The fundamental principle of [Ezra Pound's Cantos is the] attempt to express ideas only in terms of sensory impression, and by its very nature it was bound to fail. Pound cannot, after all, stop us from inferring wrong ideas from the fact presented; as Yvor Winters has cogently argued, the method leaves us at best with "no way of knowing whether we have had any ideas or not." Pound, the dumb pedlar, sinks under the weight of his pack, a familiar and miscellaneous collection of fragments gathered in a lifetime of travels. He is an ancient mariner who cannot hold us, for he is unable to tell his story coherently.
It is not the least of Mr. Davie's virtues that in his excellent new book [Ezra Pound: Poet as Sculptor] he faces squarely such objections to Pound and yet argues convincingly for his status as a major poet of the century. He does not fall into the trap of total commitment to the Cantos, and there is no talk of an illusory coherence of design or strength of construction: instead we are made aware of the deeply conflicting elements in the poet's practice. Committed to a language of particulars, Pound is nevertheless fascinated by ideas, as only a dogmatist can be…. Although the Cantos fail as an epic account of history and in their attempt to establish standards of judgment and a pantheon of heroes, they do often succeed as lyric, the lyric that has to do with time past. "Wherever Pound deals with history successfully, he does so in an elegiac, not an epic, spirit"; and so Mr. Davie rests the burden of his case on the reflective verse of The Pisan Cantos and Section Rock-Drill. Mr. Davie is able to seize this essential point about Pound's poetry as it has not been grasped before…. (pp. 75-6)
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