Pound's Propertius, Again

Abstract

There is more than a little danger in too-often reading a poem in the same light, in always approaching by the easy and familiar path. No exception is Pound's Homage To Sextus Propertius, which from the date of its publication to virtually the present moment has excited lively and amusing controversy centering primarily on its qualities and integrity qua translation. At times, the debate has reached such a pitch that intelligent and decorous analysis has given way to (literary-) critical sniping, name-calling and the like. This is good; poetry ought to affect people in the visceral ways Pound's translation has. But the issue, in the terms hitherto suggested, is probably irresolvable. In essence, Pound has written a poem that in obvious ways depends upon and translates selected portions of the Propertian corpus, even while altering some of that Propertius beyond all recognition. What does one call this? To call it translation is to invite criticism on grounds of inaccuracy. Plenty of that. To think it no translation at all, but strictly an original poem, as Donald Davie has done, is manifestly implausible: one simply can't wish the Latin poem away.1 To take the middle road as J. P. Sullivan has done, and call it creative translation along lines dictated by Johnson and Fitzgerald, invites criticism from both extremes, particularly in its logically necessary attempts to elevate plain errors (as they appear to the ordinary eye) into patterns of calculated ironic distortion.2 These are the themes of the Homage criticism to date, and they and their variations are no doubt destined to a long half-life.3 For the single indisputable fact is that the poem is stubbornly there