I pretty much never agree with the folks at Scarriet. Their kneejerk hatred of modernism and all its fruits (fruit of the poisoned tree?) runs right in the face of both my appreciation for modernism (especially high modernism) and for what I perceive to be sort of iconoclasm for the sake of iconoclasm (though in the guise of defending ‘true’ poetry – as a sort of dernière garde against the ravaging evils of modernism, post-modernism, L-A-N-G-U-A-G-E, etc).
This particular posting, is more than normally riling (which is, I suppose the point).
Leaving aside such items as the introduction of Wallace Stevens to the poetry reading public being considered, apparently, a bad thing (item number 7) and also bashing a young poet’s first book as being the final nail in the coffin of all that was bright and beautiful in poetry (item number 10), I would like to draw your attention to number 3 in the list.
3. The Waste Land, 1922
Publishing scheme launched by Pound & Eliot’s crafty lawyer and Golden Dawn/Aleister Crowley associate & British Intelligence agent, John Quinn.
Yes, that’s right. It is never said outright, but the author is clearly trying to suggest that the publication of The Waste Land was not, in fact, the result of someone recognizing the work as an important poem.
No, it’s actually a Satanic plot (‘scheme’) by foreign spies.
Sweet mother of god, people! Really?
And don’t try to deny it. No one in their right could see the referencing of the supposed ‘scheme’ (plot? conspiracy?) of this ‘crafty’ occultist spy as being anything other than a bit of paranoid conspiracy mongering.
Ugh.
the coffee philosopher 
It’s interesting that you love Ezra Pound but can’t abide any allusions to conspiracy theories. Pound tasked his protege Eustace Mullins with unraveling the mystery of the creation of the Federal Reserve (which EM did, resulting in book burnings) as he believed it was the seat of real power in the USA.
Pound knew of the conspiracy and talked about bankers conspiring to drive humanity into servitude and war as a recurring theme.
I don’t know why Scarriet is anti modernist, or think that Pound is a ‘Crazy-ite’. Maybe they’re too lazy to get the backgound on all that he refers to. But he DOES refer to conspiracy a hell of a lot and to ignore it is to overlook a major theme in his oeuvre.
Because I don’t love Pound for his views on banking, the Federal Reserve, nor for his anti-semitism. I love his words.
I also have little truck and no faith in Mullins’ right wing, paranoid fantasies.
Pound, along with Joyce, Eliot, and Proust, is, for me, one of the high priests of high modernism and I always go back to that literary period when I am troubled at heart.
Thank God, you, Chris, put down the Cantos just in time to rescue the Internet from it’s anti-modernist folk. That you reply to the Cantos per canto is progressive work; moreover, setting straight the faddish hatred of modernism (for, I too, would not be interested in literature nor the arts as I properly am today without high modernism).
cmh, I think along with the fad of anti-semitism you could see similarities in the anti-modernism! However, Pound’s anti-semitism must not be overlooked, for it made him as common and as relatable as many of the folks amongst whom he survived, for whom he wrote, unwittingly or not. Modernism was, in my opinion, a grand movement in defiance of literary naivety, and the Western mind has evolved much from its pinnacles. Pound, though, is a symbol of the naivety still left in literary modernism which was further ousted in post-modernism.
and Pyt, you should consider reading the works of Joseph Campbell or even some essays on Vico and Joyce’s interpretation of the Italian’s philosophy: war, death, and struggle were thought by the two giants of modernity, Joyce AND Ezra, to be recurring aspect of human existence. However, where Joyce and Ezra split, at least in their creative expression, is that Joyce seems to surrender to its beauty, and Ezra to its polymathic elimination. I say polymathic because Ezra inspires all sorts of fields of human thought and work, economics and politics because of their lack of creative expressions, and the many arts with his profound expression, to name a few. However, read into the later years of Pound and I think you’ll see that he regretted his nihilistic, faddish, fevered poetry, against the seemingly contra naturum aspects. I think he always believed in the clarity of his thoughts for the sake of his expression, like, look at the repetitive voice in Canto LXXIX: O Lynx, guard this orchard
In the same way that we, as several humans have this squabble over the respect of modernism, I think E. P. had with his own mind, and the squabble was ugly, but, it’s what we can all relate to.
I need to pick the Cantos up again – I’m behind.
Of course, many anti-modernists (though not Scarriet – I’m thinking of 20th century anti-modernism) disliked it for its perceived association with Jewish intellectuals (Freud, Mahler, etc).
I have read some Campbell and used to watch his lectures on university tv back twenty years ago and read the hero with a thousand faces and another that escapes me right now.
Vico is someone I tried to read in college. His New Science was on the 3rd floor of the library tower but I never got very far, I’m afraid. He’s on my to do list.
Well, I wrote a post at Literatured on Ezra Pound and modernism and postmodernism because of this post and I just finished reading the political biography of him, The Last Rower by C. David Heymann. Oh, and I’m considering submitting my manuscript of poems to an open invitation of being published! 🙂
Good luck on your submission! Fingers crossed for you!
I have to write ten pages on a conspiracy theory. Since I refuse to write about something as played out as the moon landing, arae 51, or jfk’s assassination (and those topics have already been chosen by other classmates) I need to find an original theory. There has to be information on the subject, hence the term research paper. Also, scientific ideas are ideal, but any creative idea is welcome!
Well, unfortunately, since the Eliot-Satanism thing was made out of whole cloth, I don’t think you’ll find much on that.
You can always do Rosicrucians or Illuminati or how Freemasons run America.
Or just copy ten pages out of Ron Paul’s pamphlets from the 1990s.
Hey Christopher,
I see that you are a poet and also a political activist. It’s too bad that you’ve bought into the mainstream media’s attitudes towards people who attempt to bring the political machinations of the elite into focus (i.e. conspiracy theorists). I have been an anti-Fascist researcher for many years. Believe me, it’s easy to dismiss something that you haven’t even researched at all. Eustace Mullins, as well as Pound, were conspiracy theorists, as you know. Right wing nuts are all that this generation seem to think of when that term is mentioned. You might want to check out George Seldes, Emil Gumbel, and Mae Brussell for starters.
By the way, “The Waste Land” is one of my favorite poems.
I still think tying TS Eliot into Satanism is silly.