ABSTRACT
The massive isolation of Ezra Pound has probably not been surpassed by that of any other poet in any other generation, and seldom equalled. His latest volume gives final emphasis to his position. Coolly immersed in the meanings, deeds, designs, lustres, and peoples of past ages, he regards the present civilization only for moments, and then with a dryly satirical chuckle. His poetry is equally separated from the understanding and appreciation of his generation. The Dadaists dislike his mental coherence, removed from the monotone of careless humour to which they bow, and the conservatives feebly attack him, a little frightened at his erudition and vicious sneer. Between these extremes he must look in vain for greetings. The radicals among young poets and critics, much concerned with the yearnings and turbulence of their day, or with a decorative escape from this turmoil, find him too hard, too dryly aloof. They can take ecstasy from the violently coloured rhetoric of an Amy Lowell—much ado about blues and reds and greens in their relation to overworked emotional significances—or from the chaste miniatures of an H.D., or from the country-lane gossip of a Robert Frost, but Pound, with a cold fire that darts from the intellect, cannot arouse their desire. He insults the surface importance of their own time and their noisily confident relation to this importance; he deals for the most part with past centuries and their contrast with the present one; and his style demands a feverish mental agility on the part of his reader. This combination does not appeal to a young generation that seeks its wisdom from shallower and more brightly tinted substances. His opaque isolation is one of carved metal standing apart from the thin transparencies of a contemporary world, and this position is sternly disclosed in his latest book of verse.
