Anglo-French Poetic Exchanges in the Little Magazines, 1908–1914

• Published in: Modernist cultures Vol. 16; no. 3; p. 340
• Main Author: Sze Wah Sarah Lee
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Edinburgh Edinburgh University Press 01.08.2021
• Subjects: 20th century; Anglophones; Archival research; Ethnolinguistic groups; Francophones; Poetry; Poets; Pound, Ezra (1885-1972); World War I; France; Paris France
• DOI: 10.3366/mod.2021.0338
• ISSN: 2041-1022

This article demonstrates the extent and significance of exchange between English and French poets in the years leading up to World War I, a crucial period for the development of modern Anglophone poetry. Through archival research, I trace the growing interest in French poetry of Imagist poets F. S. Flint, Ezra Pound and Richard Aldington, exhibited in various little magazines including the New Age , Poetry Review , Poetry and Drama , Poetry , the New Freewoman and the Egoist . Moreover, I show that such interest was reciprocated by contemporary French poets, notably Henri-Martin Barzun and Guillaume Apollinaire, who published works by English poets in their respective little magazines Poème et Drame and Les Soirées de Paris . This suggests that not only were modern English poets influenced by their French counterparts, but they were also given a voice in the Francophone artistic world, resulting in a unique moment of cross-channel poetic exchange before the war.