ABSTRACT

Mr. Ezra Pound is that rare thing among modern poets, a scholar. He is not only cultivated, but learned. Many modern influences are patent in his verse—Whitman, Rossetti, Browning, Mr. Yeats—but the dominant ones are mediaeval, the romances of the troubadours and old monkish legends. We feel that this writer has in him the capacity for remarkable poetic achievement, but we also feel that at present he is somewhat weighted by his learning. His virility and passion are immense, but somehow we seem to know their origins. He strikes us as a little too bookish and literary, even when he is most untrammelled by metrical conventions. It is ungracious to carp at work which in itself is so fine, but we think it right to hint at the danger. For the rest, Mr. Pound's merits are singularly clear. The 'Ballad of the Goodly Fere' a wonderful presentation of Christ, haunts our memory, as does the savage sestina which contains the reflections of Bertran de Born. Admirable, too, is the strange soliloquy of 'Piere Vidal Old'. Mr. Pound has flutenotes as well, as can be seen from the 'Portrait' on p. 25, and the lovely 'Night Litany'. If he has defects, he has at any rate the true and brimming inspiration. Mr. Flint's In the Net of the Stars has something of the same manner, but the writer has not Mr. Pound's richness or strength of thought.