Modernism

Author(s): Mary de Rachewiltz

Source: Contemporary Sociology, Vol. 40, No. 5 (September 2011), pp. 533-535
Published by: American Sociological Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23042357
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 American Sociological Association 2011
DOI: 10.1177/0094306111419106
http:/ / cs.sagepub.com

SPECIAL ESSAY

Modernism

Mary de Rachewiltz,
Brunnenberg, Italy

"miracle of five intelligent visitors / such

a gathering possible OUTSIDE a bughouse Editor's
?" note: An invited essay inspired by
wrote Ezra Pound to Olivia Rossetti AgrestiModernism in the Magazines: An
from St. Elizabeths Hospital. In Rome, Via Introduction, by Robert Scholes and
Ciro Menotti 36, the old lady did her best.Clifford Wulfman. New Haven, CT:
She offered tea on Sunday afternoon. Her Yale University Press, 2010. 340pp.
"gathering" consisted of three contempora $40.00 cloth. ISBN: 9780300142044.
ries: her sister Helen, usually accompanied
by her daughter Imogen Dennis, Luigi Mary de Rachewiltz is the daughter of
Villari, Cammillo Pellizzi and a young couEzra Pound.
ple in their twenties. ORA's voice, lined
with transparent irony when speaking of
"isms," used to quote her uncle, the "Pre
since in the appendix, Studies in Contempo
Rafaelite" Dante Gabriel Rossetti: "I am no rary Mentality, Pound is allowed to speak for
lte, I am a Poet." Thus teaching the young himself. The book opens with three epigraphs,
to "sort out the animals," i.e., learn the two quotations from letters to James Joyce and
names and the dates of the founders and of Wyndham Lewis and one from Make It New,
with the incisive statement : "You can't
participants in various movements, as well
as examine their motives and productions.know an era merely by knowing its best"
Pound has been known as the founder of (p. 1). It might equally be said: by knowing
Imagism and Vorticism, though he soon
its worst, let alone when speaking of a poet
went his own way. He was spared being
or even of a political movement and a coun
linked to Futurism, but not other next door
try. There are sharp pointers to two essential
isms, such as Fascism and racism. However, books for the serious reader: Donald Gall
he always took responsibility for his own up's Ezra Pound: A Bibliography (University
words: ego scriptor and "Ezra Pound of Virgina Press 1983) and David Moody's
speaking." Ezra Pound : Poet: A Portrait of the Man and
In recent years scholars and critics more His Work; Volume 1, The Young Genius 1885
and more often refer to him as the founder 1920 (Oxford University Press 2007).
of Modernism. So it's time to distinguish
Pound says that we advance by discrimi
between modernism and modernity which nation and by practicing the virtue of
. .inevitably sets itself only such tasks asprecision.
it
is able to solve" (cf. Joshua Clover, "A formThe authors of Modernism in the Magazines
adequate to history," Paideuma 37: 325).are
A not afraid of calling Pound an "elitist."
number of books such as Michael North's Though the tensions may remain insoluble,
The Dialect of Modernism : Race, Language,
the elitist must include also the pluralist. In
and Twentieth-Century Literature (OxfordPRAEFATIO
Uni AD LECTOREM ELECTUM,
The Spirit of Romance (1910: 6) he said:
versity Press 1994), Modernism and Copyright:
Modernist Literature and Culture, edited"[.
by. .] many dead men are our grandchil
dren's contemporaries." Note the ELEC
Paul K. Saint-Amour (Oxford University
TUM. Half a century later, in Thrones
Press 2010) and Modernism in the Magazines
by Robert Scholes and Clifford Wulfman (Canto XCVI: 679) there's one of the very
are enlightening. The latter is especially sofootnotes: "If we never write anything
rare

533 Contemporary Sociology 40, 5

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534 Special Essay

save what is already understood, the field of appear in Blast: "I cling to the spar. . . .Cow
understanding will never be extended. One ardly editors threaten: 'If I dare'... Then they
demands the right, now and again, to write will have my guts; They will cut down my
for a few people whose special interests and wage,-" etc., July 1915. . .
whose curiosity reaches into greater detail." As late as 1959, in a BBC interview, one can
The Cantos may still be waiting for a contem hear him lament "they don't get the IRONY."
porary reader, "the pyramid builder,/ wait When a young man sets out to build a "para
ing there to be born" (CXIII: 808). And diso terrestre," to achieve the possible, he
always a good Concordance will be the best must perforce skim over large territories,
guide to the Epic that includes economics. looking at coast lines, bounding in periplum,
But let's not stray from the Collection making mistakes, yet willing to "correct it
of Little Magazines with their roster of with cheerfulness." By the time he came to
advertisementsa kind of sottisier, whichrely on the principles of Confucius, the
reads like a detective novel. A somewhat dif
Univobbling Pivot, the enemy had been iden
ferent jesting is to be found in Sigismundo
tified in das Leihkapital. It was time to be seri
Malatesta, talking to his steward: ous. In ? Versus Camouflage, January 10, 1918
(p. 322) one senses the stress of the war
"And one day he said: Henry, you canand the awareness that
have it,/ On condition, you can have
it: for four months/You'll stand any
"Anyone can run to excesses,/ It is
reasonable joke that I play on you, /
easy to shoot past the mark,
And you can joke back/ provided you
don't get too ornry." (XI: 52). It is hard to stand firm in the middle"
(XIII: 59).
Could the little booklet SUPERMAN, pub
Yet
lished by Constable & Co., Ltd, London when asked in 1965 to contribute to the
T.S.Eliot "Memorial" in The Sewanee Review,
1934, edited by Ephraim Pundit, have been
a late redress ? after paying the high homage: "His was
the true Dantescan voice he asked:
One of the pleasures Scholes and Wulfman
"Who is there now for me to share a jo
offer is the highlighting of the hilarious
"hirsuta et pexa" game, the rough and with?"
the
smooth, Pound played with the various Both Modernists in excelsis may at times
magazines, contrasting the aim of the have
one fallen prey to identity politics or reli
to the other, "Making no compromise with gion, but that's when they most teased each
other. While Pound went on feeding cats or
the public taste" (p. 13). While ferociously
attacking the contemporary British mentali stranded artists, his friend the Possum wrote
ty, he divides the audiences and the aims The Book of Practical Cats, (now I am being
catty: Eliot as Chief Editor at Fabers having
of the periodicals into five categories, some
what with tongue in cheek, from those chan previously refused, because it would not
nelling thought to those designed to stop sell, Br'er Rabbit's translation of his 12
thought altogether. year-old daughter's "Gais: The Beauties of
A triumphant 23-year-old wrote to the
hisTyrol").
parents from Venice in 1908: "Sound the
"Don't lose your sense of humor" is the best
trumpet, let zipp the drum & swatt the big advice I've ever had, and from my mother at
that. Have present-day Modernists kept theirs
bassoon. It pays to advertise." His first book
of poems, A Lume Spento, had just been or have they succumbed to the vulgarity of
publishedat his own expenseergo also materialism hatching violence? The two Mas
the art of advertising had to be practicedters
to have stated "In my end is my beginning"
achieve distribution, and fame. and "Things have ends and beginnings.'' Mod
In London, as the WWI years draggedernism on may by now be passe. Only high Poet
and a "cold and bitter" wind blew across ry keeps the beginnings alive, sets forever
the country, the weariness of the job, keel to brakers, renews itself with every sun.
writing
All isms can be considered stepping stones
to pay the rent, despite the banter, is clearly
readable between the lines. The let-upsacross the great river of Art, ever flowing,

Contemporary Sociology 40, 5

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 Special Essay 535

never the same water, reflecting the land Chancing on "a lonely De Gama doubling
scape, carrying the jetsam and flotsam (two an uncharted cape" (Blackwoods, 23 August
words that bring to mind e.e.cummings, is 1917:229 will make you smileaha, already
he a modernist? He undoubtedly had a sense then. . .and in Canto VII: De Gama wore
of humor as well as a sense of Tradition). striped pants in Africa. A whole lesson in
They all need Kindergarten, was Pound's detail to be learned. Or from other such
constant complaint at St. Liz. When he names that were not familiar before one
returned to Italy, his complaint was: they had to look them up for the "detail" in their
expect me to be a telephone directory. Wheth historical context.
er this has any relevance to the different edu
cational systems or different mind sets, is an
open question. One thing experience dic Reference
tates: the enjoyment with the sottisier will Pound, Ezra. 1996. The Cantos of Ezra Pound. New
be greater after having digested the Cantos. York, NY: New Directions.

Contemporary Sociology 40, 5

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