Super Schoolmaster: Ezra Pound as Teacher, Then and Now

224 Pages·2021·1.434 MB·English

by  Robert Scholes, David Ben-Merre

SUPER
SCHOOLMASTER

SUPER
SCHOOLMASTER
EZRA POUND AS TEACHER,
THEN AND NOW
Robert Scholes
and David Ben-Merre
Cover image from Ezra Pound’s “Announcements” from “The Egoist,” November 1914.
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2021 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever
without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system
or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic,
magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior
permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY
www.sunypress.edu
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Scholes, Robert, author. | Ben-Merre, David, author.
Title: Super schoolmaster : Ezra Pound as teacher, then and now. / Robert Scholes,
author | David Ben-Merre, author.
Description: Albany : State University of New York Press, [2021] | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: ISBN 9781438481470 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438481487
(ebook)
Further information is available at the Library of Congress.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Jo Ann (of course)

Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Preface: Back to Basics xi
Robert Scholes
Preface: In a Station xvii
David Ben-Merre
Introduction 1
Chapter 1 Pounding the Academy: The Poet as Student
and Teacher 9
Chapter 2 The Critic as Teacher: Pound’s “New Method”
in Scholarship 33
Chapter 3 How to Read Comparatively 61
Chapter 4 Periodical Studies 87
Chapter 5 The Instructor as Propagandist 115
Afterword: Schools of Fish 137
David Ben-Merre
Notes 149
Works Cited 181
Index 189
vii

Acknowledgments
We are tremendously grateful to Carl Klaus and Sean Latham for their
encouragement at all stages of this project, and Clifford Wulfman for his
generosity in allowing us to reimagine and amplify a chapter from his
and Bob’s groundbreaking Modernism in the Magazines (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 2010). We offer a very special thanks to our editor Rebecca
Colesworthy, who was also a student of Bob’s. Sadly, Bob passed away
before she became involved in this project, but he would have been so
delighted by this serendipitous turn and ever so thankful—as am I—for
her constant help and unrelenting stewardship. To the entire community
of Bob’s students (from both inside and outside the classroom) and to all
those who continually think and rethink the possibilities of modernism—
thank you.
ix