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Title: Personae: The Shorter Poems of Ezra Pound by Lea Baechler, A. Walton Litz ISBN: 0-8112-1138-X Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation Pub. Date: 01 November, 1990 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.67 (3 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: not quite so superb
Comment: It is a sad fact, but all of the greatest poets of the 20th century, perhaps with the exception of Saint-John Perse and William Carlos Williams, felt the inexplicable urge to join the herd and camp out in highly dubious company. Mayakovsky, Ungaretti, Auden took at least temporary refuge in the revolution's dream of a world ruled by the proletarians of all nations - until the dream had turned into a nightmare. Gottfried Benn, not an anti-Semite by any means, became Nazi for the sake of their eugenic policies, Ezra Pound a card carrying fascist in MusoliniÕs operatic rule; and both converted with zest. T.S. Eliot didn't mind to show his antisemitic leopard spots.
Of those who came clean through, Georg Trakl died too early to go wrong, though he had his own problems; Marianne Moor, I guess, can claim a gender privilege; Brodsky and Else Lasker-Schler had little choice anyway because they sat on the sharp end of the centuryÕs numerous persecutions. A sad sight indeed. Another rather strange aspect is to see the top aces Eliot and Auden crossing the Atlantic in opposite directions and swapp nationalities or even to emigrate out of their languages altogether, like Sengor and Brodsky, which especially for a poet should be tantamount to artistic suicide.
(But it had been done before: the first rate Roman poet Claudianus was born Greek, the Archepoeta excelled in Latin when it had become the artificial Esperanto among medieval intellectuals, the French Chamisso naturalized himself in German (though I heard a Russian(!) friend of mine dismissing him as substandard,) the Polish born Conrad was awarded the Nobel-prize for his novels in English, Nabokov was a leading American writer. Being bilingual myself, I know the pains. Something is lost. No matter how attentive the authorÕs ear - he almost inevitably has more dictionaries than humans for company.)
To be a poet in troubled times is never easy, and the 20th century was a watershed between the cultural paradigms. But I didnÕt see Pound writing a ÒVigil of Venus.Ó Poetry is a pagan instinct, and the last line of defence of the old idols - maybe it has really run its course. But then language still needs its shepherds to protect it from the stench and spill of modern journalese, and new poems, waiting to be discovered, are still floating in that haze of unborn dreams, that is shrouding our planet.
It seems Pound, with all his considerable powers, spoke too loud, and with too booming a voice, to actually sense the arrival of a new poem from limbo. He was definitely a most able translator; he had the right instincts; he knew everything there is to know about literature. So when he ultimately failed in his original poetry, it must be a deficiency of temperament, and character, and perhaps even talent. But in ÒPersonaeÓ he gives us what he could do best - to create and impersonate a persona from the stockpile of dead poets.
His impersonation of Propertius is superb, the translation of Cavalcanti and other residents from DanteÕs inferno is a labor of love. As for his ventures into Chinese I recommend caution. The Chinese I knew had a funny way to respond to his renditions. Alongside of Kipling, though not quite as talented, Pound is the best ventriloquist in the language. However he picked up a trifle too much from PropertiusÕ obscurity. The comparison to PoundÕs own ÒCantosÓ is revealing.
Rating: 5
Summary: An Excellent Collection
Comment: I don't know what the other reviewer is talking about, but the book is arranged just fine. In fact, one would think that with the addition of the Note on the Text it would be irrefutably clear how it was arranged & selected, but I guess at least one guy didn't think so. The majority of the book is roughly chronological in the way Ezra Pound chose. The poems are broken into groups: Poems of 1908-1911, Poems from Ripostes (1912), Poems from Blast (1914), Poems of Lustra (1913-1915), Cathay (1915), Poems of Lustra (1915-1916), & Poems of 1917-1920. There are then Appendixes added, the first consisting of Three Cantos (1917); the second, uncollected poems from 1912-1917; & the third, The Complete Poetical Works of T. E. Hulme, which was originally an appendix to the book Ripostes. & then there's the Note on the Text explaining this layout. They removed the post-1926 work, as this shall appear in a future revision of Pavannes and Divagations, and they left out a few previously appendixed poems since they are already printed in The Translations or in Collected Early Poems. & then they added a few extra poems in appendix, the two recently-published war poems of 1914-1915, the original version of "In a Station of the Metro," & the prose poem "Ikon." & that's all of it, as is clear from the table of contents & note on the text. Now then, all that aside, these are absolutely brilliant poems. They contain stunning beauty, humor, originality, depth, & unbelievable intelligence & imagination. Pound completely changed what poetry was capable of, paving the way for countless innovators since with his inimitable driving voice. It would be a terrible shame if folks passed over this book just because one guy gave it less than its deserved five stars. The editors certainly didn't lie about anything - just because Pound wrote three cantos in 1917 that weren't part of the famous Cantos doesn't mean you've been swindled. (If fact, the conclusion to the third early canto later became, with some modification, Canto I.) So, hopefully this clarifies things, so that more people will have the chance to read these terrific poems. I'd also suggest, if you like this book, getting the readings that Pound made of "Hugh Selwyn Mauberley," "Moeurs Contemporaines," & some other poems. The tape is still in print, & Ezra Pound is one of the best readers around, up there with John Cage, William Burroughs, James Joyce ... Enjoy.
Rating: 3
Summary: Pound is fantastic...but the editors?
Comment: Personae is a work that Pound originally created himself with the intent that it would contain what he believed to be a good representation of his earlier work. Among many other things this means that we are forced to work our way through the muck of his early poems, which are obviously little more than an exercises that helped Pound be the fantastic poet that he is.
To further pain the reader, the editors of this edition of Personae have completely botched their job. One would think that being an editor of a book already set out by one of the greatest teachers of the 20th century (and one of the best ears for poetry) would be an easy enough job...they aparently worked at failing. I can't really say how well Pound did at putting this book together because the editors have admittedly added, removed and otherwise distorted the book out of Pound's original vision. To prove how horribly they did, there is a section of the book toward the end called "Three Cantos." Any reader familiar with Pound would expect it to be the Cantos he spent the later portion of his life writing: they're not. I have no idea what they are but the editors lied to the reader.
That said, the book also contains some of Pounds best works. Unfortunately I am forced to give this 5 star poet 3 stars, due to the harm done to me by the editors of Personae.
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Title: The Cantos of Ezra Pound by Ezra Pound ISBN: 0811213269 Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation Pub. Date: 01 June, 1996 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
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Title: Literary Essays of Ezra Pound by Ezra Pound ISBN: 0811201570 Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation Pub. Date: 01 June, 1968 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
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Title: ABC of Reading by Ezra Pound ISBN: 0811201511 Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation Pub. Date: 01 June, 1960 List Price(USD): $11.95 |
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Title: Selected Poems by T. S. Eliot ISBN: 0156806479 Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: 01 February, 1967 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: Imagist Poem by William Pratt, Willam Pratt ISBN: 1586540092 Publisher: Story Line Press Pub. Date: 01 June, 2001 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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