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PARTISAN REVIEW
would still be the unknown drudge." In 1925, he had been asked for a
similar tribute. "He has always been ready to give me advice and
appreciation which I esteem very highly as coming from such bril–
liance and discernment." After
Work in Progress,
after the poem, he
would not make ·this comment, but he still felt he owed "a debt of
gratitude."
The word "wounderworker" shows both faces of his attitude.
There are similar allusions. On p. 116, we find "an Esra" who is
"unbluffingly blurtubruskblunt."
It
is easy to see a reference to Pound.
Those who have done so have let it go at that. ("A reference to Ezra
Pound.") Yet we may be sure that, joyce being joyce, the phrase was
not composed to make the obvious remark that Ezra Pound is blunt. In
conjunction with the phrases that come before and after, it offers many
comments. To give one example, after "Esra," the text goes on to list a
family of cats. This is a reference to
A Packet for Ezra Pound
where
Yeats remembers how "taking out of his pocket bones and pieces of
meat, (Pound) begins to call the cats. He knows all their histories. Yet
now that I recall the scene I think that he has no affection for cats."
When the early chapters appeared in
transition,
Yeats had not yet
'written this memory of Pound. When joyce read
A Packet,
he could see
a chance of (partially) paying a score. But, like everything he put into
the book, the allusion had to earn its keep. Before he could use it, joyce
had to work it into other aspects of his relationship to Pound.
"Esra" is a comment on the person it identifies. Ezra was a scribe–
"the priest, the scribe of the laws of God in Heaven." In the passage on
p. 116, we have the phrase "as singsing so Salaman." It is a reference to
the Song of Songs. A distinction has been made between the Song of
Solomon and the Book of Ezra.
Ezra is derived from a Hebrew word for help. In Ten-where the
theme of Pound is most fully developed-joyce uses "Ebenezer." This
has the same root as Ezra. But the specific meaning is "the stone of
help."
Maunderin
"A maunderin tongue in a pounderin jowl?" (p. 89) is a reference
to Pound. Once again the writers who have noticed the allusion have
let it go at that. Yet it is of little moment to say that Pound is a
translator of Chinese. As a mandarin, he is a master of language,
guardian of tradition.
To maunder
is to growl and grumble. ("Art is
