766
Life includes and is more important
than art, as Mr. Greenberg says, and
the category of the aesthetic is not the
primary one, as Mr. Barrett says. In
life we find great errors and vices
mixed up with the good in people
whom we value. In life we sometimes
give amnesty to enemies when they are
harmless. The judges might have
thought it unnecessary to note that
Pound will not broadcast again and
that nobody is going to read his broad–
casts. There remain some remarkable
pages of verse, the product of forty
years in poetry and of the aesthetic
integrity that Mr. Shapiro mentions
with admiration.
Robert Fitzgerald
New York City
Sirs:
I wish to thank the Editors of PAR–
TISAN REVIEW for the opportunity of
expressing my opinion as a reader, of
the Bollingen Award given to Ezra
Pound. I believe that the implications
of the issue involved warrant comment
by those outside the confines of pro–
fessional authors, and trust that the
Editors will assign greater weight to my
sincerity than to my unprofessional lit–
erary skill, in deciding whether to pub–
lish this letter.
The attitude of those who support
the thesis of art-for-art's sake is just
as great a naivete as the attitude of
those who stomp for free speech as an
absolute concept. These misguided per–
sons seem to be incapable of ever un–
derstanding that a relative concept such
as "free speech" cannot possibly be
confined to a rigorous and mutually
exclusive definition. Free speech does
not exist in a vacuum; it operates al–
ways as a mode of human relationships
and must therefore be interpreted in
the light of present circumstances of a
given situation. Obviously, the type of
free speech which leads to the abroga–
tion of all free speech cannot be tol-
erated. For precisely the same reason,
the expression of antisemitism which
hides behind the metaphysical skirts of
art-for-art's sake, cannot be tolerated.
Antisemitism in art is more insidious
than the Fascist rabble rouser, but just
as effective a contributory factor to the
dissolution of all free expression.
Is Ezra Pound a great poet? I don't
know-I am not qualified to judge. But
let us say that
Ke
is just that. Does it
give him the divine right to degrade
his fellow human beings? Isn't there
more to living than Art in all its forms?
What do I care for the elevation of
Art to the dizziest heights of achieve–
ment, if I, as a human being, risk suf–
fering the humiliation and agony of
fascist oppression.
Mr. Barrett agreed with Mr. Shapiro
that "fascism is part of the 'myth' of
the
Cantos
generally-and that it can
be found in
The Pisan Cantos
too."
Modern history has indelibly stamped
our memories with the method of fas–
cist development in a country, and who
will deny that antisemitism is without
exception one of the favorite tools?
Ezra Pound is a proven traitor to his
country; a more meet award would
have been the chopping off of his lit–
erary head. But no- he has been hon–
ored with a literary prize, just to prove
the validity of absolute criteria!
Gloat! Thou God of Reaction-thy
dupes are many-
S. D. Lovejoy
Philadelphia, Pa.
Sirs:
I sympathize with all the contribu–
tors to the recent symposium on Pound,
especially with Allen Tate (0 GQd!
How I sympathize with Allen Tate!)
but I feel that all of them missed the
point.
If
we believe that in giving an award
to Pound we are implicitly honoring
his social attitudes, then let us con–
sider
all
the social attitudes expressed
