Ezra Pound's Washington Cantos and the Struggle for Light

305 Pages·2021·2.762 MB·English

by  Alec Marsh

Ezra Pound’s Washington Cantos
and the Struggle for Light
Historicizing Modernism
Series Editors
Matthew Feldman, Professorial Fellow, Norwegian Study Centre, University of
York; and Erik Tonning, Professor of British Literature and Culture, University
of Bergen, Norway
Assistant Editor: David Tucker, Associate Lecturer, Goldsmiths College,
University of London, UK
Editorial Board
Professor Chris Ackerley, Department of English, University of Otago, New
Zealand; Professor Ron Bush, St. John’s College, University of Oxford, UK;
Dr Finn Fordham, Department of English, Royal Holloway, UK; Professor
Steven Matthews, Department of English, University of Reading, UK;
Dr Mark Nixon, Department of English, University of Reading, UK;
Dr Julie Taylor, Northumbria University, UK; Professor Shane Weller,
Reader in Comparative Literature, University of Kent, UK;
and Professor Janet Wilson, University of Northampton, UK.
Historicizing Modernism challenges traditional literary interpretations by
taking an empirical approach to modernist writing: a direct response to new
documentary sources made available over the last decade.
Informed by archival research, and working beyond the usual European/
American avant-garde 1900–45 parameters, this series reassesses established
readings of modernist writers by developing fresh views of intellectual contexts
and working methods.
Series Titles:
Arun Kolatkar and Literary Modernism in India, Laetitia Zecchini
British Literature and Classical Music, David Deutsch
Broadcasting in the Modernist Era, Matthew Feldman, Henry Mead and
Erik Tonning
Charles Henri Ford, Alexander Howard
Chicago and the Making of American Modernism, Michelle E. Moore
Ezra Pound’s Adams Cantos, David Ten Eyck
Ezra Pound’s Eriugena, Mark Byron
Great War Modernisms and The New Age Magazine, Paul Jackson
James Joyce and Absolute Music, Michelle Witen
James Joyce and Catholicism, Chrissie van Mierlo
John Kasper and Ezra Pound, Alec Marsh
Katherine Mansfield and Literary Modernism, ed. by Janet Wilson,
Gerri Kimber and Susan Reid
Late Modernism and the English Intelligencer, Alex Latter
The Life and Work of Thomas MacGreevy, Susan Schreibman
Literary Impressionism, Rebecca Bowler
Modern Manuscripts, Dirk Van Hulle
Modernism at the Microphone, Melissa Dinsman
Modernist Lives, Claire Battershill
The Politics of 1930s British Literature, Natasha Periyan
Reading Mina Loy’s Autobiographies, Sandeep Parmar
Reframing Yeats, Charles Ivan Armstrong
Samuel Beckett and Arnold Geulincx, David Tucker
Samuel Beckett and the Bible, Iain Bailey
Samuel Beckett and Cinema, Anthony Paraskeva
Samuel Beckett’s ‘More Pricks than Kicks’, John Pilling
Samuel Beckett’s German Diaries 1936–1937, Mark Nixon
T. E. Hulme and the Ideological Politics of Early Modernism, Henry Mead
Virginia Woolf’s Late Cultural Criticism, Alice Wood
Christian Modernism in an Age of Totalitarianism, Jonas Kurlberg
Samuel Beckett and Experimental Psychology, Joshua Powell
Samuel Beckett in Confinement, James Little
Katherine Mansfield: New Directions, ed. by Aimée Gasston,
Gerri Kimber and Janet Wilson
Modernist Wastes, Caroline Knighton
The Many Drafts of D. H. Lawrence, Elliott Morsia
Samuel Beckett and the Second World War, William Davies
Judith Wright and Emily Carr, Anne Collett and Dorothy Jones
Upcoming titles
Samuel Beckett and Science, Chris Ackerley
iv
Ezra Pound’s Washington
Cantos and the Struggle
for Light
Alec Marsh
Edited and with annotations by Archie Henderson
BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC
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First published in Great Britain 2021
Copyright © Alec Marsh, 2021
Alec Marsh has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work.
For legal purposes the Acknowledgments on p. xiii constitute an
extension of this copyright page.
Cover design by Jade Barnett and Eleanor Rose
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ISBN: HB: 978-1-3500-9655-4
ePDF: 978-1-3500-9656-1
eBook: 978-1-3500-9657-8
Series: Historicizing Modernism
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In memoriam
Burton Hatlen
viii
Contents
List of Figures xi
Editoral Preface to Historicizing Modernism xii
Acknowledgments xiii
A Note on the Text and Permissions xv
Abbreviations xvi
Intro to a Sequel 1
1 The Washington Cantos: Anagogy, Metapolitics, and the
Warren Court 9
Rock-Drill de los Cantares (1955) and Thrones (1959) 9
Metapolitics and Politics 17
“Four Steps to the Bughouse” 24
The Warren Court 27
2 Obstacles to Understanding the Washington Cantos 33
Aesopian Language and Its Problems 36
Pound’s Reading and the Poverty of Philology 40
Trobar Clus 45
Pound’s “Late Style” 45
The “Cleaners Manifesto” 47
3 Aesopian Language and States’ Rights: Two Fables—
John Randolph of Roanoke and Canto 103 51
John Randolph of Roanoke 52
Canto 103 57
4 The Aryanist Vortex: Pound’s Metapolitics and White Supremacy 77
Pound’s Taxonomy of Human Types 84
“Freedom Now or Never” 87
5 Raising Cain: The Aryan Origins of Civilization 95
“Alfalfa Bill” Murray’s Adam and Cain 96
Waddell, Egypt, and the Aryan Makers of Civilization 99
Pound’s “Egyptian Problem” 104