First of all, I would like to thank Mr. Edwards, Mr. Morse, Mr. Brennan, and
Mr. Stoneking for responding to my letter. I would also like to respond to
some of their objections in detail.
 
I shall begin with Mr. Stoneking's comments:
    1."A Pound industry, as Mr Davis puts it, pursued without serious purpose
it is a mere hobby...  BUT how can one pursue Pound with seriousness,
leaving unaddressed the complexities explicitly demonstated in his poetry,
letters, and proclamations, and implicitly expressed in his decision to
enter a plea of insanity thus propelling him into thirteen years of
incarceration?"
 
    The first confusion here, to my mind, is that "poetry, letters, and
proclamations" are all literature whose complexities must be addressed. Only
the first should be regarded as literature; only the first constitutes the
basis of the poet's reputation. Why should the literary critic care what
political proclamations were made by the poet?
    As for Pound's "decision to enter a plea of insanity" I would refer Mr.
Stoneking to those books dealing specifically with the case and the trial.
Pound seemed to be against the plea from the start, ill-served by his lawyer,
and quite sane (see Torrey's The Roots of Treason). It is a debatable point,
this question of his sanity. Further, what this "implicitly expresses" about
Pound's poetry, or should, is unclear to me.
 
    2."I, too, wanted to avoid this problem of Pound's anti-semitism in my
play,
SIXTEEN WORDS FOR WATER, but was forced in the end (by Pound!)
to deal with it!"
 
    Being unconversant with both Mr. Stoneking's poetry and plays, I would
maintain that this comment cannot be evaluated sufficiently to be persuasive.
 
 
    3."Nevertheless... whether one be an exponent of the so-called "New
Criticism" or any one of the other handful of criticial disciplines, what we
are dealing with is nothing more than an elaborate language game... the
New Criticism has its rules, as does the psycholoigical approach, etc.
One learns these rules then tries to be a good game player (i.e.: stick to
the rules and work out a few, original "moves") Mr Garrick is playing
a different game than some of the others, but it is still a game. I can't
see why he should take umbrage with those indulging themselves
with draughts because he is passionate about backgammon! Unless
his version of backgammon includes a rule for lambasting those who
do not play it!  Strange! That sounds a little bit like fascism... but I
am sure Mr Davis is anything but a fascist!"
 
    Mr. Stoneking seems to be saying that either literature is a "language
game" or criticism is a "language-game" to the end that it is not a serious
pursuit. I disagree. He also seems to be saying that all critical approaches
are equally valid-- a comment supported neither by two thousand years of
criticism nor by Mr. Stoneking's "backgammon" analogy. Are all games the same?
    As for "lambasting those who do not play my game" I would submit that
such a practice is called criticism. Criticism and fascism are surely not the
same words in Mr. Stoneking's personal lexicon?
 
    Concerning Mr. Morse's comments:
 
    1."Finally, though, I suppose the only reply to Mr. Davis's
unexceptionable
plea for reading the poetry is that old cliche, "We are all socialists
now."
 
    I hardly understand what this means. Does Mr. Morse believe that everyone
shares his political sympathies? I would suppose the mere existence of
conservatives might disprove his claim?
 
    2."Yes, George Saintsbury was a great connoisseur, if not exactly a
great critic. But sixty years or so after George Orwell pointed out the
critical implications of Saintsbury's almost unbelievably reactionary
politics, it's a little late to call for a pure and disinterested
criticism."
 
    As for Mr. Morse's claim that Saintsbury was not "exactly a great critic"
I would say everything hangs on the balance erected on the word "exactly."
George Saintsbury is not exactly a great critic when placed in the company of
Coleridge, but when placed in the company of such men as Robert Casillo (whom
Mr. Morse singles out for praise) I believe we begin to see deficiencies in
Mr. Morse's literary judgment.
    For how "exactly" could the author of The History of English Prosody be
dismissed because "George Orwell pointed out the critical implications" of
his "almost unbelievably reactionary politics?" Is the grandest study of
English verse-forms now dismissed because its author didn't vote the Labour
ticket?
    Mr. Morse, it seems to me, evaluates literature primarily on the basis of
its political sympathies. Since his sympathies tend to be left-wing, Pound
and Saintsbury are questionable literary figures easily dismissed by the
likes of Robert Casillo. One might call Mr. Morse's approach "politically
correct" but it is really the incorrect use of politics, a tendency which
George Orwell (along with Lionel Trilling and other liberal critics) would
never have condoned. When Mr. Morse contends that it is "too late for a pure
and disinterested criticism" what he really means is that he is incapable of
practicing such a criticism, and he is right.
 
Concerning Mr. Edwards' comments:
 
    1."Close textual analysis" is of course what all critics ought to be good
at,
and the insights such analysis yields are what in the end makes literary
criticism worthwhile. But close textual analysis without more is not and
never has been enough. Surely Pound's work is an excellent example of why
that should be the case.The idea of trying to read, say, the Pisan Cantos
in a state of deliberate ignorance of the life and opinions of their author
is quite frankly ridiculous."
 
    First I would contend that such a "frankly ridiculous" reading is exactly
what any reader attempts before a new text, since they have not concerned
themselves with the criticism before the literature, and rightly.
    Second, what Mr. Edwards suggests literally is that reading the text (ie
close textual analysis or close reading) is never sufficient for a true
understanding of the text. The reader cannot understand anything without the
help of criticism, because the work of art (the text of the book) is not
capable of conveying its own meaning without elucidation from outside
sources. This is, of course, untrue. All the meanings possible in a work are
contained in, and suggested by, the contents of the work. The idea that a
reader cannot understand Pound without reading his critics is demonstrably
untrue, but a rather popular idea among critics.
 
 
 2."One of the greatest masters of textual analysis was Sir William
Empson...It was he who exploded the notion, peddled by some of the New
Critics (with
whom Empson otherwise had much in common), that the intentions of the author
are irrelevant to a true understanding of a poem.
 
    I am unfamiliar with Mr. Empson exploding any New Critical notion. That
notwithstanding, the idea that the intention of the author is (always or
occasionally) relevant to the text is subject to close scrutiny. Whatever the
text is or contains, isn't this exactly what the author intended? How does
one account for or understand what an author's intentions are for a work,
other than a desire for its existence? Is Mr. Edwards suggesting that the
reader is bound to the exact interpretation of the book which the author has
also? Do we interpret The Iliad in the way Homer did, or any Greek in those
ages before Christ?
 
 
3."I wonder what members of this list would have to talk about if discussions
of Pound's life and opinions were excluded as being contrary to list
etiquette? I suppose we could swap sensitive appreciations of "In a Station
in the Metro" (taking care not to mention the fact that Pound once lived in
Paris)... Is that really what Garrick Davis wants?"
 
    Mr. Edwards seems to imply that it would be a calamity if the members of
this listserver were forced to speak of Pound's poetry, a curious implication
for a listserver devoted to a poet. As for "sensitive appreciations" of his
poetry, I would indeed find them interesting, and I find it strange that Mr.
Edwards would not. Has he passed on to some advanced stage of Poundian
scholarship, when perusal of the poetry is superfluous? I would suggest to
all the members of this listserver a reading of Yeats' poem, "The Scholars"
as the final word on such behavior, and on those who exhibit it.
 
    Finally, I will reiterate that my objections to this listserver were
directed at its fascination with Pound's antisemitic and fascist sympathies, t
o the exclusion of everything else. It seems strange to me that Mr. Edwards
would construe such specific objections as indicative of a general objection
to discussion of Pound's "life and opinions." Perhaps for Mr. Edwards the
whole of Pound's life and opinions is contained in his fascist and
antisemitic sympathies? And isn't this the general disease among Poundian
scholars and critics that I have been at pains to diagnose?
    I have been at pains to explain this curious phenomenon because it is a
catastrophe for our literature of the highest order. The desire to talk
exclusively about Pound's political and social failings is, of course, part
of a larger program in American letters today. The project is simply the
re-evaluation of Modernist literature using the criteria of politics. Pound
is hardly an isolated case; Eliot and Yeats have come under increasing
scrutiny of late, but the project is seen at its most advanced stage with
him.
 
Regards,
Garrick Davis
Contemporary Poetry Review
(www.cprw.com)