Elizabeth Bishop’s imagery is “precise” and “hard,” as directed in the manifestoes of Imagism supported by Ezra Pound in the 1910s. However, her imagery does not merely serve the objective presentation of the thing, but overcomes the limitation of the static thingness of the pure Imagist poetry, by seeking the knowledge of it. This knowledge in Bishop’s poetry is pursued for its way, not for its contents. In this pursuit Bishop tries to observe the thing as closely as possible while admitting the ultimate knowledge of the thing is not intended to be seen. Bishop can be a postmodern poet in that she denies herself the final knowledge of the thing. But it is Bishop as well that seeks the knowledge, although by means of ceaseless observation without definite conclusion. From this paradoxical stance her imagery neither depends on its inactive thingness nor reduces to a heap of fragments without a unifying force. Her imagery reveals a certain pleasure which is aroused when she successfuly avoids falling into the inertia of the thing even without its knowledge. Her poetry keeps the thing alive by sustaining the reader’s curiosity about it and pays homage to the thing by negating its ultimate definition. This attitude shows the pursuit of knowledge and the control over its attainment at the same time. Bishop is faithful to modernistic beliefs in that she tries to understand the thing by close and continuous observation of it. On the other hand, although not a proponet of postmodernist movement, she overcomes the self-centered attitude typical of many modernistic poets by negating the final accomplishment of knowledge.
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