DOCSLIB.ORG

The Impersonal Modes of Ezra Pound and Wallace Stevens

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The Impersonal Modes of Ezra Pound and Wallace Stevens Durham E-Theses The Impersonal Modes of Ezra Pound and Wallace Stevens BAKER, JACK How to cite: BAKER, JACK (2014) The Impersonal Modes of Ezra Pound and Wallace Stevens, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/10773/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk The Impersonal Modes of Ezra Pound and Wallace Stevens Jack Baker Submitted for a Phd Department of English Literature Durham University February 2014 Statement of Copyright The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published without the author’s prior written consent and information derived from it should be acknowledged. The Impersonal Modes of Ezra Pound and Wallace Stevens Abstract This thesis examines the impersonal modes refined by Ezra Pound and Wallace Stevens. It argues that these major poets, commonly placed at opposite ends of the spectrum of modernism, share important formal and thematic preoccupations. Each evolves an impersonal sensibility designed to free the poet from the limitations of his merely private associations and social circumstances, and to licence extraordinary ambitions: Pound’s paradiso terrestre and Stevens’ supreme fiction constitute unifying artistic responses to a shaken, fragmenting and sceptical culture. Supreme fictions are not in vogue, and both poets have been chastised for the didacticism, elitism, or even pretension latent in their poetic theories: it is argued that their reach exceeds their grasp. But this thesis is not a critique of theory; it is a study of praxis. It explores the techniques of both poets’ greatest poems, and proposes the impersonal mode as one reason for their uncanny power. Chapter I explores poetic impersonality under three headings: “Inheritance”; “Sensibility”; and “Technique”. Chapter II contrasts the irregular progression of Pound’s early verse with the eerie precision of Stevens’ Harmonium. Chapter III traces the expansion of Pound’s impersonal voice through A Draft of XXX Cantos, and argues that “The Man with the Blue Guitar” is of crucial importance to the development of Stevens’ later style. Chapter IV argues that, in the plangent and elemental forms of Cantos XLVII and XLIX, and in the rôle of the “possible poet” explored in “Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction”, Pound and Stevens come closest to fulfilling their early desires for a transcendent and autonomous rhetoric. Chapter V finds each poet plunged into crisis, toppling the fleeting consolations of Canto XLVII and “Notes”, and requiring new, more urgent and more expansive poetic modes. Pound’s Pisan Cantos, in their search for an idiom newly resistant to severe external pressures, are comparable to “The Auroras of Autumn” and “An Ordinary Evening in New Haven”, which reveal Stevens’ own bout of intense creative uncertainty. Chapter VI shows how the enduringly impersonal techniques of Pound’s and Stevens’ final poems – which preserve, on their surface, a grammatical and lexical detachment – increasingly come to register deeper emotions. The effect of subduing personal experience to an impersonal aesthetic is to enhance the poignancy of the very emotions and frailties that are all but veiled. Contents Acknowledgements i Texts and Abbreviations ii Preface 1 Chapter 1: The Impersonal Mode - As Inheritance 3 - As Sensibility 15 - As Technique 23 Chapter 2: Beginnings Pound: From Personae to Hugh Selwyn Mauberley 41 Stevens: Harmonium 75 Chapter 3: Finding a Form Pound: A Draft of XXX Cantos 103 Stevens: Poetry and Painting, “The Man with the Blue Guitar” 125 Chapter 4: The Vision Achieved Pound: XI New Cantos and The Fifth Decad of Cantos 148 Stevens: Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction 160 Chapter 5: Pressures and Accommodations Pound: The Pisan Cantos 184 Stevens: “The Auroras of Autumn”, “An Ordinary Evening in New Haven” 213 Chapter 6: Reckonings Pound: Rock-Drill, Thrones, Drafts & Fragments 231 Stevens: The Rock and the Late Poems 250 Conclusion 266 Bibliography 269 I Acknowledgements Gareth Reeves supervised this thesis with care, patience and good-humour. His expertise and sagacity were invaluable. Mary de Rachewiltz read an early paper of mine on the Pisan Cantos, and offered generous comments and encouragement. Annabel Haynes, John Clegg and Serena Gosden-Hood – fellow students of English – made the work less daunting and solitary. Their conversation has refined my approach to poetry, and their friendship has been a delight. Mike Johnson offered numerous insights into American cultural history. William Southwell-Wright gave candid advice on the more prosaic aspects of academe. And Nick Wellesley Hoggard’s Falstaffian wit, appetites and intuitions have been a continual source of comfort and inspiration. The expertise, generously shared, of Jonathan Clinch in twentieth-century classical music and of Laura Dearlove in the philosophy of aesthetics broadened my understanding of the modernist movement and helped me to avoid some of the more reductive and doctrinaire assumptions of modern literary theory. Mihaela Ionescu explained Chinese ideograms, and leavened the final stages of the thesis with timely donations of homemade cake and Italian smoked cheese. The thesis is dedicated to my parents, Helen and Steve, without whose love and support it would not have been possible. II A Note on Texts Except where otherwise noted, I use the following texts for Pound’s and Stevens’ poetry: Pound, Ezra. The Cantos of Ezra Pound. New York: New Directions, [1996]. ---. Poems and Translations. Ed. Richard Sieburth. New York: Lib. of Amer., 2003. Stevens, Wallace. Collected Poetry and Prose. Ed. Frank Kermode and Joan Richardson. New York: Lib. of Amer., 1997. Parenthetical references are used for works by Pound and Stevens. Secondary sources are footnoted. References to Pound’s Cantos are given as canto number/page number, e.g. (XVII/77). Italics distinguish Stevens’ volumes – The Man with the Blue Guitar – from the title poems: “The Man with the Blue Guitar”. Abbreviations Pound: ABC ABC of Reading. London: Faber, 1968. GK Guide to Kulchur. London: Peter Owen, 1952. L The Letters of Ezra Pound: 1907-1941. Ed. D. D. Paige. London: Faber, 1982. LE Literary Essays of Ezra Pound. Ed. T. S. Eliot. London: Faber, 1954. PT Poems and Translations. Ed. Richard Sieburth. New York: Lib. of Amer., 2003. SP Selected Prose 1909-1965. Notes and introd. William Cookson. London: Faber, 1978. SR The Spirit of Romance. Introd. Richard Sieburth. New York: New Directions, 2005. Stevens: CPP Collected Poetry and Prose. New York: Lib. of Amer., 1997. L Letters of Wallace Stevens. Ed. Holly Stevens. Berkeley: U of California P, 1996. OP Opus Posthumous. New York: Knopf, 1957. 1 Preface Pound and Stevens have long been estranged in reputation, their first major critics having offered accounts of each poet that are difficult to reconcile. Hugh Kenner’s Pound is the quintessential modernist, radical, restless and experimental; Harold Bloom’s Stevens is a direct inheritor of Romanticism, pursuing a belated version of the sublime. These designations were cemented by Marjorie Perloff’s influential essay “Pound/Stevens: Whose Era?” (1982). In Perloff’s reading, Pound is in tune with the energies of language and the challenges of modernity, whereas Stevens is an etiolated philosopher, whose abstract speculations lack consequence and vitality. This is, of course, a partisan view. But the assumptions underlying Perloff’s partiality – that Stevens’ poetry of ideas is wholly at odds with Pound’s tactile, experimental verse – still enjoy critical currency. Pound’s political aberrancies have received ample scrutiny, but discussions of his verse technique are still dominated by loyal exegetes, who are skilled in pattern-seeking and reference-hunting, but who habitually decline to place his poetry under genuine evaluative pressure. Meanwhile, critics of Stevens too often preoccupy themselves with matters of theory and epistemology, reading him as a philosopher-poet, whose technical achievements are of only incidental significance to the ideas explored in his work. I hope to challenge these reductive expositions by focusing on the techniques common to the impersonal modes that each poet evolved. Both adopt personae; find meaning in borrowed attitudes and voices; toy with perspective and narrative structure; and substitute the linear accumulation of sense in a poem for irregular leaps and vivid juxtapositions. And both subvert the expectations of the lyric “I”, deploying discontinuous arguments and perceptions even when the grammar and syntax imply a single, unified speaker. In Pound’s and Stevens’ finest poems, where these techniques are most strongly felt, effects are achieved which challenge conventional attitudes to the two poets. The lyric sections of The Cantos outstrip mere bricolage, achieving a conceptual subtlety vital to Pound’s paradisal vision. And Stevens’ mature verse deliberately deals with truths beyond philosophical inquiry, as the quiddities of poetic expression become the only possible response to an elusive and irreducible reality. The dominant theory of impersonal poetry is T.S. Eliot’s. His principles, become canonical, have been adopted as the yardstick with which to measure other poets – even poets radically unlike him. I do not wish to challenge Eliot’s place in the modernist matrix by subordinating his theories to those advanced by Pound and Stevens.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Ezra Pound His Metric and Poetry Books by Ezra Pound
    EZRA POUND HIS METRIC AND POETRY BOOKS BY EZRA POUND PROVENÇA, being poems selected from Personae, Exultations, and Canzoniere. (Small, Maynard, Boston, 1910) THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE: An attempt to define somewhat the charm of the pre-renaissance literature of Latin-Europe. (Dent, London, 1910; and Dutton, New York) THE SONNETS AND BALLATE OF GUIDO CAVALCANTI. (Small, Maynard, Boston, 1912) RIPOSTES. (Swift, London, 1912; and Mathews, London, 1913) DES IMAGISTES: An anthology of the Imagists, Ezra Pound, Aldington, Amy Lowell, Ford Maddox Hueffer, and others GAUDIER-BRZESKA: A memoir. (John Lane, London and New York, 1916) NOH: A study of the Classical Stage of Japan with Ernest Fenollosa. (Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1917; and Macmillan, London, 1917) LUSTRA with Earlier Poems. (Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1917) PAVANNES AHD DIVISIONS. (Prose. In preparation: Alfred A. Knopf, New York) EZRA POUND HIS METRIC AND POETRY I "All talk on modern poetry, by people who know," wrote Mr. Carl Sandburg in _Poetry_, "ends with dragging in Ezra Pound somewhere. He may be named only to be cursed as wanton and mocker, poseur, trifler and vagrant. Or he may be classed as filling a niche today like that of Keats in a preceding epoch. The point is, he will be mentioned." This is a simple statement of fact. But though Mr. Pound is well known, even having been the victim of interviews for Sunday papers, it does not follow that his work is thoroughly known. There are twenty people who have their opinion of him for every one who has read his writings with any care.
    [Show full text]
  • Galaxy: International Multidisciplinary Research Journal the Criterion: an International Journal in English ISSN: 0976-8165
    About Us: http://www.the-criterion.com/about/ Archive: http://www.the-criterion.com/archive/ Contact Us: http://www.the-criterion.com/contact/ Editorial Board: http://www.the-criterion.com/editorial-board/ Submission: http://www.the-criterion.com/submission/ FAQ: http://www.the-criterion.com/fa/ ISSN 2278-9529 Galaxy: International Multidisciplinary Research Journal www.galaxyimrj.com www.the-criterion.com The Criterion: An International Journal in English ISSN: 0976-8165 The Creative Dominance: Probing the Presence of Black Colour as the Condition for Imaginative Activity in Wallace Stevens’Harmonium Sruthi B Peet Memorial Training College Mavelikara, Kerala The raging ocean that covered everything was engulfed in total darkness, and the power of God was moving over the water. Then God commanded “Let there be light” –and light appeared. God was pleased with what he saw. Then he separated the light from darkness, and he named the day “light” and the darkness “night”. (Genesis 1:1-5) In the biblical account of creation, black preceded the creation of light. Even the big bang theory won’t prove the precedence of darkness wrong. This primordial colour in mythologies is related to fertility.In Black: The History of a Color, Pastoureau mentions that: This originary black is also found in other mythologies, not only in Europe but also in Asia and Africa. It is often fertile and fecund, as the Egyptian black that symbolizes the silt deposited by the waters of the Nile, with its beneficial floods that are anticipated hopefully each year, it is opposite of the sterile red of the desert sand.
    [Show full text]
  • Rhythm in Modern Poetry and Cinema Sarah Keller
    Document généré le 29 sept. 2021 22:13 Intermédialités Histoire et théorie des arts, des lettres et des techniques Intermediality History and Theory of the Arts, Literature and Technologies “As Regarding Rhythm”: Rhythm in Modern Poetry and Cinema Sarah Keller rythmer Résumé de l'article rhythmize Cet essai s’intéresse à la relation qu’entretiennent la poésie moderne et le Numéro 16, automne 2010 cinéma dans leur rapport privilégié au rythme. Notre étude établit que le rythme offre un mode alternatif de structuration des films non narratifs tout URI : https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/1001959ar en fournissant une explication sur la conception des mécanismes du cinéma DOI : https://doi.org/10.7202/1001959ar chez les réalisateurs des cercles modernistes. Aller au sommaire du numéro Éditeur(s) Revue intermédialités (Presses de l’Université de Montréal) ISSN 1705-8546 (imprimé) 1920-3136 (numérique) Découvrir la revue Citer cet article Keller, S. (2010). “As Regarding Rhythm”: Rhythm in Modern Poetry and Cinema. Intermédialités / Intermediality, (16), 129–143. https://doi.org/10.7202/1001959ar Tous droits réservés © Revue Intermédialités, 2010 Ce document est protégé par la loi sur le droit d’auteur. L’utilisation des services d’Érudit (y compris la reproduction) est assujettie à sa politique d’utilisation que vous pouvez consulter en ligne. https://apropos.erudit.org/fr/usagers/politique-dutilisation/ Cet article est diffusé et préservé par Érudit. Érudit est un consortium interuniversitaire sans but lucratif composé de l’Université de Montréal, l’Université Laval et l’Université du Québec à Montréal. Il a pour mission la promotion et la valorisation de la recherche.
    [Show full text]
  • Wallace Stevens
    Classic Poetry Series Wallace Stevens - poems - Publication Date: 2004 Publisher: PoemHunter.Com - The World's Poetry Archive A High-Toned Old Christian Woman Poetry is the supreme fiction, madame. Take the moral law and make a nave of it And from the nave build haunted heaven. Thus, The conscience is converted into palms, Like windy citherns hankering for hymns. We agree in principle. That's clear. But take The opposing law and make a peristyle, And from the peristyle project a masque Beyond the planets. Thus, our bawdiness, Unpurged by epitaph, indulged at last, Is equally converted into palms, Squiggling like saxophones. And palm for palm, Madame, we are where we began. Allow, Therefore, that in the planetary scene Your disaffected flagellants, well-stuffed, Smacking their muzzy bellies in parade, Proud of such novelties of the sublime, Such tink and tank and tunk-a-tunk-tunk, May, merely may, madame, whip from themselves A jovial hullabaloo among the spheres. This will make widows wince. But fictive things Wink as they will. Wink most when widows wince. Wallace Stevens www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive 2 Anecdote of the Jar I placed a jar in Tennessee, And round it was, upon a hill. It made the slovenly wilderness Surround that hill. The wilderness rose up to it, And sprawled around, no longer wild. The jar was round upon the ground And tall and of a port in air. It took dominion everywhere. The jar was gray and bare. It did not give of bird or bush, Like nothing else in Tennessee.
    [Show full text]
  • The Poetry of Alice Meynell and Its Literary Contexts, 1875-1923 Jared Hromadka Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College
    Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2013 The al ws of verse : the poetry of Alice Meynell and its literary contexts, 1875-1923 Jared Hromadka Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Hromadka, Jared, "The al ws of verse : the poetry of Alice Meynell and its literary contexts, 1875-1923" (2013). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 1246. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/1246 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. THE LAWS OF VERSE: THE POETRY OF ALICE MEYNELL AND ITS LITERARY CONTEXTS, 1875-1923 A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of English by Jared Hromadka B.A., Louisiana State University, 2004 M.A., Auburn University, 2006 August 2013 for S. M. and T. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Special thanks is due to Dr. Elsie Michie, without whose encouragement and guidance this project would have been impossible. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS..............................................................................................................iii
    [Show full text]
  • Ezra Pound's Condensation of the Henry James Novel
    Georgia Southern University Digital Commons@Georgia Southern Legacy ETDs Spring 1988 Hugh Selwyn Mauberley: Ezra Pound's Condensation of the Henry James Novel Delores Lamb Belew Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/etd_legacy Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Belew, Delores Lamb, "Hugh Selwyn Mauberley: Ezra Pound's Condensation of the Henry James Novel" (1988). Legacy ETDs. 164. https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/etd_legacy/164 This thesis (open access) is brought to you for free and open access by Digital Commons@Georgia Southern. It has been accepted for inclusion in Legacy ETDs by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons@Georgia Southern. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Georgia Southern College Zach S. Henderson Library H-., ^ Hu oh 5e 1 ujyn May be r 1 e y : Ezra Pound's Condensation ot the Henry James Nowel Submitted by Del ores Lamb Be lew A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Georgia Southern College in Partial Fu 1 -f i 1 1 men t of the Requirements for the Degree MASTER OF ARTS Statesboro, Georgia 1988 Hugh Selwyn Mauberley: Ezra Pound's Condensation o+ the Henry James Novel by Del ores Lamb Be lew Table of Contents I n troduc t i on 1 Pound's Criticism o-f James. 13 The "Germ" -for Mauberley 34 Cone 1 us i on . 69 Introduc t ion Ezra Pound be 1 ieved avidly that experimentation and imitation were the most important act i ui ties -for the serious artist. Only through experimentation could the serious artist hope to create a style that was uniquely his own; only through the imitation o-f and improvement on the works- of great artists- could he create art that was new and alive.
    [Show full text]
  • The Thought of What America": Ezra Pound’S Strange Optimism
    University of New Orleans ScholarWorks@UNO English Faculty Publications Department of English and Foreign Languages 2010 "The Thought of What America": Ezra Pound’s Strange Optimism John Gery University of New Orleans, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.uno.edu/engl_facpubs Part of the Literature in English, North America Commons Recommended Citation Gery, John “‘The Thought of What America’: Ezra Pound’s Strange Optimism,” Belgrade English Language and Literature Studies, Vol. II (2010): 187-206. This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of English and Foreign Languages at ScholarWorks@UNO. It has been accepted for inclusion in English Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UNO. For more information, please contact [email protected]. UDC 821.111(73).09-1 Pand E. John R O Gery University of New Orleans, USA “THE THOUGHT OF What AMerica”: EZRA POUND’S STRANGE OPTIMISM Abstract Through a reconsideration of Ezra Pound’s early poem “Cantico del Sole” (1918), an apparently satiric look at American culture in the early twentieth century, this essay argues how the poem, in fact, expresses some of the tenets of Pound’s more radical hopes for American culture, both in his unorthodox critiques of the 1930s in ABC of Reading, Jefferson and/or Mussolini, and Guide to Kulchur and, more significantly, in his epic poem, The Cantos. The essay contends that, despite Pound’s controversial economic and political views in his prose (positions which contributed to his arrest for treason in 1945), he is characteristically optimistic about the potential for American culture.
    [Show full text]
  • A MEDIUM for MODERNISM: BRITISH POETRY and AMERICAN AUDIENCES April 1997-August 1997
    A MEDIUM FOR MODERNISM: BRITISH POETRY AND AMERICAN AUDIENCES April 1997-August 1997 CASE 1 1. Photograph of Harriet Monroe. 1914. Archival Photographic Files Harriet Monroe (1860-1936) was born in Chicago and pursued a career as a journalist, art critic, and poet. In 1889 she wrote the verse for the opening of the Auditorium Theater, and in 1893 she was commissioned to compose the dedicatory ode for the World’s Columbian Exposition. Monroe’s difficulties finding publishers and readers for her work led her to establish Poetry: A Magazine of Verse to publish and encourage appreciation for the best new writing. 2. Joan Fitzgerald (b. 1930). Bronze head of Ezra Pound. Venice, 1963. On Loan from Richard G. Stern This portrait head was made from life by the American artist Joan Fitzgerald in the winter and spring of 1963. Pound was then living in Venice, where Fitzgerald had moved to take advantage of a foundry which cast her work. Fitzgerald made another, somewhat more abstract, head of Pound, which is in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. Pound preferred this version, now in the collection of Richard G. Stern. Pound’s last years were lived in the political shadows cast by his indictment for treason because of the broadcasts he made from Italy during the war years. Pound was returned to the United States in 1945; he was declared unfit to stand trial on grounds of insanity and confined to St. Elizabeth’s Hospital for thirteen years. Stern’s novel Stitch (1965) contains a fictional account of some of these events.
    [Show full text]
  • "Ego, Scriptor Cantilenae": the Cantos and Ezra Pound
    University of Northern Iowa UNI ScholarWorks Dissertations and Theses @ UNI Student Work 1991 "Ego, scriptor cantilenae": The Cantos and Ezra Pound Steven R. Gulick University of Northern Iowa Let us know how access to this document benefits ouy Copyright ©1991 Steven R. Gulick Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.uni.edu/etd Part of the Literature in English, North America Commons Recommended Citation Gulick, Steven R., ""Ego, scriptor cantilenae": The Cantos and Ezra Pound" (1991). Dissertations and Theses @ UNI. 753. https://scholarworks.uni.edu/etd/753 This Open Access Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Work at UNI ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations and Theses @ UNI by an authorized administrator of UNI ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. "EGO, SCRIPTOR CANTILENAE": THE CANTOS AND EZRA POUND An Abstract of a Thesis Submitted in Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Philosophy Steven R. Gulick University of Northern Iowa August 1991 ABSTRACT Can poetry "make new" the world? Ezra Pound thought so. In "Cantico del Sole" he said: "The thought of what America would be like/ If the Classics had a wide circulation/ Troubles me in my sleep" (Personae 183). He came to write an 815 page poem called The Cantos in which he presents "fragments" drawn from the literature and documents of the past in an attempt to build a new world, "a paradiso terreste" (The Cantos 802). This may be seen as either a noble gesture or sheer egotism. Pound once called The Cantos the "tale of the tribe" (Guide to Kulchur 194), and I believe this is so, particularly if one associates this statement with Allen Ginsberg's concerning The Cantos as a model of a mind, "like all our minds" (Ginsberg 14-16).
    [Show full text]
  • E. P. Ode Pour L'election De Son Sepulchre" Peter Quartermain University of British Columbia, Canada
    The Kentucky Review Volume 1 | Number 1 Article 4 Fall 1979 "Blocked. Make a Song out of That": Pound's "E. P. Ode Pour L'Election de son Sepulchre" Peter Quartermain University of British Columbia, Canada Follow this and additional works at: https://uknowledge.uky.edu/kentucky-review Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Right click to open a feedback form in a new tab to let us know how this document benefits you. Recommended Citation Quartermain, Peter (1979) ""Blocked. Make a Song out of That": Pound's "E. P. Ode Pour L'Election de son Sepulchre"," The Kentucky Review: Vol. 1 : No. 1 , Article 4. Available at: https://uknowledge.uky.edu/kentucky-review/vol1/iss1/4 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the University of Kentucky Libraries at UKnowledge. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Kentucky Review by an authorized editor of UKnowledge. For more information, please contact [email protected]. "Blocked. Make a Song out of That": Pound's h E "E. P. Ode Pour L'Election de son Sepulchre" ( F By Peter Quartermain 1 c "Take his own speech, make what you will of it-" F Ezra Pound : Near Perigord c T he late 1850's in New York. Thomas Bailey Aldrich, young man from New Hampshire, in his early twenties. Charlie Pfaff's "resort" and restaurant, at 653 Broadway,1 where the "Bohemian" crowd hangs out-where, in the summer of 1860, fresh from visiting Emerson, Hawthorne and Lowell in New England, the 23-year-old W .
    [Show full text]
  • Michael Alexander. What Ezra Pound Meant to Me
    MEMORIES ABOUT POUND UDC 821.111 DOI 10.22455/2541-7894-2019-7-186-201 Michael ALEXANDER WHAT EZRA POUND MEANT TO ME Abstract: The memoir about personal meetings with Ezra Pound in Rapallo in 1962 and 1963, at T. S. Eliot’s memorial service in London in 1965, and finally in Venice in the later 1960s, dwells also on the reception of the poet’s work in postwar Britain and in the USA. In the 1960s England largely forgot Pound; his role was historic, his name and his presence faded: in a version of literary history current in British universities in 1960, Ezra Pound figured as “the precursor of Eliot”. In the USA, on the contrary, his breakthrough in modernist poetry as well as his anti-Semitism and admiration for Italian Fascism were well recognized, thanks to the controversy over the award of the Bollingen Prize to Pound’s Pisan Cantos. The memoir shows how a name from literary history becomes a part of personal experience after meeting the man himself, and how it leads to a new understanding of the poet’s legacy – against wider historical, cultural, and literary background. The memoir also provides interesting facts that stimulate reflections on the literary canon, its constant change and flux despite its apparently stable nature. Keywords: memoir, Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, Olga Rudge. 2019 Michael Alexander (translator, poet, Professor Emeritus, University of St Andrews, Scotland) [email protected] 186 ВОСПОМИНАНИЯ О ПАУНДЕ УДК 821.111 DOI 10.22455/2541-7894-2019-7-186-201 Майкл АЛЕКСАНДЕР ЭЗРА ПАУНД В МОЕЙ ЖИЗНИ Аннотация: Публикация представляет собой мемуарный материал, в центре которого – личные воспоминания о встречах с Эзрой Паундом в Рапалло в 1962 и 1963 гг., на похоронах Т.С.
    [Show full text]
  • Gained in Translation: Ezra Pound, Hu Shi, and Literary Revolution
    Gained in Translation: Ezra Pound, Hu Shi, and Literary Revolution Jenine HEATON* I. Introduction Hu Shi 胡適（ 1891-1962）, Chinese philosopher, essayist, and diplomat, is well-known for his advocacy of literary reform for modern China. His article, “A Preliminary Discussion of Literary Reform,” which appeared in Xin Qingnian 新青年（ The New Youth） magazine in January, 1917, proposed the radical idea of writing in vernacular Chinese rather than classical. Until Hu’s article was published, no reformers or revolutionaries had conceived of writing in anything other than classical Chinese. Hu’s literary revolution began with a poetic revolution, but quickly extended to literature in general, and then to expression of new ideas in all fi elds. Hu’s program offered a pragmatic means of improving communication, fostering social criticism, and reevaluating the importance of popular Chinese novels from past centuries. Hu Shi’s literary renaissance has been examined in great detail by many scholars; this paper traces the synergistic effect of ideas, people, and literary movements that informed Hu Shi’s successful literary and language revolu- tions. Hu Shi received a Boxer Indemnity grant to study agriculture at Cornell University in the United States in 1910. Two years later he changed his major to philosophy and literature, and after graduation, continued his education at Columbia University under John Dewey （1859-1952）. Hu remained in the United States until 1917. Hu’s sojourn in America coincided with a literary revolution in English-language poetry called the Imagist movement that occurred in England and the United States between 1908 and 1917. Hu’s diaries indicate that he was fully aware of this movement, and was inspired by it.
    [Show full text]