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)