In the following essay, Naremore discusses the influence of contemporary French poetry on the poetics of Imagism, emphasizing particularly the role of the English critic F. S. Flint in informing English writers of recent developments in French literature.

SOURCE: "The Imagists and the French 'Generation of 1900'," in Contemporary Literature, Vol. 11, No. 3, Summer, 1970, pp. 354-74.

In the August 1912 issue of The Poetry Review, F. S. Flint wrote a lengthy essay entitled "Contemporary French Poetry." The essay—monograph might be a better term for it, since it occupies virtually the entire issue—is an encyclopedic review of modern French poetry, with copious quotations and an account of the rapid proliferation of new French "schools," including Neo-Mallarmisme, the Abbey Group, Unanimisme, Futurisme, L'Impulsion-isme, Les Paroxystes, Les Fantasistes, etc. Scattered among the writings of the Imagist poets, and in the histories of the Imagist movement as well, one can find testimony...