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EZRA POUND: HIS METRIC AND POETRY

By T. S. Eliot




BOOKS BY EZRA POUND


PROVENCA, 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. Of those twenty,
there will be some who are shocked, some who are ruffled, some
who are irritated, and one or two whose sense of dignity is
outraged. The twenty-first critic will probably be one who knows
and admires some of the poems, but who either says: "Pound is
primarily a scholar, a translator," or "Pound's early verse was
beautiful; his later work shows nothing better than the itch for
advertisement, a mischievous desire to be annoying, or a
childish desire to be original." There is a third type of
reader, rare enough, who has perceived Mr. Pound for some years,
who has followed his career intelligently, and who recognizes
its consistency.

This essay is not written for the first twenty critics of
literature, nor for that rare twenty-second who has just been
mentioned, but for the admirer of a poem here or there, whose
appreciation is capable of yielding him a larger return. If the
reader is already at the stage where he can maintain at once the
two propositions, "Pound is merely a scholar" and "Pound is
merely a yellow journalist," or the other two propositions,
"Pound is merely a technician" and "Pound is merely a prophet of
chaos," then there is very little hope. But there are readers of
poetry who have not yet reached this hypertrophy of the logical
faculty; their attention might be arrested, not by an outburst
of praise, but by a simple statement. The present essay aims
merely at such a statement. It is not intended to be either a
biographical or a critical study. It will not dilate upon
"beauties"; it is a summary account of ten years' work in
poetry. The citations from reviews will perhaps stimulate the
reader to form his own opinion. We do not wish to form it for
him. Nor shall we enter into other phases of Mr. Pound's
activity during this ten years; his writings and views on art
and music; though these would take an important place in any
comprehensive biography.



II


Pound's first book was published in Venice. Venice was a halting
point after he had left America and before he had settled in
England, and here, in 1908, "A Lume Spento" appeared. The
volume is now a rarity of literature; it was published by the
author and made at a Venetian press where the author was able
personally to supervise the printing; on paper which was a
remainder of a supply which had been used for a History of the
Church. Pound left Venice in the same year, and took "A Lume
Spento" with him to London. It was not to be expected that a
first book of verse, published by an unknown American in Venice,
should attract much attention. The "Evening Standard" has the
distinction of having noticed the volume, in a review summing it
up as:

    wild and haunting stuff, absolutely poetic, original,
    imaginative, passionate, and spiritual. Those who do not
    consider it crazy may well consider it inspired. Coming
    after the trite and decorous verse of most of our decorous
    poets, this poet seems like a minstrel of Provence at a
    suburban musical evening.... The unseizable magic of poetry
    is in the queer paper volume, and words are no good in
    describing it.

As the chief poems in "A Lume Spento" were afterwards
incorporated in "Personae," the book demands mention only as a
date in the author's history. "Personae," the first book
published in London, followed early in 1909. Few poets have
undertaken the siege of London with so little backing; few books
of verse have ever owed their success so purely to their own
merits. Pound came to London a complete stranger, without either
literary patronage or financial means. He took "Personae" to Mr.
Elkin Mathews, who has the glory of having published Yeats'
"Wind Among the Reeds," and the "Books of the Rhymers' Club," in
which many of the poets of the '90s, now famous, found a place.
Mr. Mathews first suggested, as was natural to an unknown
author, that the author should bear part of the cost of
printing. "I have a shilling in my pocket, if that is any use to
you," said the latter. "Well," said Mr. Mathews, "I want to
publish it anyway." His acumen was justified. The book was, it
is true, received with opposition, but it was received. There
were a few appreciative critics, notably Mr. Edward Thomas, the
poet (known also as "Edward Eastaway"; he has since been killed
in France). Thomas, writing in the "English Review" (then in its
brightest days under the editorship of Ford Madox Hueffer),
recognized the first-hand intensity of feeling in "Personae":

    He has... hardly