Imagist poetry, when compared to such classic poetry as Shakespearean , seems like unimaginative prose. One is even tempted to ask if imagism is even qualified as poetry. Imagism lacks many of the characteristics that make traditional poetry unique. "The Red Wheel Barrow," by William Carlos Williams, can be argued to have a meter, but it does not have other poetic qualities, "so much depends/ upon/ a red wheel/ barrow (1-4)." It lacks a rhyme scheme and a reasonably poetic line structure; every couplet consists of a line with three words followed by a line with one. Rather than using a metaphor, the poem, like all imagism, tries to paint a concrete picture in the reader's head by using exact wording to describe what it directly means. Concrete and direct description is always desirable in such prose as an essay, but metaphors are seen as much more dignified in poetry. Also, whether or not Shakespeare's "Sonnet 73" truly has a meter (emphasis on different syllables), "Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,/ Bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang, (3-4)" more obvious than that of a "The Red Wheel Barrow," it seems to have a rhythmic quality that makes it roll off of the tongue more easily.
Imagism is the far more modern genre of poetry than Shakespearean, and how it compares to Shakespearean poetry parallels how modern painting compares to classic painting. Many argue over whether or not Jackson Pollock's paintings are even art; they depict dots, while Michelangelo's paintings on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel depict Bible stories with much detail. Like imagist poems, it seems that Pollock is trying to express the basics of his art with as little work as possible. One of poetry's main purposes is to create an image in the reader's head, which is all that imagist poems strive to do. The characteristics that make a good painting are indeed expressed in Pollock's paintings; the placing of every dot and speck shows use of perspective. This trend toward more scientific (single-purposed) art work over time from flowery art work that does more than just show the characteristics of its trade shows how our society has progressed. Technology and science are now much more important than they used to be.
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I'm not sure if science has as much to do with the change in art as you claim. Science has undergone its own shift recently from qualitative assessment (i.e. reaction of object to stimulus) to quantitative assessment (i.e. numbers, statistics, numerical comparisons). More recent art is certainly abstract, but it is certainly not more quantitative, if anything it is less easy to analyze objectively. Older poems and paintings can be critiqued based on how effectively they are able to set a scene or create a mental picture. Newer artwork attempts to bypass some of the traditional mental filters such as the eyes or literary conventions and interact with us on a more direct level. I don't know if this is more effective, but it is certainly no more scientific.
One of my first blog was basically the polar opposite of this. I stated that Shakespearean sonnets lacked in variety with regards to structure. I proposed that poetry is meant to be free and express that which the author feels in whatever structure necessary. However, you made a great argument for the opposite. Maybe poetry should be semi-uniform so that a poem stands out not for the way it looks on a page but for the content of its stanzas. Personally, I prefer free form but I definitely can see the beauty in a more structured form. I really like the comparison you used with art and poetry. I thought Pollock was an excellent example.
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