?

AIDIVMA
,\ .forn nlrl l)cvolctl lo l'.zr';rl'tlrrrrtl Selrol;rrship

EE
Chdng Ming A New Paideuma
. . . Frobcnius uscs thc tcrm Pardeuma for thc tanglc or complcr of Ttrc Paidcuma is not tbc Zcittbc inrootcd idcas of any pcriod gci st , t bou I h a v c n o d o u b t m an y p co p le will tr y to sin k it in thc l atter . I shall usc Paidcuma for thc gristly roots of idcas romantic tcrm Mencius Epistcmology slarts from thrs versc: that arc in action the men of old wanting to clarify and diffusc throughout thc cmpirc t}at light whr c h c o m e s f r o m lo o kin g str a ig h t in to th e h e a r t thcn ecting, 6nt s c t u p g o o d g o v c r n m e n t in th cir o r r n sta tcs: wa n ting good govcrnmcnt in thcir statcs, thcy first cstablished ordcr in thcir own fa mi l ic s ; wan t i n g o r d c r i n t h c h o m c, th cy fir sr d iscip lin cd th cmsel ves; dcsiring sclfdisciplinc, thcy rcctificd their own hcarts; and wanting to rectify tbcir hcans tbcy sought prccisc vcrbal dcfinitions of thcir ine rti culat c t ho u g h t s ( t h e t o n e s g ive n o ff b y th c h ca n ) ; wish in g to att6in precisc vcrbol definitions, thcy s.t to cxtcnd tbcir knowledgc to tbc utmct. This complction of kno*lcdgc is rootcd in sorting lhings into organic catcgorics. When things had bccn classificd in organic ca tcg ories , k n o w l c d g c m o v e d to wa r d fu lfillm e n t; g ivcn e xtr cm c know a bl c poins , tb c i n a r t i c u l a t c t ho u g h ts wcr e d e fin e d with p r e cision (tbc sun's laotc coming to rcst on the prccisc spot verbally). Having atta i n c d t his p r c c i r c v e r b a l d c fin itio n ( a lite r , th is sin ce r ity) , th ey thcn stabiliz c d t he i r h c a r t s , t h c y d iscip lin e d th e m sclvcs; h a vin g attai ncd sclf-disciplinc, thcy sct thcir own houscs in ordcr; having order in thcir homes, thcy brought good government to thcir own statcs; and whcn th ci r s t at 6 w c r e w c l l g o v c r n ed , th e cm p ir e wa s b r o u g h t in to cqui l i bri um. F rom t h e E m p c r o r , S o n o f He a ve n , d o wn to th c co m m on rnan, thc paidcuma. singly and all togcthcr, this sclf{isciplinc is thc rmt-i.e.

V ,rl rrrrtt'l .l

Spring 19D5

Number I

SeniorEditors llu r; lr K S NNE R

l.lnivcrsity (icorgia at Athens of

Eve Hesse
Munich, West Germany

Editor CARROLL F. TERRELL Managing Editor JOSEPHBROGUNIER

Editors DONALD GALLUP DAVID GORDON JAMES J. WILHELM
llxrk l{evicws .l( )Sl:l'll BROGLINIER llLrsirrcss Administration and (;N II, SAPIEL ProductionManager MARIE HELENA McCOSH ExecutiveSecretary M AR IL YN EM ER IC K

Eorronrar- AssrsrANTS Laura Cowan SylvesterPollet

ASSOCIATES Stcphen Adam, Canada Mmimo Bacigalupo, Italy Marius Buning Netherlands I laroldo de Campm, Bruil Dcsmond Egan, Ireland R. N. Egudu, Nigeria lszek M. Engelking Poland Stephen Fender, England Richard Hammki, I Iawaii Martin Kayman, Portugal Sanehide Kalama, Japan I'etr Mikef, Czech Republic I'hilippe Mikriammm, Iirance Mu Ninny, Switzerland Alejandro Oliverm. Venezuela Deba Patnaik, India Daniel Pearlman. U.SA. Jesu Pardo de Santayana, Spain Harold Schimmel, lsrael Mohammad Shaheen,Jordan G. Singh, Northern Ireland C. K Stead. New Z:aland Jaime Garcia Tenes. Mexio A. C. Ullyat, South Afric Timothy Wanguu, lJganda Chang Yao-xin, l'coples Rcpublic of (lhina

of of COVER: Photograph Olga Rudge,courtesy Mary de Rachewiltz

ISSN009G5674
klitorial and buinqs ollie: National P(xtry Foundation-Rarm 302, Univenity of Maine,5752 Nwille Hall, Orono, Maine M469-5752. Subscriptiom to individuals: $18.00 a year US, or $23.00 Canadian and foreign. To libraria and irstitutiom: $35.00 a year US, or $40.00 Canadian and foreign. All fes mut be paid in US funds. Paidem is published by the Univenity of Maine and printed at the Univenity of Maine Print Shop. Manwripts should onform to the latmt MIA Style Sheet and should be ammpanied by return pGtage. International Copyright (c) 1995 by the National Pctry Foundation except for heretofore unpublished letteF or other writings of Ezra Pound which are Copyright (c) f995 by the Truts of the Ezra Pound Literary Property Trut and wd by pemision of New Directions Publishing Corp., agents for the Trutees. The staff is also grateful to New Directions Publishing Corp. for permision to quote from Fzra Pound's published work.

94

lzslie Hatcher

Aphrodite, Persephoneand Kor all work side by side with the masculine heroesof the questto createthe promiseof rebirth.

WORKS CITED 'Davie,Donald.Ezm Pound:Poetas Sculptor. NervYork: Oxford UP, 1964. Dekker, George. SailingAfter lhowledge: The Cantos of Eza Pound. London: Routledgeand KeganPaul Ltd., 1!b3. Dennis, Helen M. "The EleusinianMysteriesas an OrganisingPrinciple in Tie Pisan Cantos."Paideuma10.2(1981):27'3{,2. Flory, Wendy.Ezm Pound and The Cantos:A Recod of Struggle. New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 1980. Pound,Ezra. The Cantosof Ezm Pound.New York: New Directions,1975. . Guide to Kulchur.New York: New Directions,1970. . Selected hose 1X)9-l%5. Ed. William Cookson.New York: New ----TErions, 1973. Ne*'York: NenrDirections,1968. . The Spiit of Romance. m6lT6,ffi:Michel. Language, Sutatity and Ideologt in Ezm Pound's Cantos. London: Macrnillan,1986. Surette,l*on.A Light frcm Eleusis.Oxford: Clarendon,1979.

EVAN R KARACHALIOS SACNFICE AND SELECTIWTY IN EZRA POUND'S F/RST CANTO

If we never wite anything save what is alrcady undentood, the feld of undentanding will never be &ended. One demands the ight, now and again, to wite for a few people with special intercsts and whose cuiosity rcaches into grcater detail.

(e6/61.3)r ln l92l Ezra Pound wrote to his father and occasional patron, Homer Pound, namesake of the blind Greek poet whose rhythmic hexameters echoed the churning of the sea. For the elder Pound and many early readersof The Cantosthe hypnotic rhythms of the first poem in the long sequenceseemed to dissipatein the apparentincoherence its subjectmatter, with of soundleft helplessin the rescuingof sense. Ezra was writing So piecing together the recondite to offer his father assistance in fragmentsin the evolvingwork:
::: it Have I evergivenyou outlineof main scheme or whatever is? 1. Rather like or unlike subjectand response and counter subject in fugue.AA. Live man goesdown into world of Dead. C.B. The "repeat in history" B.C. The "magic moment" or moment of metamorphosis, bust thru from quotidian into "divine or perrnanentworld." Gods,etc.2

While this fugal pattern is intendedas a blueprint for the entire epic, it immediatelyplays itself out in the first canto, theme of descent-"And then went rehearsingthe Odyssean with the epic'sfirst down to the ship" (1/3)-and culminating theophany-"Venerandum,/ In the Cretan's phrase,with the goldencrown,Aphrodite" (ll5).The descent Odysseus of into Pound'scompositionalmethod as a the undenvorld allegorizes poet in addition to mirroring his post-war intellectual milieu.
l. Ezra Poun4 Tln Cantosof Ezm Pound (New Yorh New Direclions, 191). 2. Ezra Pound "To Homer L. Poun4" l1 Apfl 1927,letaer222 of Ttu Selectedlzuen of Ezm Pound: 1907-1941, D. D. Paige(New York New Dircclions,l97l) 210. ed.

96

Evan R. Kamchalios

Sacrifce and Selectivity in Ezm Pound's Fint Canto

97

Blood sacrifice summons for Pound what William Carlos Williams calls "'the radiant gist' against all that scants our lives'a and then enables him to disregard superfluous historical episodesin order to define the values and essences The of Cantosby a method of exclusion.But this artistic selectivity also has social ramifications. After his apparent failure to hold together the first disparate fragments of The Cantos with the sonority of many narrative voices,Pound believessound to be an inferior medium of senseperceptionand an instrument of mass deceptionin the aftermath of the First World War. He abandonsthe inimitable splendorof Homeric Greek,a whosemelodious surging he mimics in his translation of the Odyssey the in first canto, and electsanother perceptivefaculty-vision-as the emblem of the intellectual elite needed to resurrect his time. With these axesof reference in place, Pound's Odysseanvoyage may begin. A REPOSITORY OF CULTURAL VALUE
Saythat I dump my catch,shinyand silvery As freshsardines flapping and slippingon the marginalcobbles? (I standbefore the booth, the speech; but the truth Is insidethis discourse this booth is full of the marrow of wisdom.) (Draft of an earlyCanto, 1917))

The Cantos self-consciouslytake their place in a tradition of poetic achievement stretchingfrom Homer and Virgil in classical antiquity to Dante in the fourteenth century,and to writers as dissimilar as Milton, Wordsworth, and Whitman in modern times. By returning to the eleventhbook of Homer's Odyssey to gather the archetypes his poem, Pound choosesnot simply for one of the oldest of the suniving epicsbut what he believesto be the earliest remnant of the Odyssey itself- the Nekuia, or descentto the underworld: "The Nekuia shoutsaloud that it is older than the rest, all that island,Cretan, etc., hinter-time,that
(New York: New Directions,192) f85. 3. William CarloeWilliams,Patenon 1951. 4. "In the languagesknown to me (which do not include Persian and Arabic) the muimum of melopoeia[groups of words chargedby SOUNDI is reachedin Greek. . . . I have never read half a page of Homer withoul linding melodic irwentioq I mean melodic invention that I didn't already know" (Ezra Poun( ThcABC of ReadinglNew York: New Diredions, f96014243). 5. Ronald Bush, llr Gerasis ol Ezm Pornd's Cantos (Princeton: Prineton UP, f976) 53.

is not Praxiteles, Athens of Pericles, Odysseus."6 not but Despite its age, however, the Nelada's literary qualities remain untarnished for Pound: "3000 years and still fresh."7 Its evident longevityendowsthis text with value,as in its own day the poem most probably existedas a mythologicalrepositoryof value for archaic Greek culture, a compendiumof the universalknowledge distinctive to epic.8Thus the older and more valuable a poem is, the more power it seems to possessfor disclosing enduringpatternsof humanexperience. Indeed,the further back that Pound placesthe comthe position of the eleventhbook of the Odyssey, more significant his use of that past becomes,and the truer (at least for As him) the maiden poem of.The Cantos. Pound writes in 1913 in an essayentitled "The Tradition," "a return to origins invigoit rates because is a return to nature and reason.The man who returns to origins does so becausehe wishesto behavein the eternally sensiblemanner.That is to say,naturally,reasonably, sacrificeof canto 1 with this intuitively.'ry Readingthe Odyssean belief in mind, a reactivationof ancient knowledgecharts new directions beyond a mere quest for the episodes needed to adorn severalhundred pagesof poetry. The requirement that that a "poem including the reinvigoratedpast itself reinvigorate, history"toactuallychangehistory,residesin the very mention of way of behavingand in the belief that radian eternallysensible against"all that scantsour ant gists may function apotropaically lives."But before examiningthe socialimplicationsof degenerain tion and the masses Pound'saestheticpractice of selectivity, shouldbe read as closelyas posthe ritual sacrificeof Odysseus sible. COMPOSTTIONALA RCHAEOLOGY
I Thesefragments haveshoredagainstmy ruins. Land)rr CI. S. Eliot, TheWaste

A poem purporting to contain history cannot by any meansrecollect it entirely or distill its infinitude of detail. "The past is a
6. Pound. Selectedlzue,t 274. 7, Pound, Selectedl*tten 275. 8. Buh 73. (New York: New Directiom, 1966192. 9. Ezra Pound,Lilerary Essays 10.Poun4,4BCR 46. 67 Perc (New York Harcourt BraceJovanovich,1964) ll. T. S. Elio! Selected

98

Evan R' Kamchalios

Sacifce and Selectivity in Ezm pound's Fint Canto

gg

midden," writes Guy Davenport; "it is the -city 9utP at O*ittvn"nos, outside Alexandria, where we find shreds of ,"6"i,1r-*ith'texts by Aristotle and Sapphoon them."u To this irriii-in".y inventory one should add the Homeric -poems' excavationinThe Cantosfrom the refuse heap of F;;ati#rr it o"rt. The task he setshimself in compositionis to generate " by the slow accumulationof luminous historiPound remarks in ""*"ig"in"un"", pui-ti"f"s.,.poinis define a periphery,"r3_as tuf in"'int."au.tion to his Confucian translations,and in building chosengists-a Pound'scautiously of it 1nonurnent The Cantos. " names,historical episodes-l1: ut selective Greek tag, remote Sacrificeand selecof * trc fi""Oings the modern archaeologist. inseparableinsofar as the first canto mly b9 tivity are theiefore ;;;i ;; a sort of literarryenactmentof Pound's compositional method. "Lie quiet Divus" (t/l), with this brief command Pound infuseshis own voice as'epic composilol intg lf: po"-' h;;G t[;n sitting by while his narrative unfolds, indifferently Pound instead becomes the ili1,, his tingern-a$ a U Joyce,. found'and admired in the literature of i-"gi"nury speltator he speakingto the materials of his ffori"r inO' U"nry James,ra Tireiias. And Pound shareswith the as Odysieus to ir;;;ii.. of his first canto another similarity as well, for his search "ioi^n"nirt of the Renaissance ';;;;ilg translatoris an odyss^ean forgotte-ndocuments of the past. i"i f.""*tJage among the t^h:shade "First thou riust go th; road / t; heil-/ ' ' ' KnowlgOgg after knowledge"(471336)' oi u tttua", / Yetihou must sail 'by to the sha.de stillness,Pound sug"ommanding been intoning the first.canto, his sests that Divus himself h-as diction and "n"*irr""* Latin rendered by archaic -nn4r.str But rather than drawilg his Annto-S*on triple-beatalliteration. Poundworks almost with thesesonorities, ;;;e;i";-the^poem abrupt syntax,a strateSl to alienate them with archaismand w h o s e p u r p o se willbemadeabundantlyc le a r' I a t e r. L )rv u s rs as newly embbdied only by Pound,for whom translattonserves 'ililh;.i""|;;rtrire pouring out sacrificial of {idytt"ut ;il ..Here did they rites, Perimedesand Euryulooo for the dead: L"tt*, /ard drawing sword from my.hig / I dug the,:,u':qYul" p"ui"J we ti"bations unto eachthi deadr'(113).It is in ;t;kili
(tthaca:Comell UP' 1959)4' 12.Guy Davenpor! "Foreword" TheCitical llitings-of lytq tyce iN& York: New birections, l95l) l%. -.. I still 13.Ezra poun4 trars.,nv anatiii,ov'i:""r*i* i*"gn"ty spclator,which in 1918 14. ..I have,on rhe other n*i, i"',lii ,rr;';; Hql.ilrr" itrouglr was Henry James'ParticulatProPerty(ABCR 431'

this way that Pound'sreturn to the past mirrors an odyssean descent, sinceboth uutl.gl3ng pro.tagtnist, itk" ;;;"ir"biuur, are "resurrection-men."b find thJbest in the p; ro ,",r passit along, and to shore ancient relics in an.attempt to changehis own time, pound sacrifices whateverin his may.revivi& Divus's-pocket-sized Latin crib - "ii[ii"1""lii1rution the flesh anJ utooo gf hi:. 9yl.po-etic idioms. The tibationspoured ,,unto eacrrthe Divus.and his forgotten transration,ui" tn.t"ro." 9:"dl' !.1/3)t xngu$trcotterinqs. "water mixedwith white flower" (1/3) find their poeticanal5gues in.poundbengio-saxon reconstruction of Renaissance Latiisonorities,with alr"ofthe murtitude associof ations inherent in the earryEnglish tradition ;f ,;Th; J"u]u.".,, and "The wanderer"-wirriois, Bronze Age heroism, bu.oic poetry.16 - - Too, distinctionsbetweenthe past and presentare dissolvedin the sacrificialact. The pouiin!-oi riurri5", ,r," barbaricslaughterof bulls and sheepoccur at the same ""0 insrant or narratlve trme as pound'ssacrifice a modernist of aesthetic to the past, his infusion.of the living practices ;i;;;,,y ilio old texts.Indeed,the notion of narrativetime may be ress'meaningful here than that of narrative space,since'in the-firsi canto ppcchsare arrangednot as chronblogicar points th.oueh which nrsrory sweepsbut the verticany stackednotes of-a chord _as -en4irn of history's.beginnings:the earties, :li?:1_rlq,_ -fp". rhythmsand diction), the earliestGreek (Nekuia)l the !11?tuT.. begrnnlngof the 20th_century Vortex, and the oiigin, o'f the vortex we call the Renaissancl, when oncebeforeit tiuJre"m"o pertinent to reaffirm Homer's perpetual freshness.lliipouno', times conv.i.gg F canto l, confirming an ,._tl.Tl::tly^ !-y,",.."9 mturtronne publishes early as his first prose book, The as ipiit of Romance: "y'-Jl, ages,are. contemporaneous.,,rE situaling By thesevariousagestogetherin the samecanto,pound exhibits a cyclrc lf"o.y. of time that will be effectivein his wish to transpresent, since recurring historical patterns 1:lT^lir,, :"ltural "accomprrsh the learnedwhat I'or the mythological rituaisof rhe .._1:o": accomplishfor the intellectuallyunsJphisticated. Both mltrgate the terror of history, in which events,and most of all

p, f.l. Hugh Kenner,ThePoundEm-.(krteley and [,oeAngels: U of C:alifornia l97l) 6. 16. Guy Davenpofl, Citieson Hiits: e sl"ay Arbor uMr RescarchP, l9E3) t09. "li.*iif-ilc"i'p._ii";;;,'iX;; 17. Kenrer 349. lE. Ezm Pound, Prf8ceao TheSpirit of Ronwce (New york New Direcrions, 1966)6.

1A0

Evan R' Kamchalios

Sacifice and Setectivity Ezm pound,s Fint Canto in

I0I

patman's personal decisions,are set forever in an irreversible

tern.tt19

the figlreof seer ili;h t;Fr."iii"a-iv-tne UUnO firesias, sole sacriiisht'il,f,"darknessit'" underworld Pllry :l?iy:: only" "1 Tiresias

past, But if sacrifice in the first canto resurrects the its then an act of selectionmust inevitablyappropriate ^wisdom'

fice thereis no possililityof offeringa "sheep.to gist from the past the.radiant. tt/3i;;i;tom'uti"uuy sLlecting bloodritual alsosummons ;ii;fi maybe the mott telling.The dead' of brides /. of Zadaverous many "soulsout oi g,iebus, ililrh, ,"i'.r ,t oto*t,o hadbornemuch"(t/3.).These.unbid"with shouting"(1./4),agt'd;;-;ffi;-".o*O " about Odysseus prophetTireairivalof the Theban tatinshim as t The "*uiJtne whom he wishesto " *ith ri"t,",'tt""""ly-gh;;,,impotent -speak' former comdqad]'is Odvsseus' ;;",yp" ofin""r" 'Heapimm.ortality:." *h;';5;;; forth desiring Elpenor, nanion. A man of / ;;;b bv sea-bord,.and-inscribed: [p *r"L ili''d" *tti i nok' to come"' Ql!)t Pyt ftt Poundto ona ii iii*, source ;;Jid being overwhelmed the manifold historical many _by in poetically Thegantos.' to h-e materials attempts subdue 'bL dismissedrathei than immortalized' should ;i-]i; that he "sat to keep off the impetuous statement Odvsseus'

#ii!i;

cantos, ,"'f'".tiuityunC oiglntatTon throughoutthe 116 Tt lg, iuta devilops themes taken up by the t o* ;;'"-.pi;'"i " entire epic. WAR DEGENERATION AND THE FIRST WORLD
The age demanded an image of its accelerated gimace' ' 'gh Setwyn Mauberl$o

of principles i'ound's informs d;;i;'iii;l Jie"'"ii""ty another

S i n c e t h isfi r stin stallmentofP ound'sepica lle g o riz e s ithtoc o m. t e expect oini"utti", in t i, artistic tife, one may-.also ;;;1il;;l of its age,a literaryanalogue "b;;';il;ig"i*i""i"onr.iourness calledth-e"phantastikon"-an of what the Greek-pry.fioiogitts macrocosmos'2r of entity reflecting th'e' sundr! p.atches iti

of rectifibe i.a"la, p.i""AJO"-ii"ifiutii't"ii.tt canto a vehicle an estimationof

cation only makesl;;
37E. 19.Kenner s;,ed i6. ilil:
2l.Polund,

ff it off"r, the reader

erary tropes are identicalto Nordau'sbut suggest an evenmore pervasive state of degeneration in The dntos' int"ii"ctuut milieu, a cultural stagnalnry, doubtressry J precipitateou/ir," n'u* killing of the First W-orldWar. according Nordau, to :- "a .Ol" ryTpto.mof degeneration, ts <, soundof rendingin everylradition,and it is ai thoueirthe
Thz Geography the Imagimtion (New york and San of Franciro: panrheonBooks, iirff?rf;"t""*tt' 23. tiush 49. 24. Max Nordau,Degenemtion (New york: fr. Appleton and Company,lE95)2.

cities" tYlr*:,?.tlt sun-rays Nor with starsstretched." Zr.,1 ^]l:_p..pted u.".uit..-ilil;;;;il wrtn grrtterof pound'slit_ /

ar the beginl 1r1::"lig: ly nrng ot I.he L:antos,,,all suns and all stars" are no longer sru?u_

iriui""t".iring :Tl,:l:':"i1.. :yqogn I givgsto Nordau"s ,1" time poundptaces

the Nekuia

its cultural surrounding.. Guy Davenportnotes,,,The Cantos, l. for all their ability to.-make the'p-ast transparent, are ultimatery about their own century. pound's desraii ou"i'[i, iln ,in,", -in rarely. stated .p-erso.nany the poem, i'r n"ui.tn"i"r, un' urt.ingent theme."z Like sailing away from the razed Qdys_seuj palaces.^of first canto 6merges from a ;,mostly J.o.y,_Pound'j unspecifiable darkness"of The cantos'uuri6u, o*tt, uno t ugments,with World yur looming in the.i-*"Ji"i" f"".'ity,t,i, { beginsto addressthZ sociat;;J;;i;;;"ilonoi,ion, liln"r_P,oun{ ot hls day in lessdecoroustones,combiningin a new p"r*onu both social satire the emproyment3r rnoi. uilr".rnty .and 'tno""o,- p;;l;, themes, such as ritual sacrifice.zr milieu.likely resembledthe first site encountered !*,-*u. by Odysseus and his crewmen, ,,Kimmerian lands, ;;J ;;;p[a?ies -wi,ti'gti,r". / covered with crose-webbed mist,.unpi91"."aei", i ' .." t of sun-rays Nor with starsstretchedi' ' / (l/3). Pound's pre_warreading miy'have suggested the importance suchi rocare the e"arly of to cantos.rn r9r2 pound contempor-ary German historian fuf* Sirn* tiorOuu,, f19,r!" of History.And his despair about his own age !::t::?::t:ti?n ls m:omple.te.agreement with an earlier work of Nordau,sonii_ nousry,e.n:rleq Degeneration.,,In our days there have arisen in more htghly-develo.ped minds vague qualms of a Dusk of Nations,in which all-sunsand an rti^ u." graduanywaning, and mankindwith all its institutions and creati;n;is p.'ri.ti"gi," ,r," midst. a dyingworld."2a pound was unfamiliarwith of If this ear_ rer statementof Nordau'spublishedin 1g95,the Kimmerian imageryof canto one upp"ais all the more appropriate for the ^

l9s6)6l' Pems (NewYork:NewDirections'

Ronance 92.

102

Evan R' Kamchalios

SaciJice and Selectiity in Ezm Pound's FirctCanto

103

One epoch of morrow would not link itself with today. in history is unmistakably its decline,and another is announcing its approach."s Reflectingon the climacteric of World War I, Pound finds this prophecyfulfilled, for "what we call the twentiGuy Davenport,summa' observes eth century ended in 1915,'26 rizing English modernist sentiment and establishingNordau's rift with a definitivejudgment of historicalhindsightrather than "the war seemed prophecy.For Pound and his contemporaries, to create a huge barrier between the past and the present, blastingcenturiesof historyfrom beneathGeorgianEngland.'zr restoration,the As an implement of socio-historical descentto the underworld,to the dwelling of PerseOdyssean phone, "whose mysteryis the power of eternal regeneration,"28 deliberately teems with converging historical and aesthetic idioms. The linear model of history in which past cedes may thereby inevitablyinto present,and in which discontinuities chronoHistory no longer sweeps be conceivedat all, collapses. in logicallybut is purposefullyre-configured anticipation.ojnew values.- Nordau's schism is healed aesthetically with an "existentialhistoricism" that "does not involvethe construction of this or that linear or evolutionary or genetic history, but somethinglike a trans-historicalevent: the rather distinguishes by rather by which historicity as suchis manifested, experience, mians of the contactbetweenthe historian'smind in the present cultural complexfrom the past.'ze and a given synchronic wanderer in search of reactivating As an Odyssean ancient knowledge,and while playing "the role, simultaneously, of amanuensisfor the mind of Europe,"s Pound seeks to counter what in the first canto alreadyappearsas the decaying of a botchedcivilization,a Kimmerian twilight of cultural stagwrites, "history in the Pound nation.As Hugh Kenner succinctly it seemedcalling for sucha poem, expecting to make a difEra Whateverentersthe mind's ecologl makesa difference. ference. . . . To offer men's minds a reading of historicalpatterns might consolidateor might alter those patterns, and would anyhow of affect the mind's sense beingat home.'ar

THE MASSES: SOUND AND VISION But even if Pound'sreturn to an ancient Mediterraneanpast to b"g]tt The cantos is.anattempt to_ alter history-an artist ierving as the antennaeof his race by offering it the wisdom for rectification- the criteria of sacrificeand Jelectivityrequire a more cautious reading of the first canto's reactivation'of luminous detailsfrom the midden of history.while re-configuring histhe torical patterns that would revive his age, pound-dem6nstrates an awareness that.not everything. entering the mind's ecolory makesa positive difference.Andln this sfirit he is representative of modernistaesthetic practicesin generar. Keepinein mind odysseus' refusal of every shade but Tiresias,witnesi the following accountof literary modernism's emergence: "Modernism constituteditself through a consciousstratelgrof exclusion, an anxietyof.contamination its other: an incrdasingly by consuming and engulfifg _mass culture."32 And then compaie these line! from Pound's first canto that dramatize the evolution: ,,These many crowdedabout me; with shouting/ pallor upon me, cried for . !o *y men- more.beasts. . I I sat to keep off the impetuous impotent (I/4). Apparently,the powei with which a poem 9:ud" rncludlnghrstory may counteract the degenerationof its time dependsupo.nits artistic purity: ,,9nly by fortiffing its boundaries,by maintaining purity and autonomy, its and-byavoiding any contaminationwith massculture and wittr the signiffingsystems of everydaylife can the art work maintain ils a.ru"-rrurv stance."33 The avoidanceof contamination in pound,s milieu expresses itself as an antipathyfor massphenomena, social the counterpartto an antipathyfor excessive historicaldetail in the act.of comp^osition. in what senseare the masses But dangerous and fearful? And how will the poetic searchfor the ruriinous details of the past, which is embodiedin the first canto bv the seerTiresias,ward off their perniciousinfluence? The answermay be found in the doctrinesof French critics,influencersof Pound,who were writing half a generation before the English modernists and whose specula-tions and biasesabout the facultiesof soundand vision ari revealed the in very first canto.Julien Benda and Remy de Gourmont, as Vincent Sherry notes, "heard an internal, essential connection between musical sensation and populist collectivism. Music reaches vitalist core of the listehei, they proposed,and joins the
32.Andreu Huysserr"lntroduction,".,.ll er the GreatDividz (Blmmington: Indiana Up, 19g9) vii 33. Huvssen54.

25. Nordau 5. 26. Davenporl, Geogaplry 166. of 27. James't-ongenVici,ine MAemist Pocrics History(Princston:Princton UP' f987) 9 28. D ave nporl, Geogpphy 152. 29. Frcdrii Jamesoi, "-Vinism and Historicism," Nfl' Utemry History ll (f979): 50'51. 30.Kenner 37. 31. Kenner 362.

104

Evan R. Kamchalios

Sacrifice and Selectivity Ezm pound,s Fint Canto in

rcs

all membersof the audiencein a spuriousbut formidable unity. a The fellow feeling inducedin this way represents form of mob bonding.The excitablemassemergesas the political image-the direct result-of this provocativemelding through sound. the Whereasthe democraticear merges, aristocraticeye divides. the . . . The eye alsoachieves distinctionson which clear conceptual intelligencerelies; it thus providesthe emblem and instrument of a ruling intellectualelite."34 After the massconflict of World War I, the ear is for of Pound the particularweakness massculture-"the soft spot manipulatedfor through which the people can be collectivized, the purposes of total war."35As an instrument of cultural the first canto should repudiatethe aural mecharestoration, electingvision over sound.In its overall nism of demagoguery, of structure,the movementfrom the clamoringshades the dead to the prophecyof Tiresiasconfirms the selectionof things seen about the dangersof rather than heard. But Pound'sconvictions oral culture can best be glimpsedin a brief article he wrote for Poetryin July 1916.The very title, "The Constant Preachingto the Mob," revealsthe content of the spokenword and its powers of mass deception."Time and again the old lie. . . . Deceiving the ignorant is by some regarded as evil, but it is the demagogue'sbusinessto bolster up his position and to show that Thereforewe read for the God's noblestwork is the demagogue. time that poetry is one-thousand-one-hundred-and-eleventh made to entertain.As follows:'The beginningof Englishpoetry . . . made by a rude war-faringpeople for the entertainmentof or men-at-arms, for men at monks'tables."'sThe demagoguery of mass culture sharesthe same vocal immediacyas the poet's voice in oral performance,"now that it has been conscriptedto The selectionof the Nekuia as the the efforts of masswar."37 first canto nine years later deliberatelyavoids the dangersof this sonority,though,sincePound expresses opinion of it in the same article from 1916:"'The beginnings-for entertainment' Will the in -has the author ever read the Seafarer Anglo-Saxon? tell us for whosebenefit theselines,. . . for whoseenterauthor tainment they were made?They were made for no man'sentera tainment,bul because man believingin silencefound himself . to withhold himself from speaking. . . Such poems are unable
3. Vincent Sherry, Em Pound Wyndhan I'uis, 1993)4. 35. Sherry53. 64. Litemry Essays 36.Polu,nd, 37. Sherry53. and Radicat Modemism (New York: Oxford UP'

not made for after-dinn_er speakers, nor was the ereventh book the. odystry.stin it flatters the mob to ten them i-hat 9f trreir rmportancers so great that the solaceof lonely men, and the lordliest of the artC, wascreatedfor they amusement.,,38 TrheNekuia is the perfect. introduction to an epic of cultural restoration because foundation lies not ln orur iti munication in the artist'sprivatesilence. i._"onfieirution but "o*ft, of.historyand.the elaboration its them., ui"lil..*ir"" of trans_ missableonly in--the silent act of reading,th";;i;;i'rp!".n or Anglo-saxon alliteration audible only ls a ,,purely imagined sound."3e And as the emblem of clear-conceptual intelligence and the intellectualglite pracriceit, thei""uity-ll..""iri.", 1vho. embodied for pound by th.eironicalry uiino ,"", iiresias, oiscloses radiantgistsand luminous the detailsof whichriiVonto, are built. Atter summoning-the wisdom of the past in sacrificial ritual and selectingits e-diry,ing piunO- piu"e, tt,. episocles, appearance Aphrodite at theionclusion of the firit canto of as eye could perceive,,,radianrand intelligible ::Trlllg :nyJhe Iorm sorted trom all other objects,"ro visual emblem the of "civilizationsat their most."4r And while priuileein;'in" faculty of vision in the first canro, pound t.ui,rroi,n1-n?-r"tr "lit" inro a sort oJ Tiresias,informing his own time of its degeneracy and gling for its renovation.As JamesLongenbach *iit"r, IFound did considerhimselfan_inspired interprlter; especiaily'afier he saw the First world war-wipe.away cenfuriesof "European history,he felt that the conservation the p; ;d;";".t'upon oi the efforts of an enlightenedfew.,,42 CONCLUSION whereasPoundopenlycleclares admirationfor the merodihis ous.language ancientGreek in his correspondence earry of and critical.writilgf, sacrificeanclselectivityas well as the historical period in which the first canto waswritlen reveala reorientation of.his explicitlystatedvalues, both aesthetic an<J cultural.The pnce ol uslngthe sustained rhythmsof Anglo-Saxon alliteration rn narrating the odysseanblood ritual ii to draw too much prominence the mediumof sounditself.Ratherthan holdins to - Poun4 Litemm 38.

Esavs &. 39. Sherrv52. zf0.Daveirporl Cities 108. 41. Poun4 Selectedlzrre,t 3JG. 42. longenbach 95.

106

Evan R' Kamchalios

rather of tosetherthe varioussections the poem, sounddistracts fact BabetteDeutschappearedto realize ffi;;;;;;ri.,,"nr".u ano olgresin her estimationof Pound in 1933as a soliloqulzlng voices.Though Pound may.sggmto overrin" t"t of narrative sonorous toot-ttt"t" aural shortcomingsby placing the richly that 6f nit epic poem'.the--9ve.njs. at the beginning liri "unto and his ;ew aniipathytoiound during.WorldWar I ;;l;H;i;;re

CAMERON McWHIRTER and RAMSAY MUHLY SENOUS CHARACTER TO FUNI'IY MAN: EZRA POUND'S BRIEF CORRESPONDENCE WITH AL EXAND ER WOOL LC OTT Despite his disdain for American academia, EzraPoundalways maintained strong ties with his undergraduatealma mater, Hamilton College.He made a specialeffort to stay in touch with favorite professors,including Joseph"Bib" Ibbotson,his instructor in Anglo-Saxonand Hebrew. The professorand the 1905graduatecorresponded for years.rIn early 1937, Ibbotson-having just retired as Hamilton's librarian-traveled to Europe with his wife. After touring Germany, the couple called on Pound in Rapallo. During the visit,Ibbotson and Pound discussed another Hamilton alumnus: Alexander Humphreys Woollcott, the notorious "Man Who Came to Dinner" and a member of the classof 1909.In 1937, Woollcott (1887-1943) was at the height of his fame as one of America'spreeminentmen of letters.To the American public,if not to the intellectualclass,he representedsophistication, wit and high culture. Certainly, Woollcott, former drama critic f.or The New York Times and The New Yorkr, had far surpassed Pound in popularity.2Woollcott'sWile RomeBums (1934),a collection of previouslypublished essays, a great success was that went into numerous reprints. His follow-up, an anthology called The WoollcottReadcr:Bypatlu in the Realm of Gold (1935),was also a best seller. But Woollcott's fame was chiefly spread through a new medium,one that fascinated Pound:radio. His twiceweekly evening program, "The Town Crier," aired on the Columbia Broadcasting System. Woollcott'svoicewas heard coastto coast.
l, fu Ezm Pound: Irtte8 to lbMso\ 1935-1952, eds. Vittoria I. Mondolfo and Margaret Hurley (Orono, Maine: National Poetry Foundatio[ 1979). 2. This disparity was c:ventrue as regardstheir alma mater. Pound trryeled to the United Stalesin 1939 to rcceive an honorary degree from Flamilton as a Doctor of Literature. Woollcotl though younger, had alresdy rcceived the encomium in 1924.

praiseof seeming Pound's ;fiil"'11," i"^0". io r"-"u'utuaie

s o u n d.Iti sno ttr u eforP oundthatthemediumo f s o u n d is t o b e of fo. as an artist he remain-s-capable avoided at any "ori, care in the service of beauty' His it ri,ittr "-oiouins tt "itr"-" effectswrought by sound,.therefore, ;;,ili;;;f"'ioi foetic *f,i1" dir"ouragingthJm at a time when sound intact" ""ni"rnuin purpose of war-time-dfteneration. In other words, servesthe of vjqiol over i-he other sense perceptions ;,;;;'il.i!ifJging of *iit ttit desireto bring about a.renovation remainsconsonant And the ritual sacrificeand selecand intellectuallife. fragby ""ltur"f Odvsseus Homer's Odyssey, isolating.those in tivitv of vision like the prophet I rrestas *"tttt from history that disclose meansto his i;ih; undenuorld,ui" fo. Pound the most effeciive restorativeend.