No Ideas But In Things

To William Carlos Williams' argument for the primacy of sensuous contact with the world is added the voice of American poet/critic John Crowe Ransom in his 1938 book, "The World's Body:"

"… the image is the raw material of idea. It cannot be dispossessed of a primordial freshness which idea can never claim. An idea is derivative and tamed. The image is in the natural or wild state, and it has to be discovered there, not put there, obeying its own law and none of ours. We think we can lay hold of the image and take it captive, but the docile captive is not the real image but only the idea, which is the image with its character beaten out of it."

 Frank Hobbs, Pears, oil on canvas mounted on panel, 9" x 12," circa 1997