520
PARTISAN REVIEW
ALLEN TATE:
I do not propose to express any extensive views on Mr. Bar–
rett's article, but rather to set down a
brief
statement of my own posi–
tion on the only serious question that it raises.
A few weeks before the Bollingen Prize was awarded some persons
of antisemitic feelings expressed to me their alarm lest it be given to
Mr. Pound.
Mr. Barrett, it seems to me, goes a long way round, through a good
deal of cant and vulgarity (to say nothing of the effrontery with which
he invents the "difficulties" of the Fellows in coming to their decision),
in order to arrive at the following insinuation: The decision of the
Fellows in American Letters of the Library of Congress was dominated
by antisemitic prejudice.
I consider any special attitude toward Jews, in so far as they may
be identified as individuals or as a group, a historical calamity; and it is
not less calamitous when the attitude is their own. I consider anti–
semitism to be both cowardly and dishonorable; I consider it cowardly
and dishonorable to insinuate, as Mr. Barrett does, without candor, a
charge of antisemitism against the group of writers of which I am a
member.
I hope that persons who wish to accuse me of cowardice and dis–
honor will do so henceforth personally, in my presence, so that I may
dispose of the charge at some other levcl than that of public discus–
sion. Courage and honor are not subjects of literary controversy, but oc–
casions of action.
FURTHER COMMENT BY WILLIAM BARRETT
I am not a J ew, but surely it must be clear to everyone by
this time that antisemitism is a problem for gentiles as much as for
Jews. When Jews whom I know and respect feel uneasy, as Mr. Clement
Greenberg does, about a public award to Pound, I am bound to feel
uneasy myself and to question the judgment of the Bollingen jury. Some
of these questions I tried to raise in my brief Comment. Mr. Tate's
explosion in reply seems to us astonishing, to say the least. Neither Mr.
Auden nor Mr. Shapiro, who were his colleagues on the Bollingen jury,
have responded in his fashion; and the fact that among all the fore–
going comments Mr. Tate's alone sticks out like a very sore and angry
thumb is sufficient evidence' that his reply was a complete and un–
warranted misconstruction of my editorial, which contained absolutely no
