BOO KS
(Black and pathless were the ways
Of sleep to which such beauty led.)
615
Granting what isn't too clear, that silence and not Love is the barge,
and that a swan may be said to float "on" rather than by aid of his
"webs," why should the unhindered night "lag" unless it has trouble
keeping up with the barge; and by what right does the poet attribute
"such beauty" to this odd aquatic procession? Enough. It may be Dur–
rell's relative lack of self-consciousness that lets him be so good when
he wants to be. "A Ballad of the Good Lord Nelson" is raw and funny.
"Deus Loci," "Alexandria," "Fangbrand," "A Portrait of Theodora,"
and "On First Looking into Loeb's Horace" are the work of a poet with
something intelligent and sometimes moving to say; a poet (how else
can you put it?) who has lived and loved.
All these poets have belonged to the rather sticky postwar climate.
Pound lives in a climate all his own. I would prefer to defend him to
the bitter end as the admirable poet that he is, but the
Trachiniae
trans–
lation, in its queasy mixture of rumbustious dialogue and elegant choral
versification, seems a failure of judgment more than a failure of powers.
Why
should
Pound be a good translator of Sophocles? It's all too easy
LIBERAL PRESS, INC.
printers of
PARTISAN REVIEW
•
80 FOURTH AVENUE
NEW YORK 3, N. Y.
Announcing a prize of
$1000
for one long poem
or collection of poems
( 1,000 lines maximum)
by a poet as yet unpublished
in book form.
Three typed copies·)f
of the manuscript should be
received on or before
December 1, 1957, by
The Ingram
Meum
Foundation
24 East 67th Street,
New York City 21.
The decision of
the Foundation
is
final.
*of which two are returnable
if
accompanied by appropriately
ftamped and addressed envelope.
