Intertextuality:

Intertextuality is the shaping of a text’s meaning by another text. Intertextual figures

include: allusion, quotation, calque, plagiarism, translation, pastiche and parody. It is
a literary device that creates an ‘interrelationship between texts’ and generates related
understanding in separate works. The references to other works are made to influence
that reader and add layers of depth to a text, based on the readers’ prior knowledge
and understanding.

Imagism:
Imagism was a literary movement of the early 20th century. The proponents were
interested in the use of precise imagery and clear language. The basic principles of the
movement were developed by T.E. Hulme, an English philosopher, and poet. He was
interested, for years before the movement was recognized, in poetic language that was
completely accurate in its depiction of a subject. He rejected the use of flowery and
extraneous lines or details. It was not until 1912 that the man who is considered the
founder of the movement, Ezra Pound, took Hulme’s ideas and merged them with his
own.

Aside from using language that was more to the point, imagists rejected the
sentimental themes and traditional styles of Romantic and Georgian poets. Instead,
they made use of free verse. In March of 1913, after the beginning of the movement,
Ezra Pound defined the boundaries and rules of imagism in A Few Don’ts by an
Imagiste. They were as follows:
1. Direct treatment of the “thing,” whether subjective or objective.
2. To use absolutely no word that does not contribute to the presentation.
3. As regarding rhythm: to compose in sequence of the musical phrase,
not in sequence of the metronome.

Avant-Garde:

The avant-garde is by definition art that is ahead of its time and is shocking,

disturbing, and, therefore, viewed as socially and aesthetically objectionable. The
specific aim of the avant-garde is to undermine the existing order and to replace it by
another. It attempts to do this by contradiction, challenge, confrontation, and self-
assertion.

The avant-garde is predominantly a modernist term for a movement in art, culture,

and politics that cuts at the vanguard of ideas both in terms of their mode of
expression5 and the social impact that they have for everyday living. As a term, it
does however have roots in the Renaissance for signalling an advanced position in the
arts, and further gains its political purchase in the time of the French Revolution. As
commonly understood today, it indicates a movement that challenges and goes
beyond existing frameworks for considering the relations between art, culture, and
politics.
In literature, the term avant-garde refers to poetry or prose that pushes the boundaries
and is experimental. Avant-garde literature rejects the standard practices of other
writers and instead looks for what’s new and exciting. Innovation is at the heart of
avant-garde work. Sometimes, avant-garde writing is radical, hard to comprehend,
and more often than not, rejected by contemporary readers. Sometimes it takes
decades for writers who engaged with avant-garde themes to be recognized for their
contributions. In other instances, avant-garde literature becomes mainstream and
incredibly popular. 

Ezra Pound

“In a Station of the Metro”

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;

Petals on a wet, black bough.

“In a Station of the Metro” is a poem by Ezra Pound, originally published in 1913. It
is considered by some to be the most famous imagist poem ever written. The poem is
only two lines and fourteen words long but every word is quite powerful. In just 20
words (including the title!), this poem manages to vividly evoke both a crowded
subway station and petals on a tree branch. By juxtaposing these two very different
images, the poem blurs the line between the speaker's reality and imagination and
invites the reader to relate urban life to the natural world—and to perhaps consider
each of these realms in a new light.
One of the most striking elements of In the Station of a Metro is that it is written
entirely without verbs. The poem is instead formed by combining two sentence
fragments, each with a subject, but without an action, for that subject to perform.
Needless to say, it can be very difficult to write without using action words, but this
style does achieve one thing especially well: it captures a moment in time. In a
sentence without action, nothing happens — in imagist poetry especially, this is a
strength. In the case of this poem, it reads as an observation, as though the author has
taken two photographs and paired them side by side.
The poem's brief form allows it to combine both forms of perception (one happening
before the speaker’s eyes, and one happening in their mind), creating a new, blended
reality from the speaker's point of view. Overall, then, the poem might be thought of
as an attempt to capture the connection between sight and imagination—revealing
how these two processes together shape people's perception of the world around them.
Pound strips the poem of all superfluous language. Including the title, the poem uses
just 20 words—meaning there is nothing to focus on besides the pair of images and
how they relate to each other. The poem’s structure thus allows for a clear association
between the what the speaker sees (“faces in the crowd”) and what the
speaker imagines in response (“petals on a wet, black bough”).