In these unpublished notes, we see that the relevance of Art, for Jarrell, was, paradoxically, its irrelevance. Jarrell, in trying to extricate Art from Politics,  speaks of Art as a kind of extravagance that civilized societies permit themselves.  Ironic that RJ should defend Pound's art in this oblique way when this escapist theory of Art as civilized play is a view that Pound had himself rejected and abandoned after the first world war. Pound's aesthetic was a functional aesthetic, and for him Art had immediate relevance to the common weal.  And not because Art is a retreat for the mind, but because It prepares the mind for action. "The Revolution took place in the minds of the People."
Tim Romano