In the following excerpt, Grieve details some of the critical observations that have been made about Pound's poem.

It might be best, given all the vexed and vexing discussion that has surrounded Ezra Pound's Hugh Selwyn Mauberley, to begin with some simple observations. After briefly making these, I would like, less briefly I'm afraid, to draw out their implications for a reading of Pound's poem and for some perspective on the critical debate that has engulfed it for some seventy years. Whether we agree or not with A. L. French's assessment that "Mauberley has never really caught on," the poem has certainly caught many a reader up in its accomplishments and demands, and threatens to continue doing so. The success of Mauberley in stirring up strife among its commentators is due in large part, I believe, to its being a unique sort of poem— a "homage," to...