Ezra Pound and the Career of Modern Criticism: Professional Attention

274 Pages·2018·6.077 MB·English

by  Michael Coyle, Roxana Preda, Brian Yothers (series editor)

Ezra Pound
M i c h a e l and thE CarEEr of
co y l e

R o x a n a ModErn CritiCisM
and
PRe d a
Ezra Pound and the Career of Modern Criticism
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Studies in American Literature and Culture:
Literary Criticism in Perspective
Brian Yothers, Series Editor
(El Paso, Texas)
About Literary Criticism in Perspective
Books in the series Literary Criticism in Perspective trace liter-
ary scholarship and criticism on major and neglected writers
alike, or on a single major work, a group of writers, a liter-
ary school or movement. In so doing the authors—authori-
ties on the topic in question who are also well-versed in the
principles and history of literary criticism—address a reader-
ship consisting of scholars, students of literature at the gradu-
ate and undergraduate level, and the general reader. One of
the primary purposes of the series is to illuminate the nature
of literary criticism itself, to gauge the influence of social and
historic currents on aesthetic judgments once thought objec-
tive and normative.
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Ezra Pound and the Career
of Modern Criticism
Professional Attention
Michael Coyle
and
Roxana Preda
Rochester, New York
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Copyright © 2018 Michael Coyle and Roxana Preda
All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation,
no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system,
published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast, transmitted,
recorded, or reproduced in any form or by any means,
without the prior permission of the copyright owner.
First published 2018
by Camden House
Camden House is an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Inc.
668 Mt. Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620, USA
www.camden-house.com
and of Boydell & Brewer Limited
PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK
www.boydellandbrewer.com
ISBN-13: 978-1-57113-192-8
ISBN-10: 1-57113-192-2
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Coyle, Michael, 1957– author. | Preda, Roxana, 1959– author.
Title: Ezra Pound and the career of modern criticism : professional attention
/ Michael Coyle and Roxana Preda.
Description: Rochester, New York : Camden House, 2018. | Series: Stud-
ies in American literature and culture: Literary criticism in perspective |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018019945| ISBN 9781571131928 (hardcover : alk.
paper) | ISBN 1571131922 (hardcover : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Pound, Ezra, 1885–1972—Criticism and interpretation. |
Criticism—United States—History—20th century.
Classification: LCC PS3531.O82 Z62368 218 | DDC 811/.52—dc23 LC
record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018019945
This publication is printed on acid-free paper.
Printed in the United States of America.
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Gone now forever that heroic age
When roaring Ezra stormed our country stage!
His stride was long, his shout was long and high,
Flame rolled in all directions from each eye;
And if his fist spun round and clapped his ear,
It mattered little, since the bent was clear.
He made our grandsires slubber in their seats,
Time-serving editors hunt safe retreats;
And when the lion turned away and slept,
His enervated victims softly wept;
Each fool was breathless not to make a sound,
Sweating with terror lest he awaken Pound.
—Yvor Winters, “The Critiad”
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Contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xv
1: From Wabash to Washington, 1907–1947 1
2: A Prize Fight and Institutionalization, 1948–1951 23
3: Kenner, Watts, and Professional Attention, 1951–1961 47
4: Sailing after Knowledge, 1962–1971 76
5: The Pound Era and Its Monumental Companion,
1971–1985 95
6: Pound Studies and the Postmodern Turn, 1980–1990 107
7: Reading Pound in the New Millennium, 1990–2016 133
8: The Many Lives of Ezra Pound: Biographies and Memoirs,
1960–2015 160
9: Educating the World: Periodicals on Ezra Pound, 1954–2017 181
Conclusion 207
Chronology of the Bollingen Controversy 213
Works Cited 219
Index 245
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Preface
The historical relevance of literature is not based on an organi-
zation of literary works which is established post factum, but on
the reader’s past experience of the “literary data.”
—Hans Robert Jauss, “Literary History
as a Challenge to Literary Theory”
THE RECEPTION HISTORY of Ezra Pound arguably entails the history of
academic criticism itself. To make that argument is not necessarily to
reaffirm Hugh Kenner’s vision of “the Pound era,” but rather to recog-
nize that, after the Second World War, Pound’s work became the decisive
battleground upon which the new critics initially established their domi-
nance, and over which subsequently swept successive forms of feminist
and poststructuralist theory.1 Pound’s work was and remains a challenge
to all critical models. At once inviting and resisting exegesis, The Cantos
in particular has been for three quarters of a century the ultimate prov-
ing ground. By the second decade of the twenty-first century, questions
of canonicity came to seem less urgent, but Pound’s work continues to
attract new approaches, even if these no longer accelerate more general
professional anxieties and concerns. In other words, without ever having
achieved unchallenged canonical status, Pound’s work has long been cen-
tral to questions of what disciplinarity in English might mean.
Professional attention, in the context of Anglo-American departments
of English, is shaped and regulated by the dynamic rules of disciplinar-
ity. These rules have changed over time, are changing still, and doubtless
should change with the evolving role of academic writing and authority
in the culture at large. But at any particular moment rules and conven-
tions—both explicit codes and regulations like double-blind referees—as
well as implicit conventions about fairness or avoiding merely ad homi-
nem attacks—govern critical behavior. Academic communities are formed
with inner dissensions and agreements—the strength lies in numbers and
in the endless revision of accepted and shared knowledge. Moreover, such
expectations govern not just what is said, and how, but also where such
work is suitably published. This much is evident in the straightforward
instructions of the series in which this volume participates, “Literary Crit-
icism in Perspective,” to its authors:
“Literary criticism” as used here means scholarly literary analyses
written by academics, professional reviewers or writers and published
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