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Ezra Pound and the Rhetoric of Science, 1901–1922

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Ezra Pound and the Rhetoric of Science, 1901–1922 EZRA POUND AND THE RHETORIC OF SCIENCE, 1901–1922 Kimberly Kyle Howey University College London Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of doctor of philosophy in European Studies, University College London, January 2009. 1 I, Kimberly Kyle Howey, confirm that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Where information has been derived from other sources, I confirm that this has been indicated in the thesis. 2 ABSTRACT This thesis identifies science as Ezra Pound’s first extended extra-poetic interest. This reference to science in Pound’s poetic theory and poetry is portrayed as rhetoric, with its emphasis on the linguistic signifier or word rather than the actual concepts and data of science. The material covers over two decades between 1901, when Pound entered university, and 1922, after he left London. Beginning with Pound’s exposure to philology, the thesis establishes a correlation between his educational background and his use of scientific rhetoric in his prose. As he attempted to establish a professional status for the poet, he used metaphors linking literature to the natural sciences and comparisons between the poet and the scientist. Additionally, Pound attempted to organize poetic movements that resembled the professional scientific organizations that were beginning to form in America. In his writings promoting these movements, Pound developed a hygienic theory of poetry— itself an extensive rhetorical project—which produced a clean, bare poem and further linked Pound’s poetic output with the sciences. Beyond his rhetorical use of science, Pound attempted to study the sciences and even adopted a doctor persona for his friends with illnesses—both diagnosing and prescribing cures. When Pound was planning to leave London, he also considered entering medical school—a biographical fact to which Pound scholarship has paid little attention. His decision not to formally study the sciences reinforced his identity as a poet and his representations of scientific knowledge as mere rhetoric. This interest in the sciences, and medicine in particular, influenced Pound’s poetry and prose because of their frequent references and their alignment with literature. Additionally, this early use of rhetoric and an exploration into extra-poetic materials prepares Pound for his later, better-known and often infamous explorations of economics and social theory. 3 A NOTE ON CHANGES IN THE THESIS Following the advice given to me at the doctoral viva, I have made changes to the original version of the text. I changed the title from Ezra Pound and Science, 1901–1921 to Ezra Pound and the Rhetoric of Science, 1901–1922. I adapted the abstract and rewrote most of the introduction to reflect the new emphasis on Pound’s use of the rhetoric of science. Accordingly, I have altered sections within each section of the thesis to reflect this focus. Additionally, I added specific page numbers to the citations of the collection Ezra Pound’s Poetry and Prose, used as one of the primary sources of Pound’s published material, and I corrected some mistakes in other citations. 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements …………………………………………… 6 Introduction ……………………………………………….. 7 Chapter 1 “A China Egg Labelled Scholarship”: Pound, Philology, and Academe ………………………………... 34 Organization …………………………………………………….. 52 Educational System as Professor ………………………………... 63 Utility and Logic ………………………………………………… 78 Translation Methods …………………………………………….. 85 Poetry Methods …………………………………………………. 92 Classification ……………………………………………………. 103 Generalist Tendencies …………………………………………… 105 Precision ………………………………………………………… 109 Chapter 2 The “Sage-Homme”: Ezra Pound’s Doctor Personae …………………………………. 114 Failed Artists ……………………………………………………. 117 Illness as a Barrier to Productivity ……………………………… 130 Henri Gaudier-Brzeska …………………………………………. 143 Wyndham Lewis ………………………………………………… 152 James Joyce ……………………………………………………... 161 T. S. Eliot ……………………………………………………….. 169 Vivien’s Illness ………………………………………………….. 182 Eliot’s Diagnosis ………………………………………………… 188 Post-Waste Land ………………………………………………… 195 Chapter 3 “The Data of Hygiene”: Language of Cleanliness and Filth …… 200 Pound’s Early Interest in Hygiene ……………………………… 201 Bathing and Cleanliness ………………………………………… 203 Literary Connection with Plumbing ……………………………. 210 Contagion, Illness, and Disease ………………………………… 212 Decadence and Decay …………………………………………... 223 Decoration ………………………………………………………. 226 Order and Censorship …………………………………………… 234 The Common Man ……………………………………………… 247 Language of Filth ……………………………………………….. 262 Appendix In Search of the Vortoscope: The Mystery of Ezra Pound and Alvin Langdon Coburn’s Vorticist Project of 1916 ………… 274 The Vortoscope Materia ………………………………………… 275 Pound’s Involvement …………………………………………… 279 Legacy …………………………………………………………... 282 Appendix Bibliography …………………………………………. 286 Thesis Bibliography ………………………………………. 288 Primary Sources ………………………………………………… 288 Secondary Sources ……………………………………………… 302 5 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am grateful for the funding provided for this research from the Marie Curie Fellowship, funded by the European Community, represented by the Commission of the European Communities. I would also like to acknowledge the assistance of the Centre for European Studies and the Department of English Language and Literature at University College London, especially my supervisors Mark Ford and Hugh Stevens. I am indebted to many individuals and libraries for their research assistance and permissions: Mary de Rachewiltz and Peggy Fox of New Directions Press for allowing me to use material from Ezra Pound collections; Nancy M. Shawcross of the Rare Book and Manuscript Library at the University of Pennsylvania; Nancy R. Miller of the University Archives and Records Center at the University of Pennsylvania; Christopher Denvir of the British Museum; Elizabeth Swift of the archive at Wabash College; Colin Harris of the Special Collections at the Bodleian Library, Oxford; Lisa Conathan, of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library; Alan Morrison, of the Department of English and Linguistics, and Elaine Penn, of the university archives at the University of Westminster; Randy Ericson, librarian at Hamilton College; the New York Public Library Berg Collection archivists; and the British Library Special Collections archivists. I would also like to thank the many Pound scholars who have given their advice through correspondence, especially Martin A. Kayman, Ian F. A. Bell, Noel Stock, Ira B. Nadel, and Richard Parker, and my doctoral examiners Helen Carr and Peter Nicholls for their substantial direction. Lastly, I appreciate the support and love of my parents and, especially, Lee Scrivner during this endeavor. 6 INTRODUCTION From the time of his initial publications in London, Ezra Pound attempted to create a poetic theory. He states in 1910 in his first prose book, The Spirit of Romance, “the history of literary criticism is largely the history of a vain struggle to find a terminology which will define something.”1 Pound eagerly participated in this historic struggle for a precise and accurate terminology. As the term definition relates to “stating exactly what a thing is, or what a word means,”2 Pound necessarily works with words and the concept of representation or rhetoric. He often uses the term rhetoric in its depreciatory sense, “language characterized by artificial or ostentatious expression,”3 and he separates his concept of the “image” from rhetoric. “The ‘image,’” Pound writes in his essay “Vorticism,” “is the furthest possible remove from rhetoric.”4 In Pound’s discovery and recording of the concepts of image and rhetoric—both closely related—he evokes a modern notion of the linguistic sign.5 This sign often signifies an element of science, as Pound adopted a scientific discourse in his poetic theory. Pound’s use of the vocabulary of science reflects the serious status of science at the turn of the twentieth century and the demands of a realist-based epistemology. It becomes clear early in his career that he is motivated in his use of the rhetoric of science by the legitimizing status of science. Pound argues for a scientific status for both the practice and the content of poetry, as he claims poetry is a science and poetry is comprised of scientific fact. This rhetoric then connotes a scientific value, and as Martin Kayman argues, the “chain of signifiers” then produce “knowledge-effects” that are effective “not so much in terms of its truth-content as of its status or ‘acceptibility.’”6 Science is the only universal validation of “truth,” and therefore this truth and knowledge must be mediated by science. Pound 1 Ezra Pound, The Spirit of Romance: An Attempt to Define Somewhat the Charm of the Pre- Renaissance Literature of Latin Europe (London: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1910), p. vi. 2 “definition, n.3” The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. 1989. OED Online. Oxford University Press. 3 “definition, n.2a” The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. 1989. OED Online. Oxford University Press. 4 Ezra Pound, “Vorticism,” Fortnightly Review, 46.573 (1 September 1914), 461–71. In Ezra Pound’s Poetry and Prose, 11 vols (London: Garland, 1991), I, C158, 275–85 (p. 276). Reprinted in Gaudier- Brzeska: A Memoir (London: Lane, 1916), pp. 94–109. 5 Philip Kuberski, A Calculus of Ezra Pound: Vocations of the American Sign (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 1992), p. 1. “In 1913 Ezra Pound became irrevocably modern, perhaps because he had discovered the central issue in the writing and reading of poetry
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