2 research outputs found
Re-examination of the work of T. E. Hulme
This project challenges a series of common interpretations of Hulme's work: that his
arguments are contradictory; that his career can be separated into distinct âphasesâ; that he
endorsed other thinkers' ideas uncritically; and that he promulgated authoritarian politics.
Chapter 1 examines the entries in Hulme's notebooks that relate his views on the nature of
reality and language. Read through ideas in the works of Bergson, Nietzsche and Ribot, these
rudimentary notes present a coherent âanti-intellectualistâ philosophical position, consistent
with claims made in his later writings. Chapter 2 focuses on âA Lecture on Modern Poetry.â
Hulme's rejection of nineteenth-century verse was part of a broader campaign by poets in
London to find new ways of expression, yet his ideas stand independently of claims made by
Flint, Storer and Pound. Hulme's greatest contribution to Imagism is the emphasis he put on
the use of images in poetry, a method that follows from the distinction he drew in the
notebooks between âdirectâ and âindirectâ language. Chapter 3, which examines Hulme's
essays and lectures on Bergson, demonstrates that, although he embraced Bergson's
philosophical method, Hulme remained critical of many of Bergson's theories. This discredits
the claim that he was simply reiterating Bergson's ideas. Ultimately, Bergson's âintuitionâ
enabled Hulme to develop his earlier description of âmodernâ poetry and to recast it as
âclassicâ poetry. Chapter 4 investigates Hulme's political essays. Together with Storer,
Hulme participated in a debate in the Commentator concerning the parliamentary crisis of
1910. It was as part of an attempt to create an efficient propaganda strategy for the
Conservative party that Hulme postulated his famous antithesis between Romanticism and
Classicism. Hulme's analysis of the process of political conversion shows that in 1910-12 he
had not abandoned elements in his thought from Bergson's philosophy. Moreover, far from sharing the authoritarian political views of the Action Française, he can be more accurately
described as a âmoderate Conservative.â Chapter 5 demonstrates that claims Hulme made in
his art criticism are consonant with the general reaction in 1913-14 against representational
art. While drawing heavily on Worringer's anti-materialist conception of art history, he was
using it to defend his contemporaries' experimentation with geometric forms, in a way
similar to Fry and Bell. Although, like Worringer and Ludovici, Hulme campaigned for antihumanism
and mixed aesthetics with politics, the model of art he proposed did not carry the
authoritarian implications of those of Worringer and Ludovici. Finally, Chapter 6 explores
Hulme's war writings. Hulme was not a militarist; rather, he supported Britain's involvement
in the war on the grounds that war against Germany would protect the British political
institutions. He stayed true to his Conservative principles, using ideas from Sorel and
Proudhon to dissociate the âdemocraticâ from the âpacifistâ ideology. There is also evidence
that, despite his explicit rejection of vitalism in âA Notebook,â Hulme continued to value
Bergson's method of âintuitionâ right up to his death in 1917. This project, therefore, argues
for a re-interpretation of Hulme's work and shows the value of scrutinising the intellectual
and political context in which he was writing in understanding the precise nature of his
thought