What is the distinction between Imagism and Symbolism as poetic movements?

Question

I have recently been reading about symbolism and imagism and they seem to me to be connected in that they were in some ways the opposite of each other, one being the movement to add greater symbolic meaning to poetry and the other being a movement to add greater precision in imagery, which is not necessarily non-symbolic. I see ways in which they are both the same and different, but I may be interpreting these wrong. So, what is the distinction between Imagism and Symbolism? How are they related?

Answer 1

Perhaps if you look at it this way, you can better understand it: symbolism can be viewed a subset of imagism. Any symbol has meaning (a commonly shared one) separate from itself, e.g. math symbols and even religious symbols, but imagism is a way to create pictures in the mind. Metaphors and similes fall into the "image" category. Drawing on the five senses is the best way to create images in the reader's mind with sight and sound being the easiest and most used, but smell, taste, and touch being the best because of the personal emotional connection--if done well, that is.