Hulme, Thomas Ernest (1883–1917)

T. E. Hulme was an influential early 20th-century English poet and thinker. Credited by T. S. Eliot in 1924 as the "forerunner of a new attitude of mind," Hulme is understood to have played a formative part in the development of the Imagist doctrine. He was an early advocate of the philosophy of Henri Bergson (1859–1941), a spokesperson for modern abstract art, and was responsible for introducing into the British intellectual scene the ideas of Gustave Kahn (1859–1936), Pierre Lasserre (1867–1930), Wilhelm Worringer (1881–1965), and Georges Sorel (1847–1922), among others. Hulme was very critical of liberal humanism and described himself as a "Tory by disposition." When World War I broke out in 1914, Hulme firmly supported Britain’s decision to declare war against Germany.