas are the angst of Altazors thinking, the adventure seems to be
shaped by words that expose the speakers worries. Being Christianity and
Death two of Altazors relevant concerns, we can observe the immediate
selection of terms that are related to the speakers social worries: The crown of
thorns / Withers dripping its last stars (98-99). Not only the use of topic-related
terms is observable, but this choice of words is beautify with different concepts
related to nature. The idea of such modification is directly addressed by Altazor,
who expresses almost mystically: God molded in the shape of my distress
(157). This transmutation of poetic character that involves the selection of
nature-related words such as sky, stars, iceberg, pole, sea, torrents,
waves, moon (60-66), and others, are finally linked to Altazors conflicts,
invading almost entirely the first of the cantos. When Altazor refers to the topics
of War and Technology, such technique can be observed again:
Someday after my death
The world will seem small to everyone
Continents will be planted in the sea
Therell be islands in the skies
Therell be a great metal bridge around the earth
Like the rings constructed on Saturn . . . (464-469)
The nature-related essence of the words being employed is something relevant
in the understanding of the poems scenery, since diction is mostly presented on
a stellar atmosphere.
When analyzing the use of imagery in this canto, there is little presence of
other types of imagery that are not of a visual sensitive stimulus. Traces of
auditory sensations show up: Explode pessimist but explode in silence / How
the men a thousand years from now will laugh / Dog man you howl at your own
night (498-500), yet, again, the reproduction of these images is not entirely
concrete. Gustatory imagery sometimes, feels present within the selection of
words that could be easily related with the tastable", but that, again, activates
the visual reproduction:
Gardens of tomatoes and cabbages
public parks planted with fruit trees
Theres no meat to eat space is tight
And the machines killed the last animal
Fruit trees all along the roads . . . (475-479)
As a matter of fact, visual imagery presents itself predominant from beginning to
end. Illogical combination, once again, can be seen from time to time, The wind
drags its bitter flowers (189), yet images that are presented with a specific form
and that transform, subsequently, into something else are objects of constant
admiration. The lines Birdwatcher of dead lights that walk with ghost feet / With
the gentle feet of a stream / Carrying away clouds and changing the scene
(436-438) portray that the ability of Huidobros poetry to manipulate visual
imagery is admirable. As visible in the example, not only the image of
birdwatchers walking can be mentally reproduced, but also the immediate
photograph of clouds moving and changing the first visual construction is
discernable. Huidobro develops a unique style of presenting images which
ranges from the movement of them, and the combination of abstract
terminology, essential for the production of the visual poetic components of
Altazor. Im alone standing at the tip of the slow-dying year (140), here a
diffuse image is presented by the poet, yet, as diffused as it may be, can still be
constructed mentally. The reader can picture Altazor (although the image of
Altazor is an enigma) in the tip of an uncertain physical place, from where the
words slow-dying year break and leave the image incomplete and opened to
infinite possibilities of construction. This technique that provokes the image and
makes it partly abstract and partly concrete becomes one important element in
this cantos imagery.
3.1.3. Canto II
The second canto exposes the speakers sensitive qualities and breaks
the falling mood of the poetic atmosphere. Altazor finds himself with the femme,
the woman (1), who is the main subject of this canto. Lost in the desolate
seas (17) of the poetic world, the speaker is shown talking directly to the
feminine source of his inspiration, trying to dismantle the nature of her beauty by
asking Were you meant to be blind that God gave you those hands? (23)
repeatedly: Im asking again / Were you meant to be mute that God gave you
those eyes (85-86). This time, Altazors words are not concerned with the
descending motion of his adventure. On the contrary, the speakers movement
seems to pause, maybe falling but not in the same pace as before: Like a
feather falling from a birth in the night (24). Calm and determined to
contemplate the woman as she passes by in the distance, the canto ends with
Altazors final thought:
If you died
The stars despite their kindle lamps
Would lose their way
What would the universe become (167-170)
A conclusion that certainly redefines the importance of the woman as the cantos
main theme.
The first line of this canto amazingly predicts the upcoming presentation
of femme-related concepts which covers the whole construction of the chapter:
Woman the world is furnished by your eyes (1), and so is the poetic
atmosphere furnished, decorated with a diction that resembles Altazors muse in
all terms. The selection of words, in this canto, serves as a description of the
woman that the speaker observes:
Wrapped in the memory of your maritime lips
In the memory of your delights your hair
Unpinned and shining like the mountain streams
Were you meant to be blind that God gave you those hands?
Im asking again
The arches of your brows are a bridge for the troops of your eyes
(20-25)
As Altazor sings, the womans lips, hair, hands, brows and eyes are being
described in his canticle, mixing such description with abstract terminologies that
provide a minimum sensation of concreteness. The use of words related to the
ideas of light and infinite also appears as central. Both diction related to
luminosity and infinite are mentioned emphasizing the womans relevance as a
preponderant element. This construction is also present from beginning to end:
Leaving you leave a star in your place / Your lights fade like a passing ship (56) or you are a lamp of flesh in the storm (119) are examples of such luminous
characteristics. In the case of eternity, the following lines evoke infinity in the
same way:
You bring doubt to time
And to the sky with intimations of infinity
Away from you everything is mortal
You fling affliction from earth humiliated by night
Only those who think of you taste eternity (44-48)
The use of illogical combination, which appears in previous cantos, is still
present: The adventure of the planet exploding into petals of dreams (61). In
addition, the nature-related terms used as a primary element for the production
of the first canto are also present in this second one, yet mixed along with
terminologies that describe the body of the speakers feminine inspiration
description that becomes the main theme of the entire chapter. This can be
observed during the final part of this canto, from which the selection of words is
also strictly related to the womans body-parts:
My glory in your eyes
Dressed in the elegance of your eyes inwardly shining
I sit in the most sensitive corner of your glance
In the static silence of your unblinking lashes
An omen comes from the depths of your eyes
And an ocean breeze ripples your irises
Nothing compares to that legend of seeds you leave behind
To that voice searching a dead star to bring back to life
Your voice creates an empire in space
And that hand reaching up as if it were hanging suns in the air
And that glance writing worlds in the infinite
And that head bending forward to listen to the murmur of eternity
And that foot that is a festival for the hobbled roads
And those eyelids where the lightning bolts of the aether run
aground
And that kiss that swells the bow of your lips
And that smile like a banner before your life
And that secret that moves the tides of your chest
Asleep in the shade of your breasts . . . (149-166)
In these final lines, the selection of words and the repetitiveness of their
appearance acts as a conjunction of all the points previously mentioned: the use
of diction related to lights, elements of infinite and the parts of the feminine
figure.
In terms of imagery, such repetitiveness becomes essential, for most of
the canto constantly evokes the images of light and the figure of a woman.
Visual imagery, then, continues to be the vital element of the poem, yet in the
following lines a new use of imagery is observable: The joy of watching you
listen / to that ray of light that runs to the bottom of the water (129-130). Such
lines demonstrate Huidobros unlimited ability to play with many literary
elements, providing a mix of two different types of imageries into one poetic
component, in this case the visual and the auditory. Also, the imagery presented
in this canto stands out for its mobility: the absence of diction that dictates the
rushing-falling motion of Altazor is contrasted with serene or slow-moving
pictures that are not interrupted by other dashing-mobile elements. Lines like
Alone like a feather falling from a bird in the night (18), The only planetary
system that does not wear down (105), The world on my shoulders grows light
(115) and Nor a mast begging for wind / Nor a blind aeroplane touching the
infinite (134-135) recall the tranquility of the mental images stimulated, being
these images important elements for the development of the mood of the canto
and its interpretation.
3.1.4. Canto III

The third canto appears to be a portal to the mental consciousness
Altazor reaches after overcoming the struggle presented in canto I. Break the
loops of veins (1) are the words that initiate this canto and open the door into
Altazors process of liberation from its previous form the conception of the new
poet that feels the necessity of liberation from traditional poetry is born. By doing
this, Altazor comprehends his duty as a creator:
The poet is a manicurist of language
And not the magician who lights and douses
Stellar words and cherries of vagabond goodbyes
Far from the hands of earth
And everything he says is his invention
Things outside the everyday world
Let us kill the poet who gluts us
Poetry still and poetry poetry
Poetical poetry poetry
Poetical poetry by poetical poets
Poetry
Too much poetry . . . (44-55)
The poet has identified the traditional and criticizes its limitations, but in order to
do that, he escapes from the old logics of language and lights the new ones: the
new poetry must be a game of infinite creation of possibilities
All languages are dead

Dead in the hands of the tragic neighbor
We must revive all languages
With raucous laughter
With wagons of cackles
With circuit breakers in the sentences
And cataclysms in the grammar . . . (121-127)
The whole elaboration of this canto creates a solid conviction about Altazors
labor as a poet and sets him ready to begin his voyage.
In general terms, and having into consideration what has been presented
so far in the analysis of the previous cantos, the third canto adds no radical
incorporations regarding the selection of diction and use of imagery. It serves
more as the representation of Altazors transition from traditional poetry to his
new language and as a theoretical statement for the constitution of Huidobros
Aesthetic Vision in this work. Regarding imagery, the visual type remains as
central along with the mixture of concrete and abstract terminology.
Nevertheless, there is a characteristic constitution when it comes to the use of
diction: words are arranged in such a way that the logic of the canto becomes
increasingly incoherent, portraying in this way Altazors linguistic evolution. The
transition starts at the beginning of the canto when Altazor calls to Break the
loops of veins / The links of breath and chains (1-2) and to:
Cut all the links
Of river sea or mountain
Of spirit and memory
Of dying law and fever dreams . . . (19-22)
in order reach the new and special place where The flower will suck the bee
(27), The flock will guide its shepherd (37) and The tree will perch on the
turtledove / While clouds turn to stone (39-40). With this simple arrangement of
words, the habitual use of syntax is reformulated and the orthodox rules that
guide language gradually begin to be broken. Afterwards, the use of diction
becomes increasingly illogical as it is seen in the verse Astral gymnastic for the
numb tongues (131) this helps to create the foundations for Altazors new
poetry, which has as a central constituent the possibility of total freedom in the
poets use of language. In addition, similes appear all the way through this third
canto, involving the selection of the word like repetitively in its comparative
form. The construction of such comparisons, in terms of diction, puts a
contrastive emphasis on inversion, wordplay and the incoherent combination of
words: Plant glances like trees / Cage trees like birds / Water birds like
heliotropes (69-71). In these lines, the construction seems to posses a pattern,
a mechanism that seems to link a verb with a logical noun: plant trees, cage
birds or water heliotropes are actions of total logic. Yet, by interrupting this
logical relation with other nouns of a total unrelated nature (which is always
picked up from the noun of the previous line), the lines provoke a strange
linguistic effect: plant glances, cage trees or water birds are actions that lack
rational logic. By relating different terms with an inverted meaning, the word is
being separated from its functional purpose. The selection of such mechanism
and such terms and their repetitiveness becomes a useful tool for Altazors
presentation of the new language. Another element subtly emerges in order to
create this new atmosphere: the repetition of certain words in the same line
foreshadows the upcoming language revolution present in the following cantos
with verses like Enough sir violin sunk in a wave wave (105) and Then nothing
nothing (159).
3.1.5. Canto IV
Canto IV turns back, again, to the rushing movement of Altazors fall.
Theres no time to lose (1), Altazor explains, and so he does not let any
minute, neither second to escape from his poetical experimentation. While
repeating this throughout the poem chapter, he connects himself, once more,
with the world that surrounds him. The wordplay sparkles from time to time, like
seeking the construction of the new language. This can clearly be seen in lines
such as Treeye / Birdeye / Rivereye (58-60) or Look here swoops the
swooping swallow / Here swoops the whooping wallow / Here swoops the
weeping wellow (166-168) which interact with the reduction of extension,
creation of words and production of sounds. The main characters journey starts
and the new language that winks is his destination reason why there is the
constant feeling of hurry. At the end of this canto, the new language is
manifested:
The bird tralalee sings in the branches of my brain
For Ive found the key to the infiniternity
Round as the unimos and the cosverse
Oooheeoo ooheeoohee
Tralalee tralala
Aheeaah ahee ahee aaheeah ee ee (233-238)
Once the linguistic transition has been made in the previous canto, the
fourth begins to fully put into practice the new rules of the new language. Now
that Altazor has broken all the roots that used to tie him to the doctrinal world of
letters, he is free to develop a new code with fresh words. The selection of
diction goes in this direction, using in a vivacious way wordplays to take the
charge out of words:
Travel the worlds and the wet crocodiles
Lend me woman your summer eyes
I lap splattered clouds as autumn follows the donkey cart
A rising periscope debates the modesty of winter
From the perspective of a kite turned blue by the infinite

The young color of birds at 100%
Perhaps it was a romance watched by hapless doves
Or the rude glove of the crime that will be born to a woman or a
poppy
The flowerpot of blackbirds that kiss in midair
Brave calves of night of the sweetheart who hides in her flower
skin . . . (93-102)
In the previous stanza, each word relates to the other in a non-traditional way,
as being the lack of logical coherence the main nexus among them, performing
novel functions which are now possible as a result of the distance from linguistic
rules that this new language has acquired. But the amusing game does not end
with this new usage that has been given to words, Huidobro takes it to a whole
new level, as Altazor announces in a defying manner that diction is about to
experience another chaotic transformation: Rose upturned and rose returned
and rose and rose / Though the warden dont want it / Muddy rivers make for
clean fishing (103-105). The words upturned and muddy are the key to infer
the next step in Altazors game: the total liberation of words. In the stanza that
follows, not only the traditional usage of words is neglected, but also the usage
that had just been given is overlooked:
Night lend me your woman with calves of a flowerpot of young
poppies
Wet with color like the hapless little donkey

The sweetheart with no flowers no worlds of birds
Winter hardens the current doves
Look at the cart and the crimes of crocodiles turning blue
That are periscopes in the clouds of modesty
Sweetheart rising to 100% celestial
Lap the perspective to be born from a splatter of kites
And the agreeable gloves of autumn that debate in the skin of
romance . . . (106-114)
By using the same words organized in a completely different form, Altazor utterly
frees the words from their meaning charge the emancipation previously stated
theoretically in the other cantos becomes real and the possibilities for Altazor to
write are open like the unending universe that grows in the poets infinite
imagination.
One step further, Altazor starts another wordplay: the mutation of
concepts and the creation of new ones. Along with the liberation of words from
their charge, such innovative technique becomes the most important element of
the whole canto in terms of diction. Such mutation can be seen in the following
lines:
Look here swoops the swooping swallow
Here swoops the whooping wallow
Here swoops the weeping wellow
Look here swoops the sweeping shrillow

Swoops the swamping shallow
Swoops the sheeping woolow
Swoops the slooping swellow
Look here swoops the sloping spillow . . . (166-173)
By deteriorating the form and the meaning of the word, only the sound is left.
The author knowing this result, progressively goes towards the development of
selecting, inventing or playing with words based on their sound. This is
observable in the many puns that appear further, in which the author
decomposes names (proper nouns, specifically) into words that are unrelated
yet musically similar:
Here lies Carlotta seagoing eyes
Crushed by a satellite
........................
Here lies Marcello heaven and hello in the same violoncello
........................
Here lies Rosemary rose carried to the infinite
Here lies Raymond rays of mud his veins
........................
Here lies Alexander alas under all is yonder . . .
(268-269, 271, 275-276, 278)
The words chosen are arranged to obtain an effect in which sounds are
musically evoked. The new language is finally reached, and its words can finally
be seen at the end of this chapter: Uiu uiui / Tralal tralal / Aia ai ai aaia i i
(338).
The atmosphere created by the choice of words is another interesting
aspect to analyze. Terms related to sea-travelling, birds and plants such as
shipwreck, nightingale (79), anchored, doves (85), waves (81), swallow
(83), poppy (85), seeds or wallflower (91), sap (93), flood the entire
chapter, but when it comes to the ones related to eyes, the canto presents a
new technique. When words focused on the eyes appear, the spirit of related
terms is used in a brand new way:
The geography of the eye I may state is most complex
........................
Marching down through the iris until they are lost
........................
The lion hunt in the jungles of secular eyelashes
The migrations of shivering birds to other retinas . . .
(37, 43, 45-46)
As seen here, the traditional fashion of terminologies is made more attractive by
how terminologies are being combined in this particular stanza. When the eyes
are exposed as part of geography, the words that follow immediately assume a
geographical function: the eye becomes a world where roads are irises, jungles
are made of eyelashes and migration is not done from one country to another,
but between retinas. This linguistic effect can also be seen in the lines The
vizier speaks to us in bird-language / Long long as a path / Caravans more over
his voice (225-227), where the language is a path where caravans pass not
over streets, but over words.
In terms of imagery, the visual type is still predominant, yet the defusing
form of the images in the previous cantos has now reached a level in which
abstraction is mostly conquering the whole of the mental photograph, making it
slowly disappear while the poet advances through the poem: the line I lap
splattered clouds as autumn follows the donkey cart (95) becomes a perfect
example of the abstract quality of such imagery. This, as previously seen, is not
related to how predominant abstract terminology may be in comparison to
concrete, but on how the terms are arranged and particularly mixed in form and
meaning. This also happens with the repetitiveness, the wordplay and the
introduction of new words: the entire new diction that Altazor is achieving in this
canto refuses to evoke the senses in a regular manner, mainly because its
language has a total different construction. Consequently, as Altazor reaches his
main goal, less imagery is understood and it becomes nearly impossible for the
reader to understand this whole new language.
3.1.6. Canto V
The canto starts with the verse Here begins the unexplored territory (1),
announcing that the creation of the new poetry has commenced. There is an
unpopulated space / That must be populated (10-11) says Altazor before the
lack of logical coherence among the verses creates an ambience of anarchy.
The absence of rules is not theoretical but practical. The habitual mechanisms of
language codes are displaced in this canto, which goes deeper in a cavern that
echoes verses which are novel in their semantic construction: The comet that
ought to have been born from a telescope and a hydrangea (118). The poem
reaches in this canto the point in which the game of language gets entirely under
way. Altazor feels the new language and becomes a whole with it. The final
verse reflects Altazors state of satisfaction for the creation of the new language
And I hear the dead laughing under the earth (636). The idea of death appears
again in this canto and serves as a reminder of the fact that Altazors falling is
approaching the end.
In terms of diction, many of the concepts related to the sea, eyes and
geographical aspects that were exposed constantly in previous cantos reappear,
being dispersed all over the Chapter. The wordplay started in canto IV continues
to put emphasis in the creation of new vocabulary and the language liberation
from its constituent rules.
Crank it up
The faranmandole that manned a linn
With its musicoo with its musicall
The carabanbam
The carabanboom
The farandoleela
The Farandandoom
The Carabanbanity
The Carabanbansity
The farandnearina
The farandosea . . . (481-491)
Nevertheless, the wordplay undergoes a transition from the semantic,
grammatical and phonological revolution started in the previous canto and
continued here, with emphasis on the sounds the wordplay becomes now a
sound-play.
Now Im a rosebush speaking rose language
And I say
Go rose rosarosaray
Grow rose this day
Go rosary rose that rose away
Fireaway my rossible rositive rostrum strum . . . (515-520)
The repetition of words that appear in the fourth canto is now the main core of
this chapter. Altazor plays outside of time (114) with the language,
accompanied by the windmill (114) which will be the poets word of preference
in his poetic reiteration a term that will cover half of the canto structure once it
is presented:
We play outside of time
And the windmill plays along
Windmill station
Mill of inspiration
Mill of narration
Mill of determination
Mill of proliferation
Mill of embrocation
Mill of cultivation
Mill of vexation . . . (239-248)
The selective repetition of words becomes hypnotic, creating a loop of sounds
that, once again, seems to be the primary focus of Altazors attention. Once the
repetitiveness of such construction disappears, the construction I am takes its
place. Altazor seems to relate himself with all the constantly mentioned
elements of his poetry by using such construction in subsequent lines:
Im a firefly
........................
And then Im a tree

........................
Now Im a rosebush speaking rose language
........................
Im the rose of thunder I clear my throat
........................
And then Im a bird.
........................
And now Im the sea . . . (504, 511, 515, 525, 532, 541)
Altazor becomes one with the concepts used during its whole poetic diction,
specially with the ones that have been used more often during other cantos, to
finally repeat widely through the chapter Im the king, a phrase that behind its
formality symbolizes dominion and power over the concepts exposed. Diction
also introduces another new element: words that in practical language would
serve as nouns are used as verbs. The grammatical function of those words
mutates when Altazor assigns them the utility of the action performed instead of
the subject that performs the action:
The waterfall tresses over the night
While the night beds to rest
With its moon that pillows the sky
I iris the sleepy land
That roads toward the horizon
In the shade of a shipwrecking tree . . .(497-502)

In terms of imagery, a new variation of imagery is presented, always in
the visual realm: imagery in motion. Huidobro introduces this new aspect by
presenting a particular image which is modified in the verse that follows, creating
a new image born out of the previous one, and repeating the process with the
next verses:
And from your tomb will come a rainbow like a trolley
From the rainbow will come a couple making love
From love will come a wandering forest
From the forest will come an arrow
From the arrow will come a rabbit racing through the fields
From the rabbit will come a ribbon that will mark its way
From the ribbon will come a river and a rapids to rescue the rabbit
from the hunters
Until the rabbit hops up a glance
And hides at the bottom of an eye . . . (602-610)
The end result is a complex continual image in constant metamorphosis.
Huidobro seems to give hints to the reader about this complex elaboration, by
making, in the last two verses of the stanza, the reader the creator of the whole
image the reader is creating the new world through Altazors new language.
Imagery maintains itself as diffused as before, not evoking necessarily images
that can be pictured with total details but that continue to print heterogeneous
visions in the mind of the reader.
3.1.7. Canto VI
The penultimate chapter of the epic, canto VI, depicts the world created
by Altazor, as it compasses him. The poetic declarations of the main character
appear to be of a random type. At the same time, the extension of his thoughts
are reduced and dispersed, as delicately announced in previous cantos, now
covering from beginning to end the written piece:
A two three
four
Teardrop
my lamplight
and mollusk . . . (9-13)
Semantically immoral, Altazor urges, almost reaching the personal goal behind
the creation of a new language by breaking the meaning behind the words being
used: the canto, then, expresses nothing more than the ultimate mutation of
Altazors traditional language to its new form.
Now that the charge has been taken out of the words through linguistic
decomposition and wordplay in cantos IV and V, the wings of freedom have
grown in the figure of Altazors new language which is ready to take flight across
the skies of ideas and sensations. This is how Altazors language suffers its last
deviation. This time, the diction of canto VI suffers from few new-word spasms in
comparison with other cantos. Just one intervention of the written form of this
new tongue can be observed in this canto: Swallowlin and mandotail /
Mandowind and gust of linn (156-157). Even in such brief intervention, the
regular form gust of linn appears as a reminder that the diction employed in
this particular part of the poem moves among the regularity of the word
appearance and not in the frequent exposition of new terminologies or of wordformation processes as in the previous canto. Yet, even though the terms
chosen are of a common type, the way they are being used implies the contrary.
When observing the relation of meaning between the words being united, the
selection of terms appears to be as one of a random type:
Cristalinity
Magnetism
silk you know
Wind flower
slow cloud slow . . . (23-27)
The diction of this canto is ordered in a way that the content appears to be not
connected semantically, lacking a relation between the meanings of the
concepts which seem to be independent from one another. Even though such
relation is not clear when examining meaning, the relation among words based
on sounds is totally recognizable. The words are combined based on their
phonological qualities, technique that has been progressively used by the poet
and that now takes a primary focus in the construction of this canto. The union
of words such as win, know, and slow, creates alliterations which echo the
constant sound of the consonant w when mixed with a vowel. Likewise, the
following lines focus on the repetition of some sounds:
Where
in where
Slowly slow
a wave a cave
Wave a wave slave if a slave
Beg for eyes
I have the nacre . . . (42-47)
The choices being made by the poet clearly suggest a special emphasis on the
sounding ey and the visual w when it comes to the word selection, yet, as seen,
they do not present any clear nexus in meaning. The objective of the journey is
accomplished in this canto and, as a consequence of this, the falling is coming
to its unavoidable end: Altazors death. The choices of gloomy terms, then, are
constantly employed, not in a regular or semantically-interlinked order, but within
the lines of repetition. The reiterative appearance of such concepts is central
and reflects the two motifs of this canto: the highest point in the development of
Altazors new language and the inescapable nearness of the end of this epic
effect that is produced by the repetition of words such as apotheosis (1),
jewel (15), crystal (22), silk (25) or nacre (48) in the case of the new
languages height, and the use of words such as teardrop (11), affliction (16)
or death (34) in the case of the culmination of Altazors travel. Consequently,
repetition becomes vital for the development of the canto, which works towards
the development of a free meaning open to infinite interpretations through the
absence of a logical order among the words and their meanings. Yet, the
incoherent arrangement in which such repetition occurs, gives no importance to
the logical order so necessary to shape imagery, which principally nurtures from
the meaning of words. The last line Crystal death (175) serves as the perfect
illustration of this cantos concept which joins the climax of the new language
and its dissolution in its own finish.
3.1.8. Canto VII
Now that Altazor has taken the structure out of the word, it is time for him
to decompose the word itself: the new language has finally been created. In this
final canto, the speaker breaks and transforms the grammar and semantics of
the language, and opens each word to the possibility of an infinite meaning.
Every word expresses nothing and everything at the same time: there is no
charge, no symbol, no pre-concept, no previous knowledge in this new
language, being the entire canto logically unintelligible. Altazor is consumed by
the power of his creation; he has finally reached the bottom of his upside-down
flight, burning himself through the atmosphere reached. Words are not the
same, only screams and yelling are now pronounced by the character who
slowly vanishes in its destruction ahee ah ee ahee ah ee ee ee ee oh eeah
(66). The magician, the poet has become a bird and has completed his life goal:
his own finale.
It might be that Altazor is consumed by the power of his creation, finally
reaching the bottom of his upside-down flight; burning himself through the
atmosphere reached. It might be that the final lines, ahee ah ee ahee ah ee ee
ee ee oh eeah (66) are the screams and yelling of the character who slowly
vanishes in its destruction. It might be that the magician, the poet has become
bird and has completed his life goal: his own finale. It might be because
everything can be when words are not the same, and language has become
everything.
There are no recognizable words, there are no recognizable images; in
the last canto of Altazor, everything is up to the readers to create. In the
previous cantos it was Huidobro the one who created images and ideas in the
mind of the readers through the selection and arrangement of words and the
contents conveyed during Altazors falling journey. While doing this, Huidobro
subtly taught the readers how to elaborate those images, those ideas and those
contents on their own. But in the seventh canto, Huidobro reaches the point in
which he no longer produces words, or images, or content, he just combines
letters, representation of sounds, which call into existence multiple sensations in

the readers. From the beginning of this last episode of Altazors parachute
voyage, it is the reader the one that becomes the creator. From then on, and
with the absence of a language skeleton on which to rely, the readers become
Altazor, since whether the sound generated by the arrangement of letters is the
result of Altazors scream of agony in the void or the triumphal singing of his
immortality would be for them to decide. In formal terms, language as it is known
is disregarded, and Altazors new language is put into total practice. Here the
choice of the author can only be described as unique: the chapter shows nothing
but new words, from which imagery and any other type of poetical techniques
are not tangible. Huidobro achieves its goal, and the total destruction of a diction
based on established constructs of language is being executed.
3.2. Ezra Pounds Ripostes

3.2.1. Silet
As an introduction to the collection, the first poem of Ripostes serves as a
metaphor and a reflective questioning of the art of poetry itself. In the form of a
sonnet, Silet presents the speaker in an introspective state during its first
stanza. In there, the speaker is depicted beholding a pen one of the symbolic
tools the poets count on in order to create their art wondering about the
purpose of writing poetry; Why should we stop at all for what I think? (3) 4 asks
the speaker in tribulation. The second stanza remains in the same line of the
first one, yet it becomes slightly focused on questioning not just poetry in
general but its form and how it has been developed classically: What is the use
of setting it to rime? (6) the speaker wonders, alluding the rules that so far have
governed this art. Cleverly, Pound makes such query by using the rhymestructures which is being criticized. The third stanza can be seen as an attempt
to produce a break from the traditional forms of poetry as the speaker expresses
the possibility of a radical change with the question What if the wind have
turned against the rain? (10). The final stanza, then, closes the reasoning
process with a last statement which serves as the speakers final conclusion on
his constant questioning.

The title of the poem immediately presents an unusual characteristic: the
use of a word from another language. Silet, latin word for silence, appears as an
element that sets the mood for the poets examination. The tone of the poem is
also set by the constant use of words and expressions that provide gloomy and
melancholic feelings: black(1), well-away(2), it is enough (5), autumn(7),
harsh(8), last intent (9) and plague (14) a word in the final line that
summarizes the whole atmosphere of the sonnet.
The fixed structure of the poem explains why the constant apparition of a
classic diction in Silet does not become a surprise. The sonnet is delicately
formed with a mix of a common and poetic diction, as well as the regular
appearance of some archaisms. In the opening lines of the poem, When I
behold how black, immortal ink / Drips from my deathless pen ah, well-away!
(1-2), the speaker screams using the poetic, archaic interjection well-away to
express its sorrow. So, the use of this type of archaisms continues in verses
thereafter, like in What is the use of setting it to rime? (2), where rime is the
archaic spelling of rhyme, or in the use of the Middle English form to-morrow
(14). Somehow, such diction creates an immediate feeling of a classic accent,
essential for the mood of a sonnet.
Imagery, broadly speaking, remains absent in most of the poem.
However, the first stanza compromises the stimulation of the visual senses by
creating some images that are of vital importance for the interpretation of Silet.
Lets take again the first two verses. When I behold how black, immortal ink /
Drips from my deathless pen ah, well-away! (1-2) says the poet using a
particular combination that mixes the abstract with the concrete in black,
immortal ink and deathless pen. The abstract effect of such powerful imagery
is concretized by the verb drips which links both elements creating a clear and
precise illustration that works as a useful tool for the contextualization of the
poetic situation. Yet, after such stimuli, the rest of the stanzas deal mostly with
abstract terminology, giving little room for detailed visualization. Just gather
may (8) and rain (10) appear as a reminder of diffused images that move
along terms such as spring weather(7), northwindish time (8) or wind (10),
terms that by themselves do not create images with precision.
3.2.2. In Exitum Cuiusdam
TIMES bitter flood! (1), the author recalls by quoting one of his longtime friends William Yeats, as a riposte or answer to the Irish poets work, The
Poet Pleads with his Friend for Old Friends:
Though you are in your shinning days,
Voices among the crowd
And new friends busy with your praise,
Be not unkind or proud,
But think about old friends the most:
Times bitter flood will rise,
Your beauty perish and be lost

For all eyes but these eyes. (Yeats 54)
Two interpretations about the personal meaning of such poem are possible: the
idea that the answer may be of a positive character, or that it may be totally the
contrary. If Pounds words to his admired poet and friend William are of one of
those two kinds is a matter of the reader to conclude, especially because of the
ironic tone of the poem that does not really contribute to a unique or specific
perception of it.
Pounds quotation Times bitter flood brings back the pattern of
construction seen in Silet, where the combination of abstract is being attached
to concrete components. Most of the abstract terms such as time (1),
friend(2), fame(3) or mind (7) do not directly belong to Pounds creation. It is
this how most part of the diction is being extracted, as observed, from Yeats
poem. This is the main reason why observing new components in terms of
diction becomes difficult. Few new words are shown in the first stanza of the
poem, being most of them representative verbs of visual movement: hasnt
fallen off(2) or slacked (3); though, in the final stanza, most of the diction
being employed comes directly from the author, indicating that the lines would
act as the concrete answer of the American to the Irish poet. Verbs, once again,
are of a big importance for this stanza, where the actions are all related to
bounds and the lack of them: here have kept, left behind and have out of
mind are expressions that set the mood of the poem a mood that revolves
mainly in the use of abstract terminologies, which somehow do not contribute to
the development of a one hundred percent clear imagery.
3.2.3. Apparuit
Pounds attempt at Sapphic form describes the effect of seeing the
transfiguration of a young girl (Ruthven 38). Even though the human figure of a
woman is never explicitly mentioned, this transformation is understood due to
the many references found in the text. References such as the allusion to a
Sapphic fragment in which Muses are said to inhabit in a golden house (Ruthven
39) allow the reader to get into this special state in which the adoration of a
woman can be understood as the main intention of the speaker. In addition to
this, the title Apparuit (Latin variation for to become visible or to appear as a
servant), alludes to Dantes description in the Vita Nuova of his first sight of
Beatrice, which in Rossetis version (311) reads as follows:
At that moment the animate spirit, which dwelleth in the lofty
chamber wither all the senses carry their perceptions, was filled
with wonder, and speaking more especially unto the spirit of the
eyes, said these words: Apparuit jam beatitudo vestra [Your
beatitude hath now been manifested unto you]. . . . I say that from
the time forward, Love quite governed my soul. . . .
In Apparuit, a poem of enchantment, of the idealization of a woman, Ezra

Pound takes the visual elements of its references and portrays this process as
one that enters the soul of the readers through one especial portal: the eyes.
The selection of diction in this poem moves around, almost exclusively, in
the concrete realm, technique that helps the poem to become visible as words
go on. Even though certain abstract terms can be found, they appear usually
connected with a concrete construction, being the latest the central focus of the
verses. In Life died down in the lamp and flickered / caught at the wonder. (34) the word life appears as an abstract concept that becomes visible with the
word flickered; the same happens with courage in the verse Swift at courage
thou in the shell of gold, casting (13) where the shell of gold transforms the
abstract into a concrete image. In this sense, the use of colour-related terms,
especially those analogous to gold, become central in the poem and fill it with
images of shiny colours: the images are precise and full of luminosity, to the
point that the first three stanzas of the poem begin with a specific colour:
Golden rose the house, in the portal I saw (1), Crimson, frosty with dew, the
roses bend where (5), Green the ways, the breath of the fields is thine there
(9). At this point, the same diction that provides colourful and luminous images
also creates the feeling of movement among the different pictures it presents. In
the very first stanza, a golden house rises and subsequently the appearance of
a mysterious presence interrupts the painted image (1). The transitions are
unexpected and the movement is presented, at times, by the consecutive and
immediate change between the description of such images and the use of words
that represent a conceived movement. The second stanza shows the image of
roses that bend while the silhouette of the arcane presence afar moves (5-6).
The image changes its course immediately to a subsequent photogram, in the
third stanza, with the presentation of green fields that are opened with the
steely going, evoking the cut of a knife (10-11). The technique is strongly used
towards the last three stanzas, when a sense of rushing motion is added: the
silluete comes straight (14-15) towards the speaker to finally swift in
departing(20) as it is gone as wind(22) from its view.
The use of archaic terms is again present in words such as thee(2),
thou, afar(6) or aether(11). Also, archaic abstract tenses like drinkst(7),
hast(11), camest and dardst are used to establish another element of
interconnection with its ancient references.
3.2.4. The Tomb At Akr aar
The speaker or the soul, as he refers to himself in the first line, appears
as the central focus of this third poem. Moved not, nor ever answer my desire
(3), says the soul (or the ba, being one of the five forms of the soul in Egyptian
beliefs) to the dead body of Nikoptis, probably an Egypt emperor or an important
Egypt figure. The speaker is shown waiting for the body to awake, as the
Egyptian Book of the Dead would expect for every emperors soul to be moved
across the sky in the sun ark and be enlightened to become god, but no sun
comes to rest (25) and no light beats upon (27) the spirit that lonely waits.
Archaisms are, again, an important part of the development of this poem,
in which the old 2nd singular nominative, objective and possessive forms (thou,
thee, thy) are used constantly by the speaker to refer to himself and the dead
quite body. The use of such old English, now poetic terminologies, is not only
restricted to pronouns: the noun millennia (2), the proper noun Nikoptis (1),
the verb shouldst (13), and even the selection of word order in expressions
such as lest (13) or came I in(24) set the mood of the old and rusty feeling of
the poem.
The Tomb At Ark aar presents clear visual imagery. The selection of
concrete terms, such as light limbs (4), saffron (5), light grass (6) and gold
(9), paints with orange-yellowish colours the first and second stanzas. The
lights, though, are turned off, during the final part, where expressions such as
no sun comes (25), jagged dark (26) and no light beats (27) appear to
stimulate such obscure images. The poets incredible use of concrete imagery
can be perceived in the following lines, where the image becomes alive and
extremely clear: Oh ! I could get me out, despite the marks / and all their crafty
work upon the door, / Out through the grass-green fields.(29-31) When it comes
to other types of imagery, tactile imagery is not left behind and becomes visible
in lines such as grassy tongues (7) or robes I have kept smooth on thee (14).
Likewise, auditory imagery appears alive by the end of the poem: after the soul
has admitted to be expecting the whimper (13) of the body to become vivid, the
anima finally reflects that No word, day after day. (28) is there to be listened to.
The absence of sound becomes vivid and wakes up, extraordinarily in the final
lines:
Out through the glass-green fields. . . .
.
Yet it is quiet here :

I do not go. (31-34)
The authors decision of including a new form of ellipsis appears at the
very end of line 29 with the objective of trailing the reader into silence. The use
of such mechanism becomes extended in the following line. By pausing and
increasing the expectation that silence naturally produces, the line gives a
melancholic longing which finishes with the quiet absence of sound that keeps
in mystery the journey to the afterlife of Nikoptis body and soul.
3.2.5. Portrait Dune Femme
As an early exercise of his poem Mauberley, Pounds title recalls Henry
James novel of similar name (The Portray of a Lady). The speaker observes and
depicts the femme, a lady of a refined intellectual status which becomes the
main theme of the poem, as the poets title obviously shows. She is, though, not
a usual, ordinary woman, as her preferences do not seem to be near any
stereotype of the classical and romantic format of a female:
You have been second always. Tragical?
No. You preferred it to the usual thing:
One dull man, dulling and uxorious,
One average mindwith one thought less, each year. (7-10)
The portrait is not being produced in terms of the ladys physical appearance: on
the contrary, the description is based on her attitudes, the life she has lived, the
relationships she has established and the trophies (16) she has acquired. The
womans character is being decomposed by the poet in mental and physical
memories that appear throughout the poem in a listed manner:
Ideas, old gossip, oddments of all things,
Strange spars of knowledge and dimmed
wares of price.
.................................................................
The tarnished, gaudy, wonderful old
work;
Idols and ambergris and rare inlays, (4-5, 22-23)
All these riches (24) of the ladys store (24) or life, are seen by the speaker
as nothing but deciduous things (25), memories of others, foreign elements
that would never have a real owner, yet that would define the femmes unique
character, as the final lines point out: No! There is nothing! In the whole and all,
/ Nothing thats quite your own. / Yet this is you (28-30)
Even though the diction used for the title of the poem presents French
words, no other foreign linguistic components can be seen in the whole of it. The
portrait, on the contrary, uses mostly elements of English language to conform
the picture of the lady being described. The poem presents great linguistic
difference in relation to previous ones: whereas the use of archaisms and formal
language was essential in previous poems, in this one, language appears in a
regular, straightforward manner.
The oceanic atmosphere of the poem is immediately presented in the first
verse. From the very first line Your mind and you are our Sargasso Sea (1), a
slight comparison between the image of the womans mind and the sea is being
exposed and, so, repetitively used throughout the poem. Many sea-related
terms are used, such as bright ships (3), floated up (12), fished up (16),
ambergris (23) and sea-hoard (25), giving the poem a feeling of paced
mobility, like if all its elements were resting on water in a slow float (27).
The mix of abstract and concrete terms is, once again, observable.
However, the arrangement does not allow the creation of any type of detail.
Imagery is mostly visual and really diffuse. The choice for words seems to point
directly to produce such effect in lines like And bright ships left you this or that
in fee: / Ideas, old gossip, oddments of all things (3-4), where the use of this,
that, ideas or things are not fully descriptive. This happens through the
poem, and can be analyzed in the middle of the poem as the speaker describes:
Trophies fished up; some curious sugges
tion;
Fact that leads nowhere; and a tale for
two,
Pregnant with mandrakes, or with something else
That might prove useful and yet never
proves,
That never fits a corner or shows
Use,
Or finds its hour upon the loom of
days:
The tarnished, gaudy, wonderful old
work;
Idols and abergris and rare inlays (16-23)
This selection is decorated with expressions such as leads nowhere, with
something else or that might which gives the immediate sense that the
speaker is not focused on illustrating the many images that could convey the
appearance of listed objects, but on transmitting the ambiguous value of such
objects instead. The term oddments (4), as the author presents it at the very
beginning of the poem, is central for the understanding of the theme. This word
specifically describes the presence of a physical object to be observed, yet it
does not portray its qualities. For the poem the value of such is inexistent.
Instead of picking up terms of more detailed or concrete consistency such as
medal or cup, the author chooses to use trophies (16) as being descriptive of a
kind of souvenir of an achievement. The same happens with the rest of the
terms presented: instead of books, paintings or statues the speakers preference
goes hand by hand with terms such as wonderful old work, (22) idols or rare
inlays (23). Such selection of abstract terminology that evokes physical images,
yet no concrete details of such, seems to be directly related with the meaning of
the poem, for such objects do not have a real owner, yet they portray abstractly
not the physical attributes, but the character of the femme.
3.2.6. N.Y.
New York, the city that Pound visited several times during his neverunexciting artistic life, becomes the focus of attention of the poem entitled with
the acronym of the world-wide recognized urban center. The poem serves as a
reflection, as a medium in which the speaker connects himself directly to the city
in a spotless manner, even when reality appears to interfere against such link.
The first stanza depicts the city in an idealized fashion in which the speaker
addresses it as the beloved (1) one, and gently asks it to pay attention, to
attend (4) him Delicately upon the reed (4) remarking the natural essence of
the place. But reality strikes in the second stanza breaking the idealistic spirit of
the first one, and picturing the city as it actually is. The speaker realizes that the
beauty previously seen is not real, that the city is no maid (7), but just traffic
and crowds of surly people. Even when such dead and soulless representation
has been exposed, the speaker decides to go back to the place described in the
very first lines, giving it again, in the third stanza, life and soul through his
poetry. This last strophe seems to be a reconciliation of both extremes, the
synthesis of the ideal city and the real city: it shows neither perfection nor its
opposite as it is seen in the verse Thou art a maid with no breasts, (10) where
the pure image of a maid is shown imperfect. This arrangement is implicit in the
final lines in which the speaker states his intention by giving the city immortality:
Listen to me, attend me ! / And I will breathe into thee a soul, / And thou shalt
live for ever (12-14).
There is a strong relation between the constant use of the first-person
and second-person personal pronouns in this poem. From the very beginning,
the use of the first-person singular possessive case personal pronoun, my,
becomes repetitive: My city, my beloved, my white ! (1). The third line, then,
surprises with the use of the first-person singular personal pronoun in both
subjective and objective case (I and me respectively), which is immediately
connected to the use of the archaic second-person singular personal pronoun in

its objective case, thee: Listen! Listen to me, and I will breathe into thee a soul.
(3). This technique creates a deep connection between the speaker and the city,
as if it were one of lovers. By addressing the city that way, it is no longer an
object, a regular noun. During the second stanza this changes radically: even
though the repetition of personal pronouns reappears again and manifests itself
in the lines Now do I know that I am mad (5) and Neither could I play upon
any reed if I had one (8), the intention of depicting the reality of the distance
between the speaker and the object of admiration becomes clear when the poet
chooses to address the city with a demonstrative, instead of the secondpersonal pronoun, as he says This is no maid. (6). The use of the
demonstrative immediately creates distance between the speaker and the city,
and shows a sensation of disappointment after facing its opaque reality. But,
even though such distance has been created, the third stanza comes back to
the regular use of both personal pronouns and the introduction of the archaic
second-person singular form in its nominative case in the lines Thou art a maid
with no breasts / Thou art slender as a silver reed (10-11) finally, bringing
back the lovers together.
This sequence of transitions is also reflected in the use of imagery in
which the different states perceived in the poem can be clearly appreciated. The
idealized tone of the first stanza is intensified with the use of concepts
associated with the idea of purity and grace, such as white (1) and slender
(2); the use of the expression Delicately upon the reed (4) adds a touch of
softness and an atmosphere of naturalness. The second stanza, on the other
hand, is characterized by one clear image of urban landscape found in the verse
For here are a million people surly with traffic; (6). This stanza also presents
the absence of the images described before: This is no maid. / Neither could I
play upon any reed if I had one. (7-8). Finally, the last stanza shows the mixture
of the images of the first and the second stanzas as a reflection of the
conciliation: the reed mentioned at the beginning is now shown as the
metalized silver reed element that gathers the characteristics of the natural
and pure city of the first stanza and the urban style of the second. For most part
of the poem, no other types of imagery apart from the visual are noticeable, and
even though auditory imagery appears to be evoked by the poets repetition of
the exclamation Listen!, the intention dies intact with no sound being heard.
3.2.7. A Girl
According to Ruthven (77) A Girl is a reference to the mythological
narrative poem Metamorphoses written by the Roman poet Ovid. The allusion
specifically refers to the story of Daphne and Phoebus from the first book of the
legendary poem, in which the nymph transforms into a tree in order to escape
from his chaser Phoebus (Apollo), who was fated by Cupids love-existing arrow.
The passage reads as follows:
Destroy the beauty that has injured me, or change the body that
destroys my life. Before her prayer was ended, torpor seized on all
her body, and a thin bark closed around her gentle bosom, and her
hair became as moving leaves; her arms were changed to waving
branches, and her active feet as clinging roots were fastened to the
ground her face was hidden with encircling leaves (Ovid, 525)
The poem is simply divided into two stanzas that present different
characteristics: whereas in the first stanza the woman describes in detail her
tree-transformation in first person, in the second one, it is an outsider speaker
the one who comments on the result of the process.
A Girl stands out not just for the presence of two personae but also for
the use of a simple and clean language and the clarity of image. In the first
stanza, the poets word selection moves around tree-related terminology and
concepts that refer to the feminine figure, where words like sap (2), branches
(3) or moss(7) appear through the poem together with words such as hands
(1), arms (2) and breast (3). This sharp combination generates without
problems the apparition of an extremely complex image of metamorphosis.
Along with this technique, Pound produces an incredible sense of mobility by
using verbs and adverbs that describe a high level of motion which powerfully
stimulates the visual creation:
The tree has entered my hands,

The sap has ascended my arms,
The tree has grown in my breast
Downward,
The branches grow out of me, like arms. (1-5)
The physical changes that the speaker suffers in this stanza are easily
imaginable, as the poem moves around the formation of a motion picture that
details a precise and clear moving image. The second stanza, on the contrary,
describes a quiet picture, evoking a sensation of tranquillity, absent of all the
movement present in the growing transformation experimented in the first
stanza. There is no trace of the woman anymore, just his new form is shown
Tree you are, / Moss you are, / You are violets with wind above them. (6-8).
3.2.8. Phasellus Ille
With a title and an opening line adapted from a work of the Latin poet
Catallus (Ruthven 192), Pounds work behaves as a revolutionary scream
against poets, editors and publishers who had been stuck in the poetical
established scene of his time. This riposte is shaped up in an ironic tone,
treating the audience as friends (1) and demonstrating in a formal speech how
the ingrained school of thought (5) has brought an unnecessary sense of
perfection (6) to the literary arena. The poem closes up with a stanza that
contains considerable amounts of references which can be interpreted as an

assault from the poet to the poetic circle that surrounds him.
The poem introduces some archaic terminologies among its lines:
constructions such as saith twas (2), nor hath (3), nay(8) and twold (10)
contribute largely with the sarcastic mood of the written text, which mocks the
formal, corrupt use of the language in such poetic societies. In terms of imagery,
the sense of movement becomes immediately stimulated, yet, this time, the
poem centers on the absence of it. After evoking directly the image of a paper in
the first line (This papier-mch, which you see, my friends), the motion seems
to stop, getting somehow stuck in the reflection of such material while the
speakers speech proceeds to be heard. The following lines suggest such long
pause and, at the same time, meaningfully point to the square structured form of
the poetic system criticized in the poem: Norwill the horrid threats of Bernard
Shaw / Shake up the stagnant pool of its convictions (8) and Twould not move
it one jot from left to right (11). Though the image is recognizable, it is still
blurry. The use of abstract diction in most part of the poem seems to produce no
evident details in the picture evoked. The line Come Beauty barefoot from the
Cyclades, (12), for example, combines abstract and concrete diction in order to
provoke a type of image in which feet without shoes are visible and the
personification of the abstract term beauty maintains a hazy mental recreation of

the verse.
3.2.9. An Object
Pounds poem serves him as a medium to experiment and play with the
language. The poem itself does not represent more than the description of an
unintelligible object, a thing (1) that lacks a recognizable physical constitution.
In this particular poem, the author plays with the meaning behind the title, and
describes the non-describable. However, the second line suggests that the
object in question may be no more than a human being, whose moral code
(1) has blinded his heart, his core (2) from the affections (3), which he only
recognizes as acquaintances (3), but never as friends, generating a mood of
disappointment and coldness.
The very title of the poem tells the reader exactly how the diction presents
itself throughout the written piece: more vaguely than ever. Concrete words or
expressions are totally left aside, giving priority to the abstract as the main
element of the poem. With archaic terms such as hath (1) and disturbeth (4)
between its lines, the poem uses only abstract terminology. Even when the
poem speaks of an object, there is no concrete apparition of its actual material
form. The object is first presented provoking a visual stimulus: This thing (1),
the speaker tells the audience by using the demonstrative this to bring
attention to the element being exposed. But then, such visual reference dies as
quickly as it was given life, when the speaker describes the object abstractly by
using words such as code(1) core(1) acquaintance(2) or affections(2) that
lack any physical resolution. Only one word can be recognized as concrete at
the end of the poem: reflection (4). Yet, the amount of abstraction used in the
whole of the poem does not allow the formulation of any sort of mirrored image,
pushing the reader to understand the word in its more philosophical essence.
3.2.10. Quies
This is another of our ancient loves (1) says the speaker as he formally
introduces the poem. A need for silence may be the object of Quies, as Rullus
is asked to walk quietly through the short extension of this literary work after the
ancient love, the lady that passed him by, has left a sensation of
incompleteness in his soul. Pass and be silent, Rullus, for the day / Hath lacked
a something since this lady passed; (2-3). A reflective disposition is created
with this calling, generating a state of silence and tranquillity. Another possible
interpretation is that the poem occurs in the roman tribune Rullus. This historical
interpretation would move us to the debate on agrarian laws, where the lady
(Lex or Julia laws) was passed in approval with a cynical silence from its
audience.

The title Quies (Latin for rest, peace and quiet") sets the mood for
the poem. Being abstract words predominant, terminologies related to
emptiness are used from back to back in the poem: silent (2) or marginal (4)
are perfect examples of this, though the double apparition of the line hath
lacked a something gives maximum priority to the mood of the poem. The line
pass and be silent (2) evokes both visual and auditory stimuli, though once
again none of them seems to be finally completed, for the abstraction and
extension of the words used after in the poem contribute in the opposite
direction. The selection of words also adds a sensation of silence in its
phonological aspect, especially with the constant alliteration of voiceless fricative
sounds.
Thi s i s another of our an c ient love s .
UU
UU
UU
UU
UU
UU
UU
UU
Pa ss and be s ilent, Rullu s , for

UU
UU
UU
UU
UU
UU
the day
Ha th lacked a s ome th ing s in c e thi s
UU
UU
UU
UU
UU
UU
UU
UU
UU
UU
UU
lady pa ss ed ;
UU
UU
Ha th lacked a s ome th ing. Twa s but

UU
UU
UU
UU
UU
UU
UU
UU
marginal. (1-4)
Similarly to the major share of poems in this compilation, Quies presents the
use of the archaic word hath which helps to create an ancient-like ambience.
3.2.11. Echoes I
A passionate declaration of the carnal relation between two lovers is the
central theme of this poem which begins with the apparition of a speaker
(probably Guido Orlando, as Pounds reference tells) who seems focused on
embracing the Lady of Valours (1) attractiveness in his words. The poem
serves as a response to Sonnet XVI by Guido Cavalcanti, one of the many
sonnets and ballads which Pound translated during his youth. The poem reads,
as decoded by Ezra Pound from Cavalcantis original version:
THIS most lief lady, where doth Love display him
So full of valour and so vestured bright,
Bids thy heart "Out!" He goes and none gainsay him;
And he takes life with her in long delight.
Her cloister's guard is such that should you journey
To Ind you'd see each unicorn obey it;
Its armed might against thee in sweet tourney
Cruel riposteth, thou canst not withstay it.
Though she be surely in her valliancies
Such that she lacks not now worth's anything,
Still I believe her to be mortal creature;
Whence seems it, that (and here some foresight is)
If thou wert made aware of this, thou'ldst bring
Her to partake somewhat of some such nature.
Not only the re-utilization of few words as reference of the original poem can be
seen in this particular work, but the title of the collection itself seems to come
directly from it, as the phrase cruel riposteth stands out.
The archaic word-use returns to enlighten the order and sound of the
writing. Archaisms of all type are used by the poet, which include the apparition
of old pronouns such as thine(1) or thou(4), the use of old-fashioned verb
tenses such as art(3), past (3) hath(15) or hast(19), and some poetic
words and expressions like befits (1), nay (5), refineth(12) or fairest (15). A
new pattern recognizable is the use of capital letters in abstract terms, technique
that creates the materialization and even personification of the words meaning:
the line that refers to the lover as being a Lady of Valour(2) may not only evoke
the braveness of her human character, but also denote, by the use of capital
letters, a place, a land from where the ladys empery(1) may take control.
Likewise, the lines Nay, by Loves pallor (5) and Is he whod gaze upon Truth
mazes (8-9) show how both abstract terminologies are being completely
personified.
In terms of imagery, the presence of a visual and kinetic provocation can
be felt in the line Past all disproving, where the verb can be interpreted in both
its concrete or abstract sense. Such moving image can also be pointed out in
the many deliberate references to the actions performed by the human eyes: the
lines Is he whod gaze upon / Truths mazes. (8-9) and This joy comes to me, /
To me observing (17-18) stimulate the eyes of the reader by using
terminologies that refer directly to some of the actions performed by such sense,
but that, after being mentioned, do not introduce any concrete objects to be
seen. Similarly, the use of few natural-related terms gives a certain amount of
visual stimuli to the mostly abstract-composed diction of the poem.
In the line As branch hath fairest flower / Where fruits suggested. (15-16) the
speaker proves such point, yet the flowers and fruits suggested become
obscured by the common appearance of a strong abstract diction, where words
such as Valour (2), love (6), Truth (9), joy (17) and power (18) dominate
the whole writing.
3.2.12. Echoes II
The second part of the section Echoes, also known as The Cloak, is a
Carpe Diem poem based on a couple of epigrams from the Greek Anthology
(Ruthven 51). The two-stanza-rhymed poem presents a speaker who calls and
invites its lover to consolidate the bonds through carnality before death comes
against it: Thinkst thou that the Death will kiss thee? (3). According to Ruthven
(51), the first stanza is a paraphrase of an antique epigram written by
Asclepiades in the 3rd century B.C. which reads as follows:
Thoug grudgest thy maidenhead? Wht avails it? When thou goest
to Hades thou shalt find none to love thee there. The joys of Love
are in the land of the living, but in Acheron, dear virgin, whe sall lie
dust and ashes.
Likewise, the second stanza is an adaptation of an epigram written by Julianus
in the 4th century B.C. Drink ere ye put on this garment of the dust (Ruthven
51). Prefer my cloak unto the cloak of dust (7) says the speaker passionately
as the poem finishes with a flame of burning desire.
Not different from the previous poem, the second part of Echoes does not
change radically from its predecessor in its use of words. Archaic terms and
constructions are noticeable again: thou keepst (1), thinkst thou (3),
neath(8) and thou shouldst (9) illustrate this use. However, as similar as it
can be, the imagery evoked is not as ambiguous as in the first part.
Personification appears again with Death (3) and the Dark House (4)
performing human actions and evoking images of such. The repetitive use of the
word rose in the first stanza is also central in the creation of the poems
picture, as it has always represented a symbol of love and virginity. The double
reference to a cloak mixed with the abstract meanings of love and time adds
strength to this technique used by Pound in which he combines abstract and
concrete terms creating a peculiar image that produces both clarity and
diffuseness.
3.2.13. An Immorality
In this short lyric, Pound questions the ways of living under moral
conducts, using the title in a sarcastic tone while the speaker sings his (or her)
liberal experiences in the name of love and non-materialistic life. Despite the
moral standards of society, the speaker claims that in life Naught else is worth
the having. (2) apart from love and idleness.
Sing we for love and idleness the speaker says in the first line, inviting
the audience to be part of his anthem a collection of words that have been
already used in previous poems, but that now serves a rhythmical purpose. The
selection of words, even though clearly picked and ordered to produce the beat
of the poetic melody, includes little of concrete diction which only appears in
words such as land(3), sweet(5) and rose-leaves (6). In the rest of the
poem, abstract terminologies are used with preference, so little of imagery is
evoked, being the image of the dying rose-leaves (6) the only exception.
3.2.14. Salve Pontifex
Based on the Eleusinian Mysteries celebration, the poem serves as a
hymn or canticle for the initiation of the Dionysiac cult: reason why Iacchus (an
epithet for Dionysus), being the god of wine and music, is related with the chants
for Persephones return, as the following lines suggest:
O High Priest of Iacchus,
Being now near to the border of the

sands
Where the sapphire girdle of the sea
Encinctureth the maiden
Persephone, released for the spring,(76-80)
The whole poem gives a feeling of celebration and ongoing unlimited
ecstasy, as the maenads(47) and other participants of the rite seem to be
playing at the sea, the forest and the hills, while celebrating and adoring their
deity. The poem feels like a festivity, blessed by the essence of the ancient
spirits and lulled(8) with the beauty of music and wine.
Latin for Hail high priest, Salve Pontifex is probably Ripostes richest
poem in terms of diction and imagery and a highlight in the collection when it
comes to its descriptive quality. Almost every line in this piece of art is extremely
charged with a special kind of content that generates a continuous motion
picture in the mind of the reader. From the very first line, the constant repetition
of the phrase O High Priest of Iacchus the poem gives the sensation of an
anthem, a sacred canticle, in which the adoration of this ancient divinity is
expressed through a multifarious musical ritual:
One after one they leave thee,
High Priest of Iacchus,
Intoning thy melodies as winds

intone
The whisperings of leaves on sunlit days.
And the sands are many
And the seas beyond the sands are one
In ultimate, so we here being many
Are unity: nathless thy compeers
Knowing the melody,
Lulled with the wine of thy music.
Go seaward silently, leaving thee sentinel
Oer all the mysteries,
High Priest of Iacchus. (1-13)
Here, the selection of words becomes totally related to the senses evoked,
where terms, such as intoning, melodies,(3) whisperings (4) and music (9)
bring the sounds of the winds (3) in the constant alliteration of their fricative
pattern. At the same time, the windy sound is mixed with far-away canticles, in a
place where the visual stimuli of the setting is conformed by the sea, the sand
and the sun. This aural technique helps to create the Dionysiac spirit of the story
and its ambience, as for Iacchus, music is essential. The presence of this
auditory imagery extends throughout Salve Pontifex as if the poem itself were
an intoxicated hymn of divine quality: The colour thereof, raisest thy voice (24),
Thou chantest strange far-sourced canticles (28), Thou makest a wine of
song, (39), Of the magian wind that is voice of Persephone, (45) and
Wreathed with the glory of thy years of creating / Entalged music, / Breath! (5557) are the most obvious examples of this type of imagery in which the sounds
appear as a melody that elevates through the sacred fields of the gods
territories. However, the apparition of silence is also perceived in the lines Go
seaward silently, leaving thee sentinel (11) and Silent voices ministering to the
souls (33). This continual production of auditory stimuli is accompanied by the
presence of vibrant visual imagery which, through the creation of perfect
images, convey symbolic meanings:
For the lines of life lie under thy fingers,
And above the vari-coloured strands
Thine eyes look out unto the infinitude
Of the blue waves of heaven,
And even as Triplex Sisterhood
Thou fingerest the threads knowing neither
Cause nor the ending
High Priest of Iacchus
Drawst forth a multiplicity
Of strands, and, beholding
The colour thereof, raisest thy voice
Towards the sunset,
O High Priest of Iacchus ! (14-26)
This quote shows the clear and detailed symbolic image of Iacchus power,
depicted as fingers that control through strands the life of mortals. The poet
carefully constructs this image with a mixture of diction that perfectly combines
the proximity of words such as lines, strands, fingerest and threads with
the apparition of colors and sounds, enhancing the creation of a detailed picture.
Not only both the auditory and visual senses are being provoked at the very
beginning of the verses, but the sense of movement becomes essentially fired
up: Go seaward silently, leaving thee sentinel (11) says the speaker giving
priority to the motion from image to image, immediately after the summer-like
scenery has been constructed. Such flow works with the extension of the poem,
as it slowly goes from different landscapes and not in an abrupt manner as seen
in other works of this collection. The vari-coloured strands (15) are gently melt
skyward with the blue waves of heaven, (17), towards the sunset (25),
moving the sight of the reader from below to above. The many atmospheres are
presented by the poet one by one, to be, then, mixed with such mobility: the
leaves on sunlit days(4), the blue ways of heaven(17), the night and the
winds of night(32), the three shadowing / forests on hill slopes(36), the vineentangled ways of the forest(48) and the sapphire girdle of the sea(78)
describe the different settings of the poem as a whole which encircles the
verges(93) of the land and the sea the verges of darkness and clarity. This
change of scenery is also deeply rooted in the diction and the selective patterns
of the author which move not only in space but also in time as the poem goes
from day to night Now that the evening cometh upon thee (58). For this work,
the poet uses the concreteness of certain words to highlight not only the clear
images of the setting but also the theme of celebration from which the poem is
attached, in which words such as wine(10), tree-shadowing(35), futility(42),
vine-entangled(48), music(56), wicker baskets fro grape clusters(63) or
canticles(70) relate both elements perfectly, evoking in detail the ceremonial
vintage. This is how some archaic terms are used to invoke the classic soul of
such tradition; words and constructions do also assume ancestral ways:
O High Priest of Iacchus
Wreathed with the glory of thy years of
creating
Entagled music,
Breathe !
Now that the evening cometh upon thee. (54-58)
The words selected, the formation and the verbs employed are interweaved with
the many characters of this celebration: the Triplex Sisterhood (18), the
hamadryads (34), the maddests (40) and the Mnads (47) are part of the
pn which brings Persephone as released for the spring (80). The poem
ends remarkably with an image of Iacchus that, after being presented,
undergoes a metamorphic transformation: the god in the verge of the sea
passes from being sand to waves, which later become the air breathed by
himself:
Wherein thou being neither young nor

young
Standing on the verge of the sea
Shalt pass from being sand,
And becoming wave
Shalt encircle all sands,
Being transmuted through all
The girdling of the sea.

Breath thou upon us ! (92-101)
3.2.15.
The emotive phrasing of this poem opens an umbrella of interpretations
that makes a singular appreciation of its meaning almost impossible. With
(Greek for the name Doria) as the title of the poem, the speaker may be
calling out the memory of an old romance or even may be speaking to a dead
lover, as the references of loneliness and everlasting memories are made. What
is certain, though, is that the poem refers mainly to the dichotomy of transient
and eternal love: An invitation is made by the speaker to the good but transient
things as gaiety of flowers (4) to become immortal. K. K. Ruthven insinuates a
Hormazabal and Salgado100
similar conclusion: Pound here rejects the transient attractions of romantic love
in favor of something that is closer to harsh reality and therefore more likely to
be durable (62). It appears that only the awful has shown as eternal in the
speakers life, and the willing to change such notion presents itself alive in the
words of his speech.
is a clear example of the combination of concrete diction that
creates undimmed images that dilute in the hazy complexity of abstract terms.
Concrete terminologies such as wind (2), flowers (4), sunless cliffs (6) and
grey waters (7) seem not to develop new imagery (for most of this had already
appeared in previous poems) and are infused with the abstractions of words like
Bleak wind (2), eternal moods (1), transient (3) and strong loneliness (5).
However, the words are arranged in such manner that the imageless
characteristic of abstract diction does not interfere with the creation of a defined
mental picture; instead, it adds a special quality and charge to the concepts, as
the gaiety decorates with a special mood the image of the flowers in this
written piece (4). This effect is strongly produced in the lines that follow where
the creation of an imagery of the visual type is perfectly constructed, not just
with the appearance of dark colors and geographical elements, but also with the
development of a specific sensation of solitude: Have me in the strong
loneliness / of sunless cliffs / And of grey waters. (5-7). In addition to visual
imagery, the auditory type can also be found in the line Let the gods speak
softly of us (8) in which a faint sound is educed.
To permeate the optimist moral of such work, the poet serves from the
use of anguish terminologies to produce a sense of melancholy around its lines:
the eternal moods (1) are compared to the bleak wind (2) implanting a feeling
of affliction from the very beginning of the poem. The touch of suffering eternity
is increased with the apparition of gods that speak of them, and Orcus, god of
the underworld in Roman mythology, who is counterpoise with the everlasting
memory of the speakers love in the last line of the poem.
3.2.16. The Needle
This is a carpe diem poem whose title refers to the compass needle of a
humans soul that trembles (3) in the sea of emotion in which the writing moves
from wave to wave. The first stanza of the poem places us in the speakers
physical situation: Come, or the stellar tide will slip away (1) says the speaker
to his lover while the poem travels around an astronomical sea in constant
movement. The second stanza acts as an argumentation of the qualities of the
stellar flux being observed, with the constant demands of the speaker who sees
that the good hour has come to embrace love: invitation that would end
metaphorically in the final stanza with the form of a final calling for a lustful
encounter.

Diction is presented with a mix of abstract and concrete terminologies.
Words related to sea and stars give priority to the construction of an imagery
mainly based on old sailing stories, where the poems movement assembles the
motion of fully rigged ships slowly crossing the ocean:
Mock not the flood of stars, the things
to be.
O Love, come now, this land turns evil
slowly.
The waves bore in, soon will they bear
Away.
The treasure is ours, make we fast land
With it. (8-11)
The inclusion of the word treasure gives a pirate-like sense to the imagery
already constructed under the dominion of such oceanic diction. The intentional
use of verbs of similar meaning, bear up (7), bore in (10), bear away (10),
and abide (13), reflect the sensation of a challenging poetical trip which is
perfect for the carpe diem love theme.
The poem includes not only visual stimuli, for there is a strong presence
of kinetic imagery. The carpe diem idea is stimulated by the sensation of letting
go with the flux of the tide, the kinetic imagery is fundamental in this sense as it
leads the reader through the movements of the stellar tide. A sense of
direction, of constant movement is seen in words such as slip away (1),

eastward (2), trembles (3), turn against (7), slowly (9), under (14) or
turneth aside (15) that guide the reader to the poems arrival.
3.2.17. Sub Mare
This work is an attempt to evoke the indefinable turmoil of love (Ruthven
228) by comparing emotions to the waves underneath the sea. The speaker is
diving, moving under the ocean, describing what surrounds him: This
fabrication built of autumn roses, / Then theres a goldish colour, different. (3-4);
expressing the feelings which move through the waves pushing words out from
the characters swimming mind.
A mix of abstract and concrete terminologies is presented in this poem
which has as a title the Latin for under the sea; this time, lines become the
main point of separation for the appearance of both types of diction. The first
stanza seems to start with two lines of abstract terms, and finish with two
concrete lines:
It is, and is not, I am sane enough
Since you have come this place has hovered round me,
This fabrication built of autumn roses,
Then theres a goldish colour, different.(1-5)
Even though the abstract references seem to overcloud the images being
constructed by the display of such concrete words, the reader can still
appreciate roses and the goldish colour of the scenery. The second stanza
returns to the mixing process of both types of diction seen in previous poems as
a means of representation of the chaotic effects produced by being drown. The
setting of the poem is mainly moved by the use of sea-related diction. Pounds
ideogrammic method is introduced graphically to provoke such setting in the
third line of the second stanza: Pale slow green surgings of the underwave.
Here the combination of terms appears almost mathematically as the word
pale is added with the slow and green surgings giving us as a final result
the underwave. Such line also reflects another important characteristic of the
poem: an oceanic movement, which as Ruthven points out is a dominant motif in
art noveau (228). This motion appears predominant in this refined poem by
Pound, as it can be seen in the slow movement of the algae (6). The ordering
of diction simulates the sensation of being under the water which implies the
presence of tactile and kinetic imagery.
3.2.18. Plunge
As a reaction to the trivial routine and the superficiality of society,
Plunge represents Pounds necessity for new experiences, an ode to the new
(8), to the unknown: I would bathe myself in strangeness (1), I burn, I scald so
for the new, / New friends, new faces, / Places! (3-5), save the new. (8)
screams the speaker thirsty for different undergoings. According to Ruthven

(197), this (6) thing that the poet is tired of refers to the London literary world
Pound was involved in during the 1910s. In his attempt at escaping the comforts
(2) of the London circle that smother (2) him, the speaker tries to find the
strange, seeking satisfaction in abandoning the regularity of life and all the
people and situations that come along with it:
Oh, but far out of this !
.............................................
Out and alone, among some
Alien people ! (15, 19-20)
The poem starts with abstract diction to progressively end with a more
concrete use of words. Visual, concrete diction appears in the following lines:
Do I not loathe all walls, streets,
stones,
All mire, mist, all fog,
All ways of traffic ? (11-13)
Words such as: walls, streets, stones, mire, mist, fog and ways of
traffic are deeply related to a city-nesque and lifeless environment from which
the poet tries to escape. The opposite effect is produced with the countryside
image of the verses Grass, and low fields, and hills, / And sun / Oh sun enough
! (16-18) where the eagerness for this new, more vivid landscape is contrasted
with the murky misery of the wonted city. Such contraposition, and the
comparative form in which it is presented, denote an important use of movement
among both impressions; the speaker flows (14) far out (15) of the very first
images, separating himself from what has been neglected in the poem, to finally
become one with the absence of routine and therefore the presence of the new:
Out and alone, among some / Alien people !(19-20), the speaker appears to be
transformed by the power of its own words and actions.
3.2.19. A Virginal
A Virginal is a love poem that describes the inner battle of a person
enchanted and aroused by the reminiscence of a perfect lover. Beginning with a
phrase that repeats itself twice along the verses No, no ! Go from me, and
which suggest the possible rejection of a second lover or the rejection of carnal
sensations, A Virginal presents a speaker who rhythmically expresses his
feelings of desire for the lady that has fascinated and completely changed his
conceptions of love and romance. The title alludes to the antique musical
instrument, and gives its essential musicality to the poems heart, which beats in
the pulsing form of a romantic sonnet of an unusual rhyme scheme.
Contradictory to the classical structure of verses, the theme of the poem is
developed asymmetrically to the regularities of an idyllic sonnet: even though
there is not enough literary evidence to support whose chastity has been kept
intact, it is the speakers sexual state the one being sentimentally exposed in
metaphorical purity.
Archaisms appear once again decorating the verses and giving them the
vintage feeling so characteristic of a sonnet, where words such as ther (5),
sheathe (8), birchen (10) and aye (11) contribute lively to the enchanting
ways of the composition. Though such amorous title conserves the idealization
of the harpsichord keyboard as the primary meaning of the noun virginal, it
clearly manifests traces of its adjective form when put into context. The theme of
the poem works constantly towards this sexual account, and the selection of
words becomes essential to prove it. Language focuses on accentuating erotic
sensations, giving priority to terms related to flesh and skin. Tactile and
gustatory senses are evoked in lines like slight are her arms(4), as with sweet
leaves (6), to sheathe me half in half the things that sheathe her (8), I have
still the flavour (9) or as winters wound with her sleight hand (12) that act as
expressions of weight and taste, which are perfectly balanced with their
allegorical nature. All these erogenous expressions do not only move under
these two senses, since they are compared and often juxtaposed with the visual
stimuli of images. This is how the diction of the poem focuses on the evocation
of light and clearness choice that repeats again when the idea of the woman is
being described. Light-related terms are provided by the author in the first
stanza as the speaker is being covered by a broad shine:
I will not spoil my sheath with lesser brightness,
For my surrounding air has a new lightness;
And left me cloaked as with a gauze of ther,
As with sweet leaves; as with a subtle clearness
The brightness of such lines becomes essential as a main reference for the
sexual purity evoked in the theme of the poem. The following stanza
emphasizes images different from the bright ones perceived in the first verses
and nature-related terms act with the purpose of constructing mental pictures:
Soft as spring wind thats come from birchen bowers,
Green come the shoots, aye April in the branches,
As winters wound with her sleight hand she staunches,
Hath of the tress a likeness of the savor:
A white their bark, so white this ladys hour.
The appearance of winter and the personification of April give colorful
characteristics to the many references to tree-akin terms shown along these
lines. Among the closing verses, two terms appear denoting all the
characteristics of the poems diction: tress (13) and bark (14) act as joining
the many references; for tress depicts the womans hair at the same time it
acts as a pun for tree; and the white bark, serves as the skin of the plant, and
metaphorically the bright sheath covering its construction.
3.2.20. Pan Is Dead

This poem tells the story of the moment after the death of Pan Greek god
of fertility, protector of the fields, woods, shepherds and goatherd. The theme of
Pan and his death has appealed to poets throughout history. Great Pan is
dead, has been the cry of preference to refer to the story of the Greek god, and
so the poem alludes the expression in the very first line of the poem. Ah! Bow
your heads, ye maidens all, / and weave ye him coronal (2-3) says an unknown
speaker to a group of maidens who would ask back how shall we weave a
coronal / or gather floral pledges? in the second stanza of this written piece.
The dialogue presented in the first two stanzas leads to the speakers reflections
on death phrases that act as a life interrogative, for the reader encounters the
following question: How should he show a reason, / That he has taken our Lord
away / Upon such hollow season ?(11-13). In Ruthvens words, the death of
Pan symbolized for Pound the death of the paganism he admired so much in the
ancient world (190). Pan Is Dead shows the hollow season (13) brought by
the death of the Greek deity. This riposte would have the intention, then, of
resurrecting paganisms old power to the detriment of Christianity the religion
whose birth would have coincided with the death of Pan (Ruthven 190).
Even though most of the words in Pan Is Dead are of a concrete kind,
the few abstract concepts that appear serve as key for the generation of the
overall sensation of the poem: the words death (9) and hollow (13) along with
the phrase There is no summer in the leaves, (4) set the dark mood of the
situation. The rest of the diction is arranged to arouse visual imagery that is
directly related to both of the main ideas in the poem. As the Greek god of wild
nature, the poem refers to some nature-related terminologies such as
summer(4), leaves (4), withered(5), sedges(5) and season(10); at the
same time, is mixed with some death-related words such as, pledge(7),
Death(9), taken (...) away(9), and hollow(10). The term Coronal (3), a
word that is repeated twice in the poem, summarizes both of these matters in its
meaning, being a floral pledge (7), a flower-decorated symbol for death which
reflects the dispirited feeling that Pans death provoked.
3.2.21. The Picture
As the note written by the artist himself refers to, the poetic work is based
on Jacopo de Sellaios painting: Venus Reclining. With his particular use of
language, Pound describes the woman on the painting by depicting a sensation
that recalls the one evoked in A Virginal maybe as an allusion to Venus,
goddess of love and beauty: For here was love, was not to be drowned out, /
And here desire, not to be kissed away (2-3). The first line of this ekphrasis,
The eyes of this dead lady speaks to me, which connects the painting with an
attentive and contemplative speaker, may be interpreted as Pounds reference
to a near encounter with what would become one of his more important
contributions to literature Imagism. As the deep connection with such painting

would appear again in the next poem of this collection, the first verse may
suggest that, through this work of art, Pound has bounded the importance of
images as prime objective in his poetry.
The short extension of the poem gives us no surprises in its use of
diction. The mix of abstraction and concreteness that strikes beautifully the lines
of this poem has been already seen in other works by the author: love (2) and
desire (3) is not being drowned out (2) and kissed away (3) as the eyes (1)
of the lady (2) are shown speaking. What becomes essential to be analyzed is
the selection of the poems title and its meaning that predispose the reader to
activate, as an immediate reaction, a specific visual representation: Jacopo del
Sellaios painting. In this sense, the repetition of the phrase The eyes of this
dead lady speak to me leads the reader to experience the poem under the
visual sense. The images that could be evoked dissipating in abstraction without
the reference to the plastic artist become concrete and clear in the figure of the
painted woman thanks to the connection made by Pound.
3.2.22. Of Jacopo Del Sellaio
As it may be inferred from the very first stanza, the poem serves as a
personal allegory from Pound to the painter, now directly referred in its title. As a
continuation of The Picture, Of Jacopo Del Sellaio starts with favorable
statements about the painter This man knew out the secrets ways of love, / No
man could paint such things who did not know. (1-2) evidencing Pounds
admiration for the visual artist. Venus Reclining, is once more referred to
among the lines of the poem, being the second stanza strictly connected with it.
And now shes gone, who was his Cyprian, / And you are here, who are The
Isles to me. (3-4) says the speaker in reference to the island of Cyprus, a place
where Venus was worshiped (Ruthven 186). The third stanza is, essentially, the
expression of the speakers main concern: And heres the thing that lasts the
whole thing out : / The eyes of this dead lady speak to me (5-6).
Mainly abstract in its form, the Of Jacopo Del Sellaio moves among
terminologies that seem to define the poems principal characteristic: a strictly
non-visual piece of work. This quality gives the poem the connotation of being
the aesthetic counterpart of The Picture as the sensations that it evokes are
completely opposite. For instance, in the first verse the speaker does not
present any concrete figure but just the idea of the gifted man who is able to
paint the picture: This man knew out the secret ways of love. Here, the word
thing appears for the first time, and is repeated twice again in the last stanza
word selection that strengthen the notion of visual ambiguity.
3.2.23. The Return

An almost theatrical representation of the arrival of pagan gods is the
central idea of the penultimate poem found in the authors ripostes. Clearly, The
Return is another of Pounds works about pagan deities as it can be
appreciated in the lines Gods of the winged shoe! (12) where a reference to
Hermes, the Greek god of literature, poets, boundaries and of the travelers who
crossed them, is clearly visible. As experts determined, Pound questioned the
way Christianity was serving, and saw it as an excessively prohibitive and life
denying ideology (Ruthven 204). With that in mind, it would not be unreasonable
to think that The Return may be a concrete allusion to the antique keenscented (17) poetry of the ancient Greek, as contrary to the traditional poetry
influenced by Christianity. Even though, this poem is open to distinct
interpretations, it certainly is a description of the return of the vigorous ancient
gods as shadows of what they once were See, they return, one, and by one, /
With fear, as half awakened; (5-6)
As gods are showing lyrically in a moving almighty return, the poem
seems to carry a similar motion in terms of diction. The Return begins with the
presence of kinetic imagery which covers the whole first stanza in a combination
of words that evoke the lethargic come back of the pagan gods:
See, they return; ah, see the tentative
Movements, and the slow feet,

The trouble in the pace and the
uncertain
Wavering ! (1-4)
As it can be seen, the poem uses the opening word see (1) to immediately
evoke the readers use of the visual sense, which is not entirely completed for
much of the verse is packed with abstract terminology. The kinetic imagery
evokes two different sensations, one hesitant and the other vigorous. The poem
moves on, asking the reader, one more time, to become a viewer, to become a
spectator. The snow (7) and the murmur in the wind (8) appear in the second
stanza giving a more concrete depiction of the context of the poem in general
and stimulating the visual and the auditive. The mix of abstract and concrete
diction returns in the two final stanzas after presenting in the third the clearest
image:
Gods of the wingd shoe !
With them the silver hounds,
sniffing the trace of air ! (12-14)
The clear image of the symbolic element of Hermes is also central as it is
mentioned twice in the poem: Gods of the winged shoe! (12) and These were
the wingd-with-Awe in the latest, the image of the symbol of Hermes is
merged with the abstract term awe creating Pounds already recognizable
combination of the concrete and the abstract.
3.2.24. Effects of Music Upon a Company of People

The title of this mini-compilation offers the meaning of it: the author
describes the effects of music upon a company of people in two poems. The first
corresponds to the work of Claude Debussy, specifically to two movements of
the compositions from his work Images for piano. The second, as mentioned in
the title, corresponds to Schumann.
3.2.24.1. I Deux Movements
For this two-part poem, the author takes two of the ten movements from
Debussys work (Temple qui fut and Poissons dor) and experiments with them
in a written capture that tries to reflect the sensations produced by these pieces
of music.
With a sole stanza for each movement, the poem is constructed mainly by
concrete diction that evokes clear and specific images by using simple and
direct language. Temple qui fut sets the direction of the first lines in which the
curling movement of the souls is synergistically combined with the image of
petals A soul curls back, / Their souls like petals, / Thin, long, spiral (1-3). The
flower-related imagery immerse in flowery decorum continues in the first
movement as the diction selected contributes with words such as petals (2),
chrysanthemum (4), calyx (6), rose-white (8) and flower (13). Colors also
emerge as central elements of Temple qui fut when the verses Pale green, pale
gold, transparent, / Green of plasma, rose-white (7-8) appear, but probably

what stands out in a larger degree in this poem is the description of movement;
after the multicolored floral description, the curling back spiral of the first lines
reappears near the end of the section
Spirate like smoke,
Curled,
Vibrating,
Slowly, waving slowly. (9-12)
The first part ends with the exclamation O Flower animate ! / O calyx ! / O
crowd of foolish people! (15) in an image in which flowers take the form of the
faces of the crowd. Poissons dor begins with the image of petals in an
exclamation that links the sensation of the first movement with the new piece of
music The petals / On the tip of each the figure / Delicate (1-3). The second
section continues with the description of movement as the kinetic type of
imagery becomes once again the essence of the poem, using a motion
description that puts together flower terms with those of fabric:
See, they dance, step to step.
Flora to festival
Frolic involve ye.
Woven the step,
Woven the tread, the moving.
Ribands they move
Wave, bow to the centre.

Pause, rise, deepen in colour
And fold in drowsily (19-28)
3.2.24.2. II From A Thing By Schumann
Just as the first part, the poem corresponds to the authors transmutation
of music into the written art. This time, a piece by the German music composer
Schummann, whose name is quoted in the title, is being the focus of the
authors experience.
The rich presence of images in this poem, which equals that of the
previous one, could imply that Pound makes a strong relation between music
and visual imagery since the poems appear to be written as the music plays,
describing the sensation produced by it by the creation of images of the visual
type, full of colors and precise images:
And then across the white silken,
Bellied up, as a sail bellies to the wind,
Over the fluid tenuous, diaphanous,
Over this curled a wave, greenish (10-13)
Not only the presence of such direct colorful pictures can be perceived among
the lines, yet the constant relation these colors have with the images of weaves
can be easily pointed out, as in gold threads (3) or white silken (10). Indeed,
diction moves around these fabric-related words which intensify the ideas of the
description of music as something as delicate as silk, giving priority to the
weaves-related images seen in the very first part of this poem now immersed in
a poetry that waves slowly: Breast high, floating and welling / Their soul,
moving beneath the satin, (1-2). Kinetic, then, is once more a primary element
in this poem, where verbs such as pushed (4), beat (5), dropped (7) or
floating above (15) are mixed with other words such as fluid (12), curled
(13) or wave (13) which, also, possess motion.
Chapter 4: Contrastive Analysis

The objective of this chapter is to present simultaneously the most
important findings regarding the Aesthetic Visions portrayed in Huidobros
Altazor and Pounds Ripostes. Consequently, both works are compared in order
to establish the principal differences and similarities between them. For this, the
structure of the chapter is based on a division of three sections: the first
exposing the poetical relevance of these two works of literature; the second
showing the outcomes regarding diction; and the third exhibiting the conclusions
with respect to imagery. In each of them, inferences on Altazor are presented
firstly, and subsequently those of Ripostes.
4.1. Content
Vicente Huidobros Altazor presents itself as an Epic poem; the extension
of its structure, the division of such in few chapters, the storytelling structure of
its lines, and, most importantly, the presentation of a heroic figure as Altazor are
the elements that justify such categorization. Altazors adventure moves around
some recognizable themes that are visible through the extension of the epic: the
heros falling voyage; the characters struggle for surviving through his
adventure; the beloved muse; and the idea of death as the always-present
culmination of the travel, arise as the most recognizable ones in this epic that
according to Eliot Weinbergers the writer, essayist and editor who translated
Altazor into English takes us further than the moon and stars, and falls not
back to earth but out into Einstein space, a place where speed is capable of
telescoping time (x-xi). Huidobros masterpiece flowers in subtle difference with
the narrative lyrical genre: though Epic poetry usually contains details of heroic
deeds and events significant to a culture or nation (Meyer), Altazor seems to
skip these regularities, being its heroic figure non-related to any specific culture
and, thus, extremely distant from oral tradition. Accordingly, the inclusion made
by the author of fixed schemes is almost scant, being free verse the main
foundation of the poetic work. These variances give Altazor an invigorating
freshness that impeccably combines with this epics biggest contribution to
poetry: the creation of a new poetic language a breakthrough that sees light in
the climax of Huidobros masterwork.
Due to the Aesthetics postulates presented across the extension of the
work that theoretically support this poetic and linguistic innovation, Altazor
represents a reaction against the precepts of the traditional and standardized
poetry of the time in terms of form and content. Through the lines of its seven
cantos, the piece of work flows within a particular ambience of ambivalence
between the plot-line of the epic journey and the discombobulated logical
coherence of its form. Even though the poem possesses a narrative, a line in
which the main character moves, which is essential to the authors poetical
purpose in the formation of the new language, the beautified complexity of each
verse opens infinite possibilities of interpretation. scar Hann, for example, a

Chilean poet, critic and essayist, would point out that:
The protagonist, Altazor, which in occasions is a bird, an aviator, a
rebel angel and astronaut, is falling down through the stellar space.
This displacement is, at the same time, a free fall to morality and a
mortal wordplay that culminates with the destruction of the
character and his poetry in the 7th canto. (Hahn 9)
Opposingly, Eliot Weinberger gives a different interpretation taking the same
structural elements:
Altazor is a poem of falling, not back to earth (...) but out into
space. The faster Altazor falls, the faster the poem reads. As his
body burns up like a meteor, mass transforming into energy, all
ages become contemporaneous, the tombs open (...) and all
places become one. Above all, the old language of poetry is
consumed with the body of the poet, and a new language,
progressively more radical, is created out of puns, neologisms,
animal and plant dialects, and pages of identical rhymes. (xi)
Nevertheless, the narrating constituent is given the same prominence to the one
given to the creation of the new language, since the story line is essential for this
aim. Actually, all the poetic chapters previous to the final canto work
progressively towards the disintegration of language in morphological and
semantic-terms to finally present the new form in a written recognizable pattern
mainly based on sound, yet totally stripped of an established meaning. In fact,

Altazor works not only on a simple metamorphosis or renewal of language, but
on the creation of a new system: a historical poetic account that summarizes
and diverge such elements of the modern period, showing itself as a response
to the establishment.
Ezra Pounds Ripostes presents itself as a collection of tightly connected
poems which in its harmonically unified whole behaves, as the title indicates, as
a clever reaction of poetic essence. Covering a considerable variety of themes
that go from carpe diem (The Needle, Echoes II) and celebration (Salve
Pontifex) to irony (Phasellus Ille) and sorrow (Pan Is Dead), Ripostes allows
the American author to explore the new possibilities of modern poetry in a
composition that, structured by old forms (the Sapphic in Apparuit, the sonnet
in Silet) and archaic vocabulary, introduces with great strength free verse (The
Return and many others) and simple language. As David Moody points out
"Ripostes was not yet modern, although () it was definitely modern in its
tending towards a contemporary idiom and a more natural syntax" (178). In fact,
even if large portions of the poems have a complex treatment of language and
are traditionally structured, there are many poems in which economy of
language and the organization of the same in a simple way are the main
characteristics. The works principal reaction, then, seems to be against the old
forms of poetry, for even when using them Pound does it in an experimental
manner. By utilizing different techniques regarding form and content, Pound
introduces modifications and innovations that emphasize his personal style. With
that being said, it becomes reasonable to state that Ripostes portrays Pounds
Aesthetic transition that goes from his care for the traditional structures of poetry
towards a freer organization of verses characterized by a clean and direct use of
language. Not only that, it is a work that represents a turning point in Pounds
poetic oeuvre and the basis for establishing the Aesthetic Vision of Imagism.
The constant references arise as another important aspect of Ripostes
and give the work a special complexity when it comes to reading it. Allusions to
ancient culture, especially those that found his beliefs in pagan gods, along with
the citation of contemporary poets and the apparition of other fields of art such
as music and painting, extend the cloak of wisdom over the multicolored
collection. In this sense, previous knowledge emerges as fundamental for the
understanding of Ripostes, since each of the allusions helps to create a specific
state of mind or soul in the poems. The seeking for precision and specificity,
then, stands out as one of the main concerns of the poet in Ripostes, who tries
to reflect the Poetic State not only through clear and specific images but also
through accurate description of sensations. All these elements show an
essential angle of the Aesthetic Vision present in Ripostes: Pound tries to reflect
and produce the specific sensation of the Poetic State that lead him to create
each of the poems through precision and a clear emotional vision in an attempt
to define the indefinable. It is not chaos what can bee seen in the lines of
Ripostes, but meticulous organization and delicacy of forms and content.
4.2. Diction
When looking at the diction in Altazor, it becomes unavoidable to note the
balanced use of abstract and concrete terminologies that appears throughout
the epic work. Even though by the final cantos the author has managed to take
the meaning out of the words making sound and written patterns the only
recognizable structures of the written piece, most of the type of diction in the
poem is melted and mixed in concreteness and abstraction, being the poem
adjusted in a subtle harmonized structure of tangible and un-tangible
foundations.
The recurrent use of astral-related terminologies, which are not presented
in isolation, but regularly combined with other elements in Huidobros writing, is
one of the features that characterize the authors diction. Such stellar constituent
is substantial and is usually juxtaposed from beginning to end with the properties
of other natural-akin terms, especially those related to the sea and sky, as the
author paints winds and waves in his poetical galactic canvas. The first line of
the poem, actually, starts such relation, by making Altazor to be born at the
Equinox (Huidobro). This relevant reference becomes extremely important
when presented in the preface whose main purpose is to situate the reader in
the context of the whole poem. But this is not the only reference that proves that
these elements are essential for the context of the poetical story, as it appears in
canto I: And as long as the stars and the waves have something to say / It will
be through my voice that they speak to man (413-414). In these lines, the
arrangement of the words clearly specifies a hierarchy in which the elements are
being exposed: the stars and waves are presented only through the main
characters poetry, yet not as independent elements, as the example suggests.
Evidently, the expression it will be through my voice gives Altazor a sense of
dominion over what surrounds him, but most importantly, it gives the reader the
fundamental notion of what is around him. The authors intention through such
lines is clear, for his expression determines, essentially, the ambiance of
Altazors adventure: stars and waves. It is through the birth-relation established
and the control that the protagonist has over these elements, that the author
specifies the atmospheric and decorative features of such natural constituents,
clearly connecting Altazor with the galactic features that would become more
recurrent as the poem progresses, and which are now proved as being
primordial for the scenery or setting of the epic.
The decision for the use of such elements as the background of the story
works directly towards the authors poetical intention: the creation of a new
language. One common thing about the maritime, aerial and astral natural
spaces is how they assume some sort of uninhabited, empty characteristic, for
these zones do not seem entirely manipulated by men. Here Im lost in the
desolate seas / Alone like a feather falling from a bird in the night. (17-18) says
Altazor in canto II, exposing this valuable principle with the use of desolate
seas and the comparison of his swimming movement with the one of a feather
which visually floats without the dominion of gravity, but wind. This slightest
command regular men possess, gives Altazor a more heroic characteristic, as
he sees these areas as perfect arenas for the deletion and creation of the new
language, as it can be seen in canto III:
The last poet withers away
The bells of the continents chime
The moon dies with the night on its back
The sun pulls the day of its pocket
The solemn new land opens its eyes
And moves from earth to the stars
The burial of poetry (114-120)
The old poetry dies in the land, the habitat of man, and moves from it to the
stars as the burial procession is being held. In space, where no gravity is
controlling the position of things and where distances are no longer controlled,
the creation of a new language becomes easier to project for there no limitations
seem possible. This, by being juxtaposed with the management that men
posses over the ocean and earthly sky, gives the reader enough understanding
on how the author sees these elements in his Aesthetic nature. Some of the
nature-related terms, such as the ocean, the sky and the stellar tide, are treated
not only as decorative elements, but are seen by Huidobros as fascinating

landscapes in which humans have assume a position of a certain control. For
Huidobro these wonderful dimensions of nature represent freedom and nonrestrained spaces for humanity to wonder, contemplate and create.
Besides the sea and the sky, the regularity of appearance of other naturerelated terms is one other fundamental feature of the diction in Altazor, yet when
the poem is being analyzed as a whole, two distinctive natural elements stand
out with meaningful importance: the bird and the tree.
Alto for high and azor for hawk, the author decision of naming his
character Altazor gives immediate importance to the bird in the epic, which is in
direct relation with the idea of the tree. As Eliot Weinberger points out: Above
all, the old language of poetry is consumed with the body of the poet, and a new
language progressively more radical, is created out of puns, neologisms, animal
and plant dialects, and pages of identical rhymes (xii). When revising how
diction presents us both elements, this bird-and-tree-language theory becomes,
progressively, a fact. Even though the first encounter of Altazor and the bird can
be seen during the preface, is no longer related to language until the following
chapter, where Altazor questions: What have you done to my voice heavy with
birds as evening falls / The voice that once hurt like bleeding? (226-227). The
word voice, which is repeated twice, gives us the first insight on how the
birdlike sound is being initially connected with Altazors language as he, during
canto I, subsequently goes on stuck to death like a bird to the sky / Like the
date marked on a growing tree (385-386). If Altazors expression compares and

parallels his falling adventure with both elements as in the example exposed, it
becomes more clear that the bird and the tree are seen similar to his language,
as he later on would prove with the following lines: But do not fear me because
my language is strange / (...) / I want to bring you a music of the spirit / my music
from this zither planted in my body / music that makes you think about the
growth of the trees (600, 605-607). So Altazor ends the first chapter in a petition
of silence to observe this growth in the last lines: Silence / the pulse of the
world faintly beats / the earth has given birth to a tree. The word silence
immediately activates an auditory command, which goes deeply connected with
the birth of the tree: if such birth would have been of visual importance, then the
connection with the language would have been only on a visual grammatical
extent. When taking into account the repetition of such corollary comparison,
Altazor focuses on continuously connecting his destiny with the one of the bird,
as we can observe in canto IV: In the breast of the same bird / that consumes in
the fire of its song (12-13). The authors inclusion of this repetitive analogies
and the apparition of the word song must be taken into account as an
important poetical nexus, for they follow the line of the tragic epic. It is during
canto IV where Altazor initiates a very complex wordplay which includes the
decomposition of the word swallow presented before the literary chaos in the
following manner:
Theres no time to lose,
Look here swoops the monochronic swallow

With an antidopal tone of approaching distance
Here swoops the swallowing swallow (158-161)
Certainly, the word tone is once again exposed as to be connected with the
auditory sensation, necessary for any language to work. So far, it becomes no
coincidence that every time the author exposes any of both elements, an
audible-related word is being paralleled with it:
Hurry up hurry up
The seeds are ready
Waiting for the order to flower
Be patient soon theyll grow
And travel along the paths of sap
Up their private stairway
A minute of rest
Before the trees voyage to the sky
The tree is afraid of going too far
Its afraid and looks back in anguish
Night makes it tremble
The lycanthropic night
The night that files its claws on the wind
And sharpends the sounds of the forest
Its afraid I say the tree is afraid
Of going to far from the earth (245-260)

This example which explains how far the growth of the tree has gone in parallel
with the position of Altazors falling adventure, demonstrates how the night
makes the tree tremble, pointing directly to the sounding elements of this new
language who is about to flower. The last lines of canto IV close and prove the
relation of both elements with the new language, summarizing their melodic
characteristic:
The bird tralalee sings in the branches of my brain
For Ive found the key to the infiniternity
Round as the unimos and the cosverse
Oooheeoo ooheeoohee
Tralalee tralala
Aheeah ahee ahee aaheeah ee ee
The language is disintegrated as the branches grow and sing through the
tralalee bird-language of Altazor. Huidobro makes clear that both elements
represent the musical qualities of the language, and shows, through the use of
his diction and the development of the story-line, that those components are
representative of a delicate and admirable sensation for him. The author finally
creates a new musically audible language.
Another important element when revising Huidobros diction is the
peculiar reference of women under the monologue of Altazors words. The
implication of the inclusion of a female character is not clear, yet a deep analysis
of the authors decision to attribute an entire chapter for such a theme and the
selection of words, that surround such image, would explain more about her
appearance.
The woman character, even though mainly exposed in the second canto,
is first presented by the poet during the preface in the form of a Virgin. The
selection of the terminologies that accompany the Virgins image clearly treats
its appearance in a mystical manner:
Grabbing my parachute, I leap from the edge of my speeding star
into the stratosphere of the last sigh.
I wheel endlessly over the cliffs of dreams, I wheel through clouds
of death.
I meet the Virgin, seated on the rose (...) (34-36)
Over mountains of dreams and clouds of death, the Virgin appears
seated on a rose as a mystical character surrounded by terminologies that
cover her image with a mist. This can also be seen as the Virgin later explains:
Look at my halo. It has a few cracks in it, a proof of my antiquity(38) The word
halo provides magic to the femme, a woman that still appears near to Altazor
in its voice and approach even in the superiority of her mystical and sublime
presence. Love me, my child, for I adore your poetry and I will teach you aerial
prowess (42). The way the Virgin is treated in the example demonstrates that
Huidobros manipulation of such symbolic character is not distant from the
regular literary convention: the way the female saint addresses Altazor,
combined with the petition of love, delivery and education, presents the Virgin as
the voice of experience and maternal love. As a proving point, and before she is
finally taken out of the story of Altazors story, the Virgin supports such
characteristic when pronouncing her final words: My glances are a wire on the
horizon where swallows rest (44). The combination of the words glance and
horizon gives the woman a characteristic of unexplored dimension which is
presented as an element of admiration and respect for the poet. This line
connects the female virginal image with the upcoming appearance of another
female counterpart who seems to function for Altazors travel as the distraction,
or rest of his continuous fall. Already understanding how diction has presented
us the importance of the stellar context in Altazors story, an immediate
connection can be made with the place to rest the Virgin named and the
presence of this unknown female character, who appears during canto II: Your
breath is my atmosphere / The incredible security of your glance with its intimate
constellations / With its own language of seed (78-80). The connection being
done in these lines expose how the woman is being transfigured into a place
similarly constructed like one in a galactic context, a place for the poet to rest
and feel secure; an interval for its adventure towards a new poetry. However,
not only the galactic images are placed apposed the woman figure, so does the
light become recurrently visible when she is being mentioned, as seen in the
analysis and as the lines of the same canto illustrates: Leaving you leave a star
in your place / Your lights fade like a passing ship (5-6). In verses that remark
the purpose of admiration of the female character in poetry, the author seems to
wonder the ways of poetry and language by connecting such lightened galactic
space with the goal of his poetic praise, during the last lines of canto II:
If you died
The stars despite their kindled lamps
Would lose their way
What would the universe become?
By leaving the question without visible answers, the poet proves the importance
of the femme in its poetry and immediately leaves it ahead of the rest of the
poetical components. The female character is being portrayed along with the
elements of major importance for the poem as Altazors major distraction. As we
take into consideration the examples exposed, it is clear that, when it comes to
his Aesthetic Vision, the poetic decisions provided by the author evoke the
image of a woman that symbolizes admiration, respect, and maternal-like
security for the poet.
When analyzing Ezra Pounds collection Ripostes, an equitable use of
abstract and concrete terminologies stands out as one main characteristic. Even
though there is a strong presence of abstraction in poems like In Exitum
Cuiusdam, An Immorality or An Object, the last being totally formed by
words of this type, other poems of the title like Salve Pontifex or Apparuit
include concreteness that balances and regulates such use of diction.
An important feature noticeable in Pounds diction is the authors
recurrent use of nature-related diction that becomes of primary importance for
this work. From such use, the recurrent apparition of plant and sea-related
terms, whether in a slight or total dominion over the poems, can be seen
throughout the collection. Trees and flowers are recurrently presented in poems
like Apparuit, A Girl, Echoes I, Echoes II, An Immorality or A Virginal,
being accompanied with the image of women, sometimes as part of their
composition, yet, in a vast majority as decorative elements of the physical and
poetical context. This, being no surprise, is also how the sea-related terminology
becomes exposed in Pounds writing. In Portrait of a Femme, the sea-related
terminology is basically being employed and exposed as being part of the
context in which the poem is formed, as it is mentioned: for all this sea-hord of
dedicious things (25). It becomes essential, then, to understand that Pounds
use of sea-terminology does not only offer the sea as a landscape, but also as a
central point for the movement of the poem, as in The Needle, where the
oceanic diction is being exposed surrounding the speaker, and as moving him
without giving him any kind of control. Sub-mare is a perfect example for this, for
the work mixes both plant and sea-related terminologies and it gives us an
insight into Pounds view: these elements are hovering (2) around the speaker
and are familiar of the god (9), representing poetical spaces and decorations
that surround the speaker. Pounds appreciation of these elements is clearly

exposed after seeing them in such repetitive appearance. The author exposes
such elements in equivalent manner, presenting them as part of the poems
main context: plant-related terms are usually connected with the sublime
presence of a femme character, and sea-related terminologies are essential for
the creation of poetical spaces that move and provoke the speaker. In this
sense, both elements represent naturally perfect spaces for contemplation and
initiation of the poetical act.
Even though there are some poems that use a simple and straightforward
language, the use of complex archaic terminologies appears as a central
characteristic of Ezra Pounds poetry in Ripostes. From front to back, many of
the poems inside this anthology posses, in some degree, archaisms that range
from the use of old forms of personal pronouns to the use of poetical
expressions of historical antiquity. The nature of these archaic expressions
possesses a historical literary consciousness that works directly to the
reconstruction of the context in which the poems are immersed. Throughout
Ripostes, archaisms can be seen covering, at least with a thin layer, the variety
of themes presented. The apparition of the antique expression well-away (2)
in Silet, for example, prioritizes the exaltation of the feelings being exposed in
the poem, which are of a deep sadness, enhancing the feelings of the speaker,
for such expression conveys a historical register of emphasizing nature. This
basic relation marks a clear path between the poetical theme of the work of art
and the use of such antique diction a basic, yet important relation to highlight
when analyzing the Aesthetic Vision of the author.
The mythological references that do also appear as important elements of
the authors diction, become essential when analyzing the inclusions of such
archaisms, for most of the poems that posses this type of terminologies are
clearly contextualized on mythological or historical registers: The Tomb At Ark
aar, for example, shows the Egyptian culture being melted with the archaic
voice of a speaking soul, as well as Echoes II, Salve Pontifex, and
Pan Is Dead present Greek mythology through the antique composition of its
verses. It becomes visible, so, that for the author the inclusion of archaisms
brings satisfactory results towards the enhancement of his poetical themes:
elements that serve as a valuable poetical tool for the author to arrange and
express his abundant knowledge on mythological accounts a knowledge in
historic elements that appears as a main interest for the author.
The inclusion of both archaisms and mythological references not only
enrich the themes, but give the poems a profound complexity. Often, the
references are presented shortly, most of the times, in names and titles, being
the context not explicitly exposed to the readers, but giving them clues to
formulate such. The intention of Pound seems to be the following: to use these
elements in order to create poetry of complexity, which needs attention and
careful reading. The decision of including such elements combined represents
the intention of the author of exhibiting his profound knowledge on historical

subjects and demonstrate his view on poetry as one of a scholastic nature.
By understanding such interest and annexing it with the use of a diction
full of archaisms and mythological references - which in technical terms is not an
easy task - it becomes clear that the author sees these elements as having
interesting qualities, for they clearly represent under his Aesthetic Vision
versified and communicational tools for sources of poetical and historical
wisdom.
As already mentioned, the inclusion of women as a poetical element in
the authors diction is something that cannot be seen as an artistic caprice, for
more than six poems of the anthology presents the figure of a femme among its
lines, and much of them are constructed with the idea of the woman as a main
element. When revising the poems Apparuit, Portrait Dune Femme, A Girl,
Echoes I, Echoes II, The Needle and A Virginal, where substantial
appearances of women are noticeable, it becomes regular to see the female
characters usually surrounded by, or juxtaposed with, elements of nature: for
Apparuit the light becomes essential since it covers entirely the womans
silhouette; for Portrait Dune Femme and The Needle diction related to sea or
water is constantly presented around the image of the femme; for both parts of
Echoes, women are given dresses of flowers, being roses and their petals the
most frequent elements surrounding them; though, for A Girl and A Virginal,
they seem to be juxtaposed with the image of the tree, where branches and
leaves embrace them.
The relation the author creates among the femme and nature, then, gives
us a clue of the authors vision of a woman: the femme is being exposed as
deeply connected to the earth and its natural elements, appearing as some sort
of Mother Earth in front the eyes of the speakers. Such conclusion, even
though it may sound strange as it is, makes total sense when looking at the
other types of female characters that appear during Salve Pontifex. In the
mythological poem, nymphs, hamadryads and, most importantly, Persephone
are introduced in the verses, being all of them divine spirits who animate
nature (Nymph). The Greek goddess is, in mythology, the personification of
spring, an attribute that gives to the image of women a fecund power that can
be seen in the characteristics of the ladies being evoked in the poems The
Needle and A Virginal, both of erotic nature. The relation established,
understood as a literary decision made by the author, then, presents women
surrounded by natural elements, juxtaposed, as if they had the ability to manifest
natural incidents around them; as beings of fecund attributions that represent
what has to be admired and erotically desired.
4.3. Imagery
Imagery in Altazor is characterized by its ample variety of features. The
first aspect to consider is the predominance of certain types of imagery over
others. Although gustatory, auditory and tactile imagery do appear at times in
the astral epic, the visual and the kinetic type are the ones that rise as the
nucleus around which the rest of the senses get excited. In the case of visual
imagery, Huidobros special quality of mixing concrete and abstract
terminologies renders the reader a peculiar exaltation of the visual sense; the
exceptional combination used from the preface to the sixth of the cantos
produces, with the concrete words, the evocation of elaborated and detailed
images, whereas the inclusion of the abstract terms adds the touch of
incomprehension, diffuseness, and chaos, which is emphasized with the
incoherent relation among the images provoked, as it is shown in canto V: The
hills throw birds in our faces / dawn rises with the hope of aeroplanes / Under
the vault that has filtered the light for so many centuries (211-213). In this
sense, Huidobros use of visual imagery in Altazor serves as a crucial technique
to produce and transmit the special sensation of entropic pleasure of the Poetic
State and, therefore, as an essential component of his Aesthetic Vision.
Actually, the fact that almost every verse in Altazor generates this kind of
exaltation of the visual sense proves the idea that to evoke this sort of visual
stimuli was a main concern for the Chilean author.
Similar importance is given to the presence of kinetic imagery by the
author. Even if the use of this type of imagery is not as frequent as the visual,
the idea of movement arises as fundamental in the understanding of the work.
Altazors inexorable falling is indeed a vital idea of the book, for it represents the
characters epic journey to the creation of the new language. The motion of the
poem is presented directly with verses such as Fall / Perpetually fall (33) in
canto I, but also indirectly: like in the first line of the forth canto Theres no time
to loose where, even if the phrase does not evoke any specific movement, it
produces the sensation of velocity and rushing. The second canto, which
embodies the heros deviation from his fate, shows the importance of this type of
imagery in Altazor, for the plot-lapse is supported by the motion-pause; the
change pace in that canto evokes slow movement or absence of it.
Another important element in this poetic work with respect to the use of
imagery is the formation of visual pictures in mutation. This non-classified
imagery juxtaposes the visual and the kinetic type in one component which is
similar to a video or a motion picture a technique that is clearly depicted in the
analysis of the fifth canto. The importance of this treatment of imagery does not
lie in its constant use (because there is no such) but in the incredible
manipulation of this poetic device which gives the reader the possibility of new
experimentations with respect to the representation of mental pictures.
Finally, the last distinguishing feature of the use of mental images in

Altazor is the combination of different types of imagery in one complex unity that
excites two or more senses. With this technique, Huidobro shows a sharp ability
when it comes to the use of imagery; several senses get stimulated with the
verses, re-creating in the reader the sensation felt by the poet during the Poetic
State. The line from canto II The joy of watching you listen / to that ray of light
that runs to the bottom of the water (129) is a quote that clearly exemplifies this
effect, in which the auditory, the visual and the tactile senses are delighted at
the same time.
Yet, as the poems goes by, all these techniques slowly vanish in its
explicit form; the clarity and concreteness of images become more and more
diffuse, the words that evoke movement are in constant decrease, and the
presence of phrases that arouse sensitive responses dilute in Altazors new
language. In fact, canto VII completely lacks all these poetical attributes.
However, the effects caused by all these elements do not disappear; on the
contrary, they become more alive than ever as is the reader who is responsible
for creating the images. Huidobros decision here is critical for, due to this
technique, the ultimate goal of Altazor is not to create poetry, but make his
creation become the beginning of a new creation which is in charge of the
reader.

Many distinctive features appear stimulating and developing the imagery
in Ezra Pounds Ripostes. Among them, a main characteristic of a vital quality
for the authors poetical empire can be observed when getting close to the
reading: the exaltation of some types of imagery over other senses. Gustatory,
tactile and auditory imagery have a strong presence in Pounds work; however,
the visual and kinetic type reign over the poetical territory, being presented more
frequently and with a major emphasis. Whereas in the first three types the
senses are evoked with an intention of increasing sensations and provoking
specific effects that enrich the poetic experience, in the last two, senses not only
dictate the mental constructions of the poetical environment, they are also
evoked in an indivisible connection with the essence of the poem. Visual and
kinetic imagery, then, are crucial for the understanding of the poems, for if
excluded from the composition the sense of the written pieces could not be
formulated. In the case of visual imagery, the elements that evoke the optic
sense appear in almost every poem of the collection (best examples being
Silet, Apparuit, The Tomb At Ark aar, A Girl, Phaselus Ille or Echoes I)
in a technique whose objective is the presentation of clear visual depictions as it
can be felt in these lines of Apparuit:
Crimson, frosty with dew, the roses bend
where
though afar moving on the glamorous sun
drinkst in life of earth, of the air, the

tissue
golden about thee. (5-8)
Even though there is a recurrent use of the abstract-concrete combination
throughout the pages of Ripostes, the elicited pictures of sharp preciseness
always serve as a helpful tool to clarify the meanings of the poems an idea
that takes even more strength when analyzing the constant evocation of
historical and cultural images. The relevance is similar when it comes to the use
of kinetic imagery since much of the movement presented in the poems is in
direct relation with their significance, exposing a diction that emphasizes mobility
and mechanizes the reading with specific motions. Phasellus Ille, framing the
limits of the poetic circle by moving the reader around its edges; The Needle,
making the sea tremble; The Return, portraying the uncertain come back of the
ancient gods; and Sub Mare, presenting its slow movement as the speaker is
being under it, are the most evident example of this, but the technique can be
found all through the anthology. In this sense, the generation of clear visual and
kinetic evocations constitutes one of Pounds principal interests when it comes
to the decisions regarding what to include in his pieces, and, therefore, an
underlying aspect of his Aesthetic Vision.
As well as in Altazor, the apparition of mutating images that combine the
visual with the kinetic component emerges as a feature to highlight. Again, the
value of this technique resides in the pulchritude of the treatment of mental
pictures which transports the reader to a more advance level in the creation of
images a technique that is depicted in the analysis of poems such as
Apparuit and Salve Pontifex.
The amalgamation of different types of imagery in one complex unity that
excites two or more senses is also present in the pages of Ripostes as it is
shown in the beginning of Salve Pointifex:
One after one they leave thee,
High Priest of Iacchus,
Intoning thy melodies as winds
intone
The whisperings of leaves on sunlit days. (1-4)
These verses stimulate, at the same time, the kinetic sense in the first line, the
auditory sense in the third one and the visual and auditory in the last one in a
unity of elaborated conformation.
All these aspects previously mentioned synergistically combine towards
Pounds vital purpose in terms of imagery: the conveying of meaning and the
transmutation of the Poetic State through stimulation of the senses that evoke
clear, defined, and precise images a decision that clearly supports the idea
that the utilization of imageries is a fundamental aspect of Pounds Aesthetic
Vision.
Chapter 5: Conclusions
Vicente Huidobros Altazor and Ezra Pounds Ripostes are two
remarkable Works of the Spirit that in their fascinating poetical venture exhibit
two different variants of the written art: on the one hand, an innovating epic
poem with touches of modernity; on the other hand, a collection of poems that in
a harmonic flux mix the ancient with the new. Nevertheless, despite the distinct
nature of both works in terms of its internal organizational structure, the
evidences exposed so far show that substantial similarities can be seen
regarding the Aesthetic Vision they portray. Following the same structure used
during the whole investigation, these similarities will be presented in three
sections: poetical relevance, diction and imagery.
Poetical Relevance
The most important similitude between Altazor and Ripostes that appears
when evaluating the relevance that the two works had in the field of poetry is the
defiant essence of both creations. Being books written and published at the
beginning of the 20th century, both works represent important breaks in the
poetry of their respective contexts. With the incorporation of new forms, free
verse and direct language, Ripostes sets the bases for Imagism and serves as
Pounds transition to his modern period; whereas Altazor, with the creation of
the new language and the rupture from the traditional structures of poetry,
founds Creationism and frees poetry to a world of new possibilities. Along these
lines, the Aesthetic Visions presented in Altazor and Ripostes express not only a
reaction against the orthodox rules of poetry but also the beginning of new forms
and methods, and signify the starting point of the modern period in their
respective contexts. In other words, both works produced a significant impact in
the written art of poetry and strongly influenced generation of writers thereafter.
Diction
With respect to diction, the main difference resides in the contrast
between Altazors innovative language and Ripostes exaltation of archaisms.

Whereas Ezra Pound decides to include a large amount of archaic and
mythological-related terms with the intention of showing his love for the meaning
of words, Vicente Huidobro puts all his efforts in the creation of new vocabulary.
Nevertheless, many points in common between the two works can be found in
the realm of diction.
Both works present a combination of concrete and abstract terminologies
throughout their lines which is of extreme importance to the comprehension of
the poems, for they are in direct relation with the sense of the written pieces.
Although there is a slight dissimilarity in the way the authors balance the
abstract and the concrete, the preponderance that both of them give to this
mixture helps to emphasize the mood of the poems and works towards the
reflection of the Poetic State that generated their writings: in the case of Altazor,
the transmission of such entropic state through the chaos of its lines; in the case
of Ripostes, the transition of the same through its precise description.
The evocation of a recognizable atmosphere within which the poetic

experiences takes places is another similitude between the two creations.
Through the recurrent use of diction of nature-related elements, the two authors
set from beginning to end a similar poetic ambience which not only gives the
works a special and symphonious unity but, most importantly, creates propitious
spaces for the origination of their poetry. In Altazor, the ocean, the sky and the
earth represent regions of freedom to populate with the new language and in
Ripostes the sea, the grasslands and the flowers embody the initial point of the
poetical description.
The figure of the woman is also central in both works; the persistent
apparition of this subject all through the pages of Ripostes and the dedication of
a whole canto in Altazor validate this formulation. In both cases, the figure of the
woman represents sources of admiration for the poets. However, it is worth to
note that the cause of appreciation differs from one to the other; for Huidobro,
the figure of the woman represents admiration and maternal security whereas
for Pound the feminine character portrays sexual attractiveness.
Imagery
The constant elicitation of images is a decision made by the poets with a
dissimilar intention: whereas Images, in Ripostes, are most of the time clear and
precise and give the reader tools to understand the content of the poem,
in Altazor the mental pictures help to create the characteristic ambience of
chaos and incomprehension of the Poetic State. Notwithstanding, the evocation
of imagery is probably the most similar aspect between these two works. The
constant apparition of this type of excitation represents in both cases a central
preoccupation for the poets, being probably the most distinctive feature of the
two works. Along these lines, the techniques used for Pound and Huidobro to
produce such effects show extraordinary resemblances.
In Altazor as well as in Ripostes, there is a utilization of all the types of
imagery that shows the exceptional ability of the two poets regarding the
manipulation of mental images. However, the visual and the kinetic type are
without a doubt the most predominant ones in both works. While gustatory,
auditory and tactile imagery are exhibited with the intention of decorating the
ambience of the poem or increasing certain sensations, visual and kinetic
imagery are presented in an indissoluble union with the essential nature of the
poems. In other words, if the evocation of visual and kinetic imagery had been
taken out of the compositions, the substance of the poems would be lost.
Following this direction, both authors take the formulation of mental
images one step further in order to transmit their poetical experience. Two
techniques are used to produce such effect: the combination of different types of
imageries in one complex unit that stimulates more than one sense; and the
incorporation of mutating images that transforms and gives motion to the
sensorial evocations.
All these techniques previously mentioned not only display the

outstanding poetic powers of Vicente Huidobro and Ezra Pound, but also boost
the readers encounter with poetry to magnificent skies.
Notes
1. This notion is discussed in depth in Chapter 2 of this investigation.
2. All quotes extracted from the collection Teora potica y esttica by
Paul Valry, edited by Valeriano Bozal, have been translated by the authors of
this investigation.
3. All the verses presented during sections 3.1., 4.1.1. and 4.2.3.1.
correspond to Vicente Huidobros Altazor (Weinbergers version). The
numbering of the verses starts over at each Canto.
4. All the verses presented during this section (3.2) correspond to
Ripostes of Ezra Pound.
Works Cited
Aesthetic. Oxford Dictionary of English. 3rd ed. 2010. Print.
Bozal, Valeriano, comp. and ed. Teora potica y esttica de Paul Valry. Ed.
Valeriano Bozal. 2nd ed. Spain: Visor, 1998. Print.
Cavalcanti, Guido, Sonnet XVI. The Sonnets and Ballate of Guido Cavalcanti.
Ed. Ezra Pound. Trans. Ezra Pound. 1st ed. Boston: Small, Maynard and
Company, 1912; N. pag. Sonnets.org. Web. 23 Oct. 2011.
Gill, Richard. Mastering English Literature. 2nd ed. Hampshire: Palgrave, 1995.
Print.
Gwynn, R.S. Introduction. Poetry: A Pocket Anthology. 6th ed. New York:
Pearson Longman, 2009. 1-44. Print.
Hann, scar. Del Gnesis al Apocalipsis. El Pasajero de su Destino. By
Vicente Huidobro. Ed. and comp. scar Hann. Sevilla: Sibila, 2008. 5-16.
Print.
Huidobro, Vicente. Altazor: or a Voyage in a Parachute. Trans. Eliot
Weinberger. Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press, 2003. Print.
Meyer, Michael. The Bedford Introduction to Literature: Reading, Thinking and
Writing. Bedford: St. Martin, 2005; N. pag. Bsc.bedfordstmartins.com.
Web. 2 Nov. 2011.
Moody, Anthony David. Ezra Pound: The Young Genius. 1st ed. New York:
Oxford University Press, 2007.
Nymph. Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 15 Oct. 2011. Web. 3 Nov. 2011.

Ovid. Metamorphoses. Trans. Brookes More. Boston: Cornhill Publishing, 1922;
N. pag. Theoi.com. Web. 10 Oct. 2011.
Pound, Ezra. Ripostes. London: Stephen Swift and Co., 1913. Print.
Rossetti, Dante Gabriel. The Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Ed. William
Michael Rossetti. 1st ed. Michigan. University of Michigan, 1911. Print.
Ruthven, K.K. A Guide to Ezra Pounds Person. 1st ed. Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1969. Print.
Valry, Paul. Poetry and Abstract Thought. Towards the Open Field: Poets on
the Art of Poetry. Ed. Melissa Kwasny. Trans. Denise Folliet.
Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press, 2004. 209-230. Print.
---. Introduccin al conocimiento de la diosa. Bozal 11-24.
---. Discurso sobre la esttica. Bozal 43-69.
---. La invencin esttica. Bozal 203-207.
---. Primera leccin del curso de Potica. Bozal 105-129.
Weinberger, Eliot. Introduction. Altazor: or a Voyage in a Parachute. By Vicente
Huidobro. Trans. Eliot Weinberger. Connecticut: Wesleyan University
Press, 2003. vii-xiii. Print.
Yeats, William Butler. The Wind Among the Reeds. 1st ed. New York: J. Lane,
The Bodley Head, 1899. Print.
Works Consulted
Buchholz, Elke L., et al. Art: A World History. 1st ed. New York: Abrams, 2007.
Print.
Debussy, Claude. Images. Perf. Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli. RAI Studios,
1962. CD.
Garca-Huidobro, Cecilia, comp. and ed. Vicente Huidobro a La Intemperie:
Entrevistas (1915-1946). 1st ed. Chile: Editorial Sudamericana Chilena,
2000.
Kolln, Martha and Robert Funk. Understanding English Grammar. 8th ed. New
York: Longman, 2009.
Nmez, Nan, comp. and ed. Poesa Chilena Contempornea: Breve Antologa
Crtica. 2nd ed. Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Econmica, 1998.
This notion is discussed in depth in Chapter 2 of this investigation.

All quotes extracted from the collection Teora potica y esttica by Paul Valry, edited by Valeriano
Bozal, have been translated by the authors of this investigation.
3
All the verses presented during sections 3.1., 4.1.1. and 4.2.3.1. correspond to Vicente Huidobros
Altazor (Weinbergers version). The numbering of the verses starts over at each Canto.
4
All the verses presented during this section (3.2) correspond to Ripostes of Ezra Pound.
2

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UNIVERSIDAD DE SANTIAGO DE CHILE

AESTHETIC VISIONS OF VICENTE HUIDOBROS ALTAZOR AND

A Comparative Analysis Based on Paul Valrys Aesthetic-Poetic View

MIGUEL NGEL HORMAZBAL CEPEDA

Tesis para optar al grado acadmico

Miguel ngel Hormazbal Cepeda y Oscar Andrs Salgado Flores

UNIVERSIDAD DE SANTIAGO DE CHILE

AESTHETIC VISIONS OF VICENTE HUIDOBROS ALTAZOR AND

A Comparative Analysis Based on Paul Valrys Aesthetic-Poetic View

MIGUEL NGEL HORMAZBAL CEPEDA

Tesis para optar al grado acadmico

HOJAS DE CALIFICACION (ANEXAR)

Hormazabal and Salgado

Hormazabal and Salgado ii

Chapter 2: Theoretical Framework

2.1.1. General Difficulties in Defining the Idea of Aesthetics

2.1.2. Valrys Aesthetics Notions

2.1.2.1. The Idea of Beauty

2.1.2.2. The Idea of Pleasure

2.1.3. Valrys Poetic Notions

2.1.3.1. Valrys idea of Poetry

2.1.3.2. Practical Language and Poetic Language

2.1.3.3. Form and Content

2.1.3.4. The Poetic Elements

2.1.3.4.1. The Poetic State

2.1.3.4.2. The Poet

2.1.3.4.3. The Poem

2.1.3.4.4. The Poetic Process

2.1.4. Aesthetic Vision of the Poet

2.2. Diction and Imagery

3.1. Vicente Huidobros Altazor

Hormazabal and Salgado iii

3.1.3.1. Diction and Imagery

3.2.3.1. Diction and Imagery

3.2.4. The Tomb At Akr aar

3.2.4.1. Diction and Imagery

3.2.5. Portrait Dune Femme

3.2.5.1. Diction and Imagery

Hormazabal and Salgado iv

3.2.10.1. Diction and Imagery

3.2.21.1. Diction and Imagery

3.2.22. Of Jacopo Del Sellaio

3.2.22.1. Diction and Imagery

3.2.23. The Return

Hormazabal and Salgado

3.2.24.2.1. Diction and Imagery

Chapter 4: Contrastive Analysis

4.1.2. Ezra Pounds Ripostes

4.2.1. Vicente Huidobros Altazor

4.2.2. Ezra Pounds Ripostes

4.3.1. Vicente Huidobros Altazor

4.3.2. Ezra Pounds Ripostes

4.1.1. Vicente Huidobros Altazor

Hormazabal and Salgado vi

Hormazabal and Salgado

Hormazabal and Salgado

Hormazabal and Salgado

Hormazabal and Salgado

Hormazabal and Salgado

To describe the parallels drawn between the poets selected works in

Hormazabal and Salgado

Chapter 2: Theoretical Framework

Hormazabal and Salgado

Hormazabal and Salgado

Aesthetic Visions of Vicente Huidobro's Altazor & Ezra Pound's Ripostes

Aesthetic Visions of Vicente Huidobro's Altazor & Ezra Pound's Ripostes