3 Review(s)

T.E. Hulme was one of the leading lights of the imagist movement in British verse, and counted among his friends and literary companions Wyndham Lewis, Ezra Pound, Walter Sickert and Rupert Brooke. At the outbreak of war he joined the British Army and was killed in 1917 at the age of 34. Hulme was unusual in that he never become disillusioned with war, remaining convinced of the morality of the conflict he was engaged in. Since his death he has only been remembered, if at all, as an early precursor of English fascism. In this text the author sets out to show how much more complicated, more persuasive and more appealing he was than that. As well as his interest in Hulme as a character and as a political agent, he also explores how this robust and energetic man came to write what Eliot called "some of the finest short poems in the English language".