doesn't everything about ep point to raging narcissism? the great man/poet thing, the sequence of picturesque personae beginning with bertran, mandarin, jefferson/adams, etc ...the impregnable self-assurance, ...luxuriating in self-fantasy, exhibitionism, and poetry qua self-promotion? ...the imperviousness to umwelt & mitwelt, except qua stage and audience? is ep the laureat of the age of narcissism? the cantoes a kinda lotus-eater-land poetry, wherein all we can indulge our personal poet manque narcissism? -----Original Message----- From: Jonathan Morse <[log in to unmask]> To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]> Date: Monday, November 01, 1999 5:33 AM Subject: A summary for Richard Caddel >In "Ezra Pound: 'Insanity,' 'Treason,' and Care," _Critical Inquiry_ 14 >(1987): 134-41, William M. Chace writes: > >"[A] blend of compassion and outright annoyance characterizes the attitudes >of a great many of Pound's acquaintances over the years. As early as the >1920s in Rapallo, his visitors and correspondents, among them Ernest >Hemingway, W. B. Yeats, and James Joyce, tended to note the same thing: the >poet was embarrassingly self-congratulatory, impervious to advice or >criticism of even the mildest kind, and high-handed in every regard. >Hemingway wrote that the poet 'makes a bloody fool of himself 99 times out >of 100 when he writes anything but poetry.' Archibald MacLeish, later to >rally to Pound's assistance, reported early on that he was 'a bit fed up >with the Ezraic assumption that he is a Great Man.' Joyce saw him as a >fellow writer who turned up 'brilliant discoveries' but also 'howling >blunders.' Over the years, Pound put all his friends to the test, the test >of complying with his wishes, agreeing with his findings about all matters >under the sun, and surrendering their will to his. It was a strong will, >but in the end it overwhelmed none of his friends. Those closest to him, >particularly Williams, who had known him longer than anyone else, did not >give in but watched with dismay: 'This ain't the old Ez I used to know,' >Williams wrote in one of the most charged of his letters. 'You're in the >wrong bin. Your arse is congealed. Your cock fell in the jello. Wake up!'" >(136-37) > >Chace draws all his examples from Torrey's _The Roots of Treason_. >Williams' letter is dated April 7, 1938. > >And this is the same issue of _Critical Inquiry_ that contains Conrad L. >Rushing's "'Mere Words': The Trial of Ezra Pound" and Richard Sieburth's >"In Pound We Trust: The Economy of Poetry / The Poetry of Economics." How >much we lost when the PC Police mounted their coup against that journal! > >Jonathan Morse