In the following essay, Coffman examines aesthetic theories developed by T. E. Hulme.

SOURCE: "T. E. Hulme as Imagist," in Imagismi A Chapter for the History of Modern Poetry, University of Oklahoma Press, 1951, pp. 47-73.

Hulme has been called the first Imagist poet and the movement's theorist. The Imagists themselves were the first so to describe him. Pound started it in Ripostes and (obliquely) in Des Imagistes and the Catholic Anthology by associating Imagism with the discussion of the image carried on in Hulme's 1909 club. Flint, in his "History of Imagism," not only confirmed the rather vague assertions of Pound, but went on to deny Imagism any originality other than the originality of Hulme, and most literary histories have accepted his word.

The argument is not completely convincing. Pound was never specific in acknowledging his debt to Hulme; Flint's "History" was not impartial or disinterested—he was annoyed...