Ezra Pound - E.P. Ode Pour L'election De Son Sepulchre
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For three years, out of key with his time,
He strove to resuscitate the dead art
Of poetry; to maintain "the sublime"
In the old sense. Wrong from the start--
No, hardly, but seeing he had been born
In a half savage country, out of date;
Bent resolutely on wringing lilies from the acorn;
Capaneus; trout for factitious bait;
Idmen gar toi panth, hos eni troie
Caught in the unstopped ear;
Giving the rocks small lee-way
The chopped seas held him, therefore, that year.
His true Penelope was Flaubert,
He fished by obstinate isles;
Observed the elegance of Circe's hair
Rather than the mottoes on sun-dials.
Unaffected by "the march of events,"
He passed from men's memory in l'an trentuniesme
de son eage;the case presents
No adjunct to the Muses' diadem.
II
The age demanded an image
Of its accelerated grimace,
Something for the modern stage
Not, at any rate, an Attic grace;
Not, certainly, the obscure reveries
Of the inward gaze;
Better mendacities
Than the classics in paraphrase!
The "age demanded" chiefly a mould in plaster,
Made with no loss of time,
A prose kinema, not, not assuredly, alabaster
Or the "sculpture" of rhyme.
III
The tea-rose tea-gown, etc.
Supplants the mousseline of Cos,
The pianola "replaces"
Sappho's barbitos.
Christ follows Dionysus,
Phallic and ambrosial
Made way for macerations;
Caliban casts out Ariel.
All things are a flowing
Sage Heracleitus say;
But a tawdry cheapness
Shall outlast our days.
Even the Christian beauty
Defects--after Samothrace;
We see to kalon
Decreed in the market place.
Faun's flesh is not to us,
Nor the saint's vision.
We have the press for wafer;
Franchise for circumcision.
All men, in law, are equals.
Free of Pisistratus,
We choose a knave or an eunuch
To rule over us.
O bright Apollo,
Tin andra, tin heroa, tina theon,
What god, man or hero
Shall I place a tin wreath upon!
IV
These fought in any case,
And some believing,
pro domo, in any case...
Some quick to arm,
some for adventure,
some from fear of weakness,
some from fear of censure,
some for love of slaughter, in imagination,
learning later...
some in fear, learning love of slaughter;
Died some, pro patria,
non "dulce" not "et decor"...
walked eye-deep in hell
believing old men's lies, then unbelieving
came home, home to a lie,
home to many deceits,
home to old lies and new infamy;
usury age-old and age-thick
and liars in public places.
Daring as never before, wastage as never before.
Young blood and high blood,
fair cheeks, and fine bodies;
fortitude as never before
frankness as never before,
disillusions as never told in the old days,
hysterias, trench confessions,
laughter out of dead bellies.
V
There died a myriad,
And of the best, among them,
For an old bitch gone in the teeth,
For a botched civilization,
Charm, smiling at the good mouth,
Quick eyes gone under earth's lid,
For two gross of broken statues,
For a few thousand battered books.
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Added: on October 21st, 2005 at 6:09 AM | Viewed: 10111 times |  Comments (4)
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E.P. Ode Pour L'election De Son Sepulchre - Comments and Information
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Poet: Ezra Pound (Ezra Pound Art)
Poem: E.P. Ode Pour L'election De Son Sepulchre
Poem of the Day:
Dec 21 2004
Comment 4 of 4, added on November 29th, 2008 at 12:59 AM.
In 1960, roughly speaking, Ezra Pound delivered his verdict on the state of poetry and art of his time; that was because he believed in the uselessness of art as it was practiced. It functioned to a no real objective because there was a widening gab between true art and that of the one in practice. “For three years, out of key with his time” he was at variance with his legacy and he was a man singing alone his only song simply because that which was being sung wasn’t an imaged that could convey the genuine nature of art i.e. disinterested art. Art was seen as a deformed creature because of some people not because of art itself; that art should have been detached from any other aspect apart from art itself.
The art that doesn’t serve issues that are related to art or serve humanity is not an art.
For three years he found himself abundant by his own time and so he was forced to abandon his time. There has been a witch driven to be artist and true art and the mission of the poet must be the production of a fine art or an art that serves the salvation of humanity from a civilization that has become monstrous. The mission is to resuscitate the dead art of poetry i.e. to bring it back to life once more by infusing doses of glorious past that could pump new blood into the arteries of the heart of poetry that has gone dry simply for drinking contaminated and unclean water.
Again in the first stanza Ezra Pound pinpoints with great accuracy the period that started to produce such false art. The implied meaning is so simple: true art has gone off the road to a desert of minds and above all morals. The poet’s mission, in this context, is to restore the sublime of poetry because poetry is a living consciousness of nation, the never dying value in a changing world.
In the second stanza, he attributes this falling state of poetry to the heritage of a country he calls half a savage. Ezra Pound, an American by birth, retraced the status of his forefathers in the old continent and found that America, the wild continent, hasn’t reached maturity as far as civilization is concerned; that’s why he calls it half a savage country, a county that has been forgotten by time and that’s why he is zooming back to places of formidable cultural heritage.
The examples he presents are very lively. They address human desire and the never dying flame of a human passion that though it may flicker, it – nevertheless – withers all storms.
‘his true Penelope’ Penelope is Odysseus’s wife i.e. she is his truelove; truelove means that you love even your work, your country, your past i.e. you love everything. Penelope waited for him for 20 years just like nature waits to renew itself. He was in war for 10 years and on his way back he was fated to suffer for 10 more years. She never lost hope that is the true implementation of passion. That’s why Pound calls for this kind of faithfulness for poetry and moreover not to prostitute our own ideas, to make them as faithful as Penelope.
In his intricate and intrinsic explication of a foreseen nature of poetry, Pound dug up history to locate timeless examples of faithfulness, like that of Penelope to her husband Odysseus. The Greek hero went to war for ten years and on his return he was fated to suffer for ten more years. His wife never lost hope in the return of her husband who resisted all temptations to stay and never to go back to his faithful wife, the legendary Penelope. This woman was an example of the woman who stands for ideals as is the case with art because art, as the word indicates, suggests sublimity of thinking and the best of human values. Art should be as faithful as Penelope herself, it should never wither and never succumb to temptation whatsoever; that’s why he was out of key with an art that sells its own values, procures its own ideas for the cheapest not the highest better.
Abdullah Jelelati from Saudi Arabia
Comment 3 of 4, added on December 10th, 2005 at 11:42 PM.
is this poem difficult, or is it just me.
all those references really throw me.
i would like to know tons of stuff just like e.l.p.
steven from United States
Comment 2 of 4, added on October 21st, 2005 at 6:09 AM.
I wake up every moning with tear upon my face, i think to myself, what has happened to me.
My life has got turned upside down, i need a friend to turn my fown upside down.
Never did i love someone but now that you've come threw, my life can be better, and i can help you.
Jessica Adams
Lizina kyles from United States
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In 1960, roughly speaking, Ezra Pound delivered his verdict on the state of poetry and art of his time; that was because he believed in the uselessness of art as it was practiced. It functioned to a no real objective because there was a widening gab between true art and that of the one in practice. “For three years, out of key with his time” he was at variance with his legacy and he was a man singing alone his only song simply because that which was being sung wasn’t an imaged that could convey the genuine nature of art i.e. disinterested art. Art was seen as a deformed creature because of some people not because of art itself; that art should have been detached from any other aspect apart from art itself.
The art that doesn’t serve issues that are related to art or serve humanity is not an art.
For three years he found himself abundant by his own time and so he was forced to abandon his time. There has been a witch driven to be artist and true art and the mission of the poet must be the production of a fine art or an art that serves the salvation of humanity from a civilization that has become monstrous. The mission is to resuscitate the dead art of poetry i.e. to bring it back to life once more by infusing doses of glorious past that could pump new blood into the arteries of the heart of poetry that has gone dry simply for drinking contaminated and unclean water.
Again in the first stanza Ezra Pound pinpoints with great accuracy the period that started to produce such false art. The implied meaning is so simple: true art has gone off the road to a desert of minds and above all morals. The poet’s mission, in this context, is to restore the sublime of poetry because poetry is a living consciousness of nation, the never dying value in a changing world.
In the second stanza, he attributes this falling state of poetry to the heritage of a country he calls half a savage. Ezra Pound, an American by birth, retraced the status of his forefathers in the old continent and found that America, the wild continent, hasn’t reached maturity as far as civilization is concerned; that’s why he calls it half a savage country, a county that has been forgotten by time and that’s why he is zooming back to places of formidable cultural heritage.
The examples he presents are very lively. They address human desire and the never dying flame of a human passion that though it may flicker, it – nevertheless – withers all storms.
‘his true Penelope’ Penelope is Odysseus’s wife i.e. she is his truelove; truelove means that you love even your work, your country, your past i.e. you love everything. Penelope waited for him for 20 years just like nature waits to renew itself. He was in war for 10 years and on his way back he was fated to suffer for 10 more years. She never lost hope that is the true implementation of passion. That’s why Pound calls for this kind of faithfulness for poetry and moreover not to prostitute our own ideas, to make them as faithful as Penelope.
In his intricate and intrinsic explication of a foreseen nature of poetry, Pound dug up history to locate timeless examples of faithfulness, like that of Penelope to her husband Odysseus. The Greek hero went to war for ten years and on his return he was fated to suffer for ten more years. His wife never lost hope in the return of her husband who resisted all temptations to stay and never to go back to his faithful wife, the legendary Penelope. This woman was an example of the woman who stands for ideals as is the case with art because art, as the word indicates, suggests sublimity of thinking and the best of human values. Art should be as faithful as Penelope herself, it should never wither and never succumb to temptation whatsoever; that’s why he was out of key with an art that sells its own values, procures its own ideas for the cheapest not the highest better.
Abdullah Jelelati from Saudi Arabia