Translations of Greek tragedy in the work of Ezra Pound

281 Pages·2019·2.317 MB·English

by  Peter Th. M. G. Liebregts

Translations of Greek Tragedy in the
Work of Ezra Pound
i
Bloomsbury Studies in Classical Reception
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ii
Translations of Greek Tragedy in
the Work of Ezra Pound
Peter Liebregts
iii
BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC
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First published in Great Britain 2019

Copyright © Peter Liebregts, 2019

Peter Liebregts has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act,
1988, to be identifi ed as Author of this work.

F or legal purposes the Acknowledgements on p. ix constitute an extension of this
copyright page.

Cover design: Terry Woodley
Cover image © Stage and cavea of ancient ruins of Greek Theatre, Syracuse, Sicily.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Liebregts, P. Th. M. G., author.
Title: Translations of Greek tragedy in the work of Ezra Pound / Peter Liebregts.
Description: London ; New York, NY : Bloomsbury Academic, 2019. | Series: Bloomsbury
studies in classical reception | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifi ers: LCCN 2019010452| ISBN 9781350084155 (hb) | ISBN 9781350084179 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781350084162 (PDF)
Subjects: LCSH: Pound, Ezra, 1885–1972--Criticism and interpretation. | Pound, Ezra,
1885–1972–Knowledge–Language and languages. | Greek language–Translating into
English–History–20th century. | Greek drama (Tragedy)–Translations into English–History
and criticism. | Sophocles–Translations into English–History and criticism. |
Aeschylus–Translations into English–History and criticism.
Classifi cation: LCC PS3531.O82 Z73835 2019 | DDC 811/.52—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019010452

ISBN: HB: 978-1-3500-8415-5
ePDF: 978-1-3500-8416-2
eBook: 978-1-3500-8417-9

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iv
Contents
Preface vi
Acknowledgements ix
Notes on the Text xi
List of Abbreviations xii
1 Translation, Metrics and Greek Tragedy 1
2 Ezra Pound and Aeschylus 21
3 Ezra Pound and Sophocles 47
4 Sophocles, Pound and E lektra I 67
5 Sophocles, Pound and E lektra II 97
6 Sophocles, Pound and E lektra III 123
7 W omen of Trachis – Introduction 153
8 Sophocles, Pound and W omen of Trachis I 173
9 Sophocles, Pound and W omen of Trachis II 209
Bibliography 249
I ndex 255
v
Preface
Th e picture on the cover of this book is of the Greek theatre near Siracusa on
Sicily, built in the fi ft h century bce and renovated in the Roman period. In
January 1925 Ezra Pound and William Butler Yeats visited the site, and in his
essay ‘Hell’ (1934) the American poet recalled that Yeats wanted him to speak
some verse aloud to test out the acoustics. Th e Irish poet was annoyed when
Pound ‘bellowed’ Sappho’s Greek ode to Aphrodite, but he explained his refusal
to ‘spout English poesy’ by claiming that ‘English verse wasn’t CUT’. Th is
anecdote is but one of many telling examples of Pound’s admiration for what he
regarded as the unsurpassed musical and rhythmic quality of classical Greek
poetry, which throughout his life he would champion as a model to emulate in
English.
Th is monograph aims to off er a detailed, at times line- by-line, from Greek to
English philological analysis of Ezra Pound’s translations of Greek tragedy, while
contextualizing these versions with regard to the poet’s biography and his work,
particularly Th e Cantos . Th e key texts are Pound’s renderings of Aeschylus’
Agamemnon and Sophocles’ E lektra and Trachiniae . In the case of the last two
plays, this book will show on the basis of my own cribs of the Greek and through
comparison with English translations by F. Storr and by Richard Jebb, both used
by Pound, how Pound’s versions came about. Th is analysis will include material
that has not as yet been published or has been understudied, particularly Pound’s
annotations to his Loeb edition of Sophocles (now in his personal library at
Brunnenburg), his unpublished correspondence with scholars such as F. R. Earp
and Rudd Fleming, as well as manuscript versions of the plays, and other as yet
unpublished draft s and texts.
Chapter 1, ‘Translation, Metrics, and Greek Tragedy’, deals with the question of
the extent of Ezra Pound’s knowledge of classical Greek, his views on existing
translations from the Greek, and what, in his perspective, a translation should be
like. Th is chapter also discusses Pound’s changing views on the relationship between
poetry and the dramatic element in Greek tragedy, with a particular focus on his
interest in m elopoeia and Greek metrics in relation to English poetry. Th e fi rst
chapter thus contextualizes what will be one of the claims of this book, namely,
that Pound’s renderings are based on a careful reading of the Greek source texts,
vi
Preface vii
which will become clear in the detailed analyses presented in the subsequent
chapters.
Chapter 2, ‘Ezra Pound and Aeschylus’, off ers a detailed look at Pound’s
interest in the Greek playwright. It begins with a discussion of his two essays on
Aeschylus published in Th e Egoist in early 1919, with a focus on what Pound
considered the ‘touchstones’ of the A gamemnon . Given his high praise for this
play, the chapter off ers a philological analysis of Pound’s attempt at rendering the
beginning of the A gamemnon , and concludes with a discussion of Pound’s use of
Aeschylus in Th e Cantos , showing how there is a continuous appropriation of his
writings until the late 1950s, especially of the Oresteia .
Chapter 3, ‘Ezra Pound and Sophocles’, opens with an as yet unpublished text
from the Beinecke library, which is not a translation but rather a spoof on
Sophocles’ O edipus Rex , which can be seen as a bridge between Pound’s attempt
at the A gamemnon and his later work on Sophocles. It then deals with the
infl uence of the work of the classicist F. R. Earp, especially his book Th e Style of
Sophocles (1944), followed by a discussion of Pound’s collaboration with Rudd
Fleming in translating E lektra . Th e chapter ends with possible reasons why
Pound was so attracted to E lektra and Trachiniae , and not to the other Sophoclean
plays.
In Chapter 4. ‘Pound, Sophocles, and Elektra I’, we will fi rst take a look at
scholarly approaches to Sophocles’ E lektra , with a particular focus on Jebb’s
edition and Earp’s book on Sophocles, as these were available to Pound, and
on a contemporary discussion by H. Kitto in G reek Tragedy (1939), before
taking a look at Pound’s method of translating the play. Th e remainder of the
chapter off ers a detailed philological analysis of Pound’s rendering of Sophocles’
Elektra ll. 1–250.
Th is analysis is continued in Chapters 5 and 6, ‘Pound, Sophocles, and
Elektra II’ and ‘Pound, Sophocles, and E lektra III’, dealing with ll. 251–1057
and ll. 1058–1510, respectively. Together these three chapters make clear how
Pound’s work on the play is related to the Pisan Cantos and his 1950s work on
Confucius. By providing the original Greek with a transliteration followed by a
crib, the reader can assess in detail the extent of the relation between Sophocles
and Pound’s, at times idiosyncratic, version. Th e analysis also discusses the
musical interplay in Pound’s version between the Greek and his rendering.
Special attention is paid to the lyrical sections of the play. Furthermore, these
chapters also take into account changes made from typescript to published
version, Fleming’s comments and suggestions, and Pound’s annotations in his
Loeb edition. By off ering this (on occasion line- by-line) analysis, the chapters
viii Preface
provide an in- depth discussion of Pound’s perspective on the play, and on the
characters involved. Chapter 6 ends with a coda discussing Pound’s use of E lektra
in Canto 90.
Chapter 7, ‘ Women of Trachis – Introduction’, surveys scholarly approaches to
Sophocles’ T rachiniae and examines Pound’s methods of translation. It also
includes a discussion of why Pound had such an interest in what, for a long time,
was Sophocles’ least studied play, and relates this interest to the poet’s knowledge
of Japanese Noh as well as his work on Th e Cantos . Th e chapter also makes use
of the unpublished correspondence between F. R. Earp and Pound on the
problems of translating Sophocles and the Trachiniae in particular.
Chapters 8 and 9 (‘Sophocles, Pound, and W omen of Trachis I’; ‘Sophocles,
Pound, and Women of T rachis II’) present a detailed philological analysis of
Pound’s rendering of Sophocles’ T rachiniae ll. 1–632 and ll. 633–1278, respectively,
using the same method as sketched in the overview of the translation of the
Elektra in Chapter 4. It discusses Pound’s version in comparison to literal
translations of the Greek as well as to the translations by Storr and Jebb. Th e
analysis also incorporates the correspondence with F. R. Earp. As the analysis
demonstrates, Pound seems to have been far more confi dent in rendering his
second Greek play, and his deviations and stylistic choices were determined by a
more extreme personal interpretation of the T rachiniae . Th e second half of
Pound’s version makes clear how much of his work on Sophocles was related to
his ongoing work on Th e Cantos , with its dominant themes of love and divine
enlightenment, especially seen in the poet’s rendering of the Exodos, centring on
the word ‘splendour’, which for Pound had strong Neoplatonic connotations.
Acknowledgements
During my work on this book I have greatly benefi ted in conversation and
correspondence from the spirit of collegial exchange which characterizes the
global community of Pound scholars. My debt to them as friends and experts is
enormous, and I especially wish to thank Catherine Paul and Dave Cappella for
their support and so many wonderful get- togethers throughout the years ever
since we fi rst met at Rapallo in 2005. Th e Ezra Pound International Conferences
have always been stimulating sites for lively and enlightening discussions, and
they would not be the same without the Poundians I have met throughout the
years, particularly Anderson Araujo, Bernard Dew, David ten Eyck, Justin
Kishbaugh, Galateia Demetriou, Mark Byron, Ron Smith, Viorica Patea,
Demetres Tryphonopoulos, Ron Bush, Ken Haynes, Akitoshi Nagahata, Richard
Parker, Walter Baumann, Bill Pratt, Roxana Preda, John Gery, Biljana Obradovic,
Sean Pryor, R é ka Mih á lka, Stephen Wilson, Massimo Bacigalupo, Ira Nadel,
Svetlana Ehtee, Andy Trevathan, Krista Rascoe, Eloisa Bressan, Rhett Forman,
and Claudio Sansone. Special thanks are due to Alec Marsh whose work on
(political) Pound in the 1950s has greatly helped me in contextualizing my
fi ndings. Alec also selfl essly made a last- minute trip to Princeton on my behalf
to check on archival material. I also thank David Moody, not only for his
magisterial biography of Pound, but also for his advice in the various stages of
writing my book.
I wish to thank my colleagues at the English Department at Leiden University
for continuing to make my academic environment a pleasant and stimulating
one, particularly Jan Frans van Dijkhuizen, Michael Newton, and Evert Jan van
Leeuwen. Th ank you to Katinka Zeven and Lettie Dorst for their suggestions
about translational matters.
I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to the Pound Estate and New Directions
in New York for their generosity in allowing me to use so much published and
unpublished Pound material. I greatly appreciate all the help and advice off ered
by Chris Wait of New Directions. Most of all I am grateful to Mary de Rachewiltz
who allowed me to consult Pound’s library at Schloss Brunnenburg in Dorf
Tyrol, and I have fond memories of our long discussions over aft ernoon tea. Her
lifelong support for the study of Pound’s work has been essential for all Poundian
ix