Let's face it, few of us are likely to hack our way through the thickets
(some of them rendered in Chinese) of Ezra Pound's Cantos.
Even in college, in a course on modern literature, we didn't actually read
the Cantos, instead we read Hugh Kenner's book, The Pound Era.
Still, one would like to understand what made Pound such an important figure
in the history of literature and Peter Ackroyd's slender and copiously
illustrated biography accomplishes the task quite painlessly.
Besides helping us to understand what Pound was trying to achieve in
his own poetry--which seems to have been an attempt to capture all of reality
within the confines of the poetic form--Mr. Ackroyd shows how profoundly
Pound influenced other Modernists, in particular T. S. Eliot and James
Joyce. I'd not previously been aware of the degree to which Pound
helped sculpt The Waste Land, to the point that Mr. Ackroyd gives
him credit as its virtual co-author :
The transformation of The Waste Land effected
by Pound is, although not total, nevertheless remarkable. What had
been a longer,
more sustained and more elaborately lyrical work
was changed into something less personal, tighter and more abrupt.
It was precisely
these qualities which were to lend the poem its
air of modernity--since, in large part, our notion of what is "modern"
is derived from
Pound's work and criticism.
Where Joyce was concerned, Pound appears to have been one of his earliest
proselytizers, publishing Portrait of the Artist
in serial form in his magazine, The Egoist, and Ulysses
in the magazine, The Little Review. He also reviewed Joyce's
work in every publication he could, extolling his virtues to anyone who
would listen. Yet, Pound also had the brutal honesty to assess Finnegan's
Wake with the dismissal that it so richly deserved :
Nothing short of divine vision or a new cure for
the clapp can possibly be worth all the circumambient peripherization.
Unfortunately for Pound, the harshness of that critique reveals a willingness
to speak his mind and a forcefulness of opinion which were to get him in
considerable trouble when they combined with other personality traits to
turn him into a Fascist propagandist.
Mr. Ackroyd convincingly locates the appeal of fascism to Pound in the
poet's passion for organization and order, his belief in a cultural elite,
and his adherence to the odd economic theory of Social Credit, expounded
by a Major C. H. Douglas :
Its doctrine states, quite simply, that once money
has lost its natural basis in people's needs and aspirations--when, in
other words,
it has been turned into a commodity merely to be
bought and sold--then the nation and its culture sour. Money is a
complex
measure of man's time and the worth of his labour;
when it becomes an anonymous entity to be hoarded and manipulated, all
other
human and social values shift downward. But
there was also a blindingly simple economic point to be made in this connection:
the bankers control money at the expense of everyone
else in the community.
His belief in a social hierarchy is a classic enough conservative position,
likewise his fear of cultural decline. And the rest of Pound's ideas
were probably harmless in themselves, even if some were bizarre; but it
is this last notion, that the problems one perceives in the world are necessarily
a product of some kind of conspiracy, that represents the dangerous spark
that all too often ignites hatreds like anti-Semitism. True conservatism
requires the recognition that disorder and decline are natural phenomena,
resulting from the debased desires of the masses. Those who are unable
to accept this reality and instead try to blame shadowy conspirators are
dangerously deluded.
Sadly, Pound fell prey to just such delusions and ended up making radio
broadcasts for Mussolini during WWII. The result of these pro-fascist,
anti-American, anti-Semitic soliloquies was a 1943 indictment for treason
and eventual arrest and, following a finding of insanity, confinement to
St. Elizabeth's mental hospital in Washington, DC. He was kept there
until the charge of treason was dismissed on April 18, 1958. Upon
his release, Pound moved back to Italy where he lapsed into a depressive
silence and spent his final years in and out of clinics, futilely trying
to find some way to recapture his creative powers.
If in the end it is not possible for us to feel too much sympathy for
a man who betrayed his wife--with a mistress named Olga Rudge by whom he
had a daughter and who eventually became his constant companion--and his
country, and who spewed venomous hatred of Jews, perhaps it is still possible
to acknowledge his achievements, or at least his aspirations, as an artist.
Here's how Mr. Ackroyd summarizes Pound's own literary legacy :
Pound attempted to recreate the whole world in the
image of himself and his poetry--despite the divisive tendencies of the
age,
and the obsessive weaknesses of his own character.
Maybe in this sense we can see writ small in him the larger tragedy
of the 20th Century, of men trying to prove themselves equal to the Creator,
but failing horribly, and finding it necessary to lash out against others
to explain the failure.
(Reviewed:17-Feb-02)
Grade: (B+)
Websites:
Peter Ackroyd Links:
-INTERVIEW: Stealing is the Secret of Success: His huge biographies of Dickens, Blake and the city of London have been bestsellers, but Peter Ackroyd is more coy when it comes to the details of his own life. Undeterred, Peter Ross talks to him about tap-dancing, transvestism and communing with the dead (Peter Ross, 8/08/04, Sunday Herald)
-REVIEW:
of The Clerkenwell Tales by Peter Ackroyd (Sebastian Smee, The Spectator)
Book-related and General Links:
-PETER
ACKROYD (1949-) (Guardian Unlimited)
-BIBLIOGRAPHY
: Peter Ackroyd (october 5, 1949 - ) (Bradley Shoop)
-EXCERPT
: from London: the biography by Peter Ackroyd : The sea!
-ESSAY
: Arts are in fine form : 'In the past two decades English culture
has undergone a renaissance, in a spirit not unlike that of the late 14th
and 16th centuries' (PETER ACKROYD, 1/02/02, Times of London)
-REVIEW
: of Marcel Proust By Edmund White (Peter Ackroyd, NY Times Book Review)
-REVIEW
: The Perreaus and Mrs Rudd : Forgery and Betrayal in Eighteenth-Century
London By Donna T Andrews & Randall McGowen (Peter Ackroyd, Times
of London)
-PROFILE
: Following the Ghost of Dickens (LAURA LEIVICK, December 22, 1991,
NY times)
-PROFILE
: Writing bestsellers while on a bender : On books and booze (John
Sutherland, October 9, 2000, The Guardian)
-ESSAY
: PETER ACKROYD, POSTMODERNIST PLAY AND CHATTERTON (Brian Finney)
-REVIEW
: Lincoln Kirstein, The Eyes of Ez (NY Review of Books)
Ezra Pound and the Visual
Arts edited with an introduction by Harriet Zinnes
Ezra Pound and His World
by Peter Ackroyd
-REVIEW
: of T. S. Eliot by Peter Ackroyd (John Gross, NY Times)
-REVIEW
: of T S Eliot by Peter Ackroyd (Frank Kermode, The Guardian)
-REVIEW
: of BLAKE By Peter Ackroyd (Penelope Fitzgerald, NY Times Book
Review)
-REVIEW
: of Chatterton, by Peter Ackroyd (Emma Tennant, The Guardian)
-REVIEW
: of Milton in America (Tony Tanner, NY Times Book Review)
-REVIEW
: of Milton in America (Canadian Federation of University Women)
-REVIEW
: of The Life of Thomas More By Peter Ackroyd (Andrew Sullivan, NY
Times Book Review)
-REVIEW
: of Life of Thomas More (Francis Gilbert, Guardian)
-REVIEW
: of THE PLATO PAPERS A Prophecy. By Peter Ackroyd (John Sutherland,
NY Times Book Review)
-REVIEW
: 'Therefore I Print' (John Updike, NY Review of Books)
William Blake an exhibition at the Metropolitan
Museum of Art, March 29-June 24, 2001
William Blake Catalog of the exhibition by Robin
Hamlyn and Michael Phillips, with introductory essay by Peter Ackroyd
-REVIEW
: of London : An Autobiography by Peter Ackroyd (Patrick McGrath, NY
Times Book Review)
-REVIEW
: of London : An Autobiography by Peter Ackroyd (Iain Sinclair, The
Guardian)
-REVIEW
: of London (Nicholas Lezard, The Guardian)
-REVIEW
: of London (Stephen Moss, The Guardian)
-REVIEW
: of London (Peter Preston, The Observer)
-REVIEW
: of London: The Biography By Peter Ackroyd (RICHARD C. WALLS, Boston
Phoenix)
-REVIEW
: of 'London: The Biography' by Peter Ackroyd (Michael Dirda, Washington
Post)
-REVIEW
: of The Collection By Peter Ackroyd (Jeanette Winterson, Times of
London)
-REVIEW
: of THE COLLECTION Journalism, Essays, Short Stories, Lectures By Peter
Ackroyd (John Button, Sydney Morning Herald)
Recommended books by Ezra Pound :
-ABC
of Reading (1960) (Ezra Pound 1885-1972)
EZRA POUND (1885-1972) :
-ENCYCLOPAEDIA
BRITANNICA : "Ezra Pound"
-Ezra
Loomis Pound (1885-1972) (kirjasto)
-ETEXTS
: Poems by Ezra Pound (1885 - 1972)
-ANNOTATED
ETEXT : KYBERNEKYIA : A Hypervortext of Ezra Pound's Canto LXXXI
(concept & editing NED BATES | project director GAIL MCDONALD, UNC
Charlotte)
-ETEXT
: Ezra Pound. Sestina: Altaforte
-ETEXT
: The River-Merchant's Wife (Pound translated Japanese versions
of the poems of the Chinese poet Li Po)
-ETEXTS
: Ezra Pound (santafe.edu)
-ETEXTS
: SELECTED POETRY OF EZRA LOOMIS POUND (1885-1972) (Representative
Poetry On-line, Department of English at the University of Toronto)
-AUDIO
EXCERPT : Ezra Pound "The Cantos" (Salon)
-National
Poetry Foundation : PAIDEUMA : A JOURNAL DEVOTED TO EZRA POUND
SCHOLARSHIP
-National
Poetry Foundation : EZRA POUND SCHOLARSHIP SERIES
-Ezra
Pound Center for Literature (University of New Orleans)
-Ezra
Pound in the University of Idaho Library
-National
Poetry Foundation : Ezra Pound Discussion Group
-Ezra
Pound (American Academy of Poets)
-Ezra
Pound (AmericanPoems.com)
-Ezra
Pound (1885-1972) (Modern American Poetry)
-Ezra
Pound (1885-1972) (Professor Eiichi Hishikawa, Faculty of Letters,
Kobe University)
-BBC
Education : Biography : Ezra Pound
-EPC
Ezra Pound Authors Homepage (Loren Goodman)
-PETALS
ON A WET BLACK BOUGH: American Modernist Writers and the Orient
(A Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library Exhibition, Yale University)
-Chapter
7: Early Twentieth Century - Ezra Pound (1885-1972) (PAL: Perspectives
in American Literature: A Research and Reference Guide)
-Ezra
Pound (Wickling)
-Ezra
Pound and the Occult (Case Western Reserve)
-World
War I ....according to Ezra Pound
-PROFILE
: The strange and inscrutable case of Ezra Pound : The expatriate American
poet returned home in ignominy, and the postwar world watched as a literary
giant was charged with treason (Smithsonian)
-ETEXT
: Ezra Pound in History (Hideo Nogami, From Modern to Postmodern English)
-ESSAY: Ezra Pound, Musical Crackpot:
Ezra Pound, despite a confessed inability to carry a tune, composed strangely compelling, if eccentric, music. (RICHARD TARUSKIN, 7/27/03, NY
Times)
-ESSAY
: A major minor: Ezra Pound's poetry (Donald Lyons, New Criterion)
-ESSAY
: POUND, BLAST, AND SYNDICALISM (David Kadlec, ELH)
-ESSAY
: ON THE EZRA POUND/ MARSHALL MCLUHAN CORRESPONDENCE (EDWIN J.
BARTON, McLuhan Studies : Premiere Issue)
-ESSAY
: WHAT DID EZRA POUND REALLY SAY? (Michael Collins Piper, Barnes Review)
-REVIEW
: of Personae: The Collected Poems of Ezra Pound (Herbert S. Gorman,
January 23, 1927, NY Times)
GENERAL :
-REVIEW
: of THE FIRST MODERNS : Profiles in the Origins of Twentieth-Century
Thought. By William R. Everdell (Hugh Kenner , NY Times Book Review)
-REVIEW
: of American Poetry The Twentieth Century. Edited by Robert Hass,
John Hollander, Carolyn Kizer, Nathaniel Mackey and Marjorie Perlof
(William H. Pritchard, NY Times Book Review)
