Abstract
Ezra Pounds pre-World War I medieval translations are the ugly ducklings of contemporary Pound scholarship. At a time when Pounds work is undergoing unprecedented socio-cultural scrutiny, these works find themselves snubbed.To the extent they are even discussed by critics, the poems are assigned strictly aesthetic importance, and the bulk of scholarship on them is more than twenty years old.1 This is particularly true of Pounds most celebrated pre-war translation?The Seafarer. Although it has long been regarded as one of Pound s major personae, a poem that gives expression to themes of manly virtue and heroic individual endeavor which were dear to the young American expatriate, analyses of the work have always focused on issues of language. Arguing that The Seafarer consistently sacrifices sense to sound,critics have concentrated on Pounds efforts to bring the harsh,alliterative resources of Anglo-Saxon prosody into modern English poetry. They have emphasized how the poem helped break the pentameter and thereby provided the first heave, as Pound would later reflect in Canto 81, in the modernist poetic revolution.2 In contrast to Pounds translations for Cathay (1915) and Homage to Sextus Propertius (1919), which have been rightly perceived as major statements about World War I and British imperialism respectively, The Sea? farer has been considered apolitical. Other than identifying a fiercely antibourgeois undercurrent (Alexander, PoeticAchievement76), critics have never tied it to contemporary political events or controversies, and the assumption that its subject matter exists apart from ideology continues to shape views of the work.3
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.