F. R. Leavis
EZRA POUND: THE PROMISE AND THE DISASTER'
One would say that the volume of Pound's
Letters,
in sum,
made tragic reading, if only the disaster it records weren't accompanied
by so much that is brutally without dignity, and where it is comic, often
odious too. The disaster, in fact, was a long degeneration, and is tragic
only in that there had been something so admirable and heroic about the
hero. The Pound who came to England in 1908 showed a wonderful
energy of disinterested intelligence and public spirit. Never, in the liter–
ary world, has there been a more courageous single-mindedness. "Until
someone is honest we get nothing clear." "It is only when a few men who
1. Mr. Leavis' piece originally appeared in
Scrutiny
for June 1951, as a review
of
The Letters of Ezra Pound
(Harcourt, Brace. $5.00). We are reprinting it
because it seems to us
to
be of the utmost relevance to the discussion of Pound's
position and inCluence.-THE
EDITORS
Fromm • The Forgotten Language
(myth)
3.50
Kuin • A Wolker In the City
3.00
E. M. Forster • Two Cheers for De·
mocrocy
4.00
Mills • White Coller
P.rsons • The Sodol System
Zimmer • Philosophies
of
India
R. Von Mises • Positivism
5.00
6.00
6.00
6.00
Robbins • The T. S. Eliot Myth
3.00
Pr.n: • Romontic Agony
7.00
R.h" • (ed.) • Greot Russion Short
Novels (I ,000 poges)
5.00
Berneri • Journey Through Utopio 3.75
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