ABSTRACT
If there is one word which provides the clue to the life-work of Ezra Pound, it is ‘productivity’. To him, man was essentially a productive animal, and if one thinks of Pound’s aestheticism in this light, it ceases to be an escape from life, a charge that could be put plausibly against previous Ivory Tower aestheticism. On the contrary, the life of the ordinary worker is subsumed under that of the artist. Even animals and insects are for Pound essentially artists:
Learn of the green world what can be thy place In scaled invention or true artistry, Pull down thy vanity, Paquin pull down! The green casque has outdone your elegance.
