Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Ezra Pound

Critical Essay by Ezra Pound

[A Boy's Will] is a little raw, and has in it a number of infelicities; underneath them it has the tang of the New Hampshire woods, and it has just this utter sincerity. It is not post-Miltonic or post-Swinburnian or post-Kiplonian. This man has the good sense to speak naturally and to paint the thing, the thing as he sees it. And to do this is a very different matter from gunning about for the circumplectious polysyllable. (p. 1)

He has now and then a beautiful simile, well used, but he is for the most part [simple]…. He is without sham and without affectation. (p. 2)

Ezra Pound, "'A Boy's Will'," in Poetry (© 1913 by The Modern Poetry Association; all rights reserved; reprinted by permission of the Editor of Poetry and New Directions, Agents for the Trustees of the Ezra Pound Literary Property Trust), Vol. II, No. 2,...
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