EZRA POUND

Ezra Pound was an American expatriate, poet, musician, critic, fascist propagandist and economist who, along with T.S. Eliot, was a major figure of the modernist movement in early 20^th century poetry. He was the driving force behind several modernist movements, notably Imagism and Vorticism. The critic Hugh Kenner said on meeting Pound: "I suddenly knew that I was in the presence of the center of modernism."

With regard to this paper, we are going to analyse the poem called “The Garret”.

Come let us pity those who are better off than we are.
Come, my friend, and remember
that the rich have butlers and no friends,
And we have friends and no butlers.
Come let us pity the married and the unmarried.	5

Dawn enters with little feet
like a gilded Pavlova,
And I am near my desire.
Nor has life in it aught better
Than this hour of clear coolness,	10
the hour of waking together.

Pound was a very controversial poet. He was living in Rome and doing a radio program. He wanted to convince Americans that Mussolini was a positive movement for the development of the country. He was the person who helped other poets to become better poets. He changed many verses in Eliot’s poems.

People have difficulties to write what he is talking about. He is going to change poetry that is going to be written.

The form determines the content. He is reinventing poetry in the 20^th century which will not be prestablished, it will be free.

The reader has to find what the poet’s intention is. The reader has to learn that type of poetry. Definitely, people have to rethink.

In the Victorian age, novel was very normal and common to read, like newspapers.

It was harder on the reader. The reader has to share the same knowledge as the writer to understand this poetry.

Even if everyday language is used; the ideas area not used everyday. Poems have to be read aloud to hear them, to understand what it is saying to us.

As for the poem we are analysing, first of all, we must take into account its title “The Garret”.

With this title we can imagine where the poet focuses his story or whatever he is going to communicate to us. “The Garret” is the place where the characters are that appear in the poem or what happens in itself.

The first impression I perceive is that it is a positive and encouraging poem, which talks about the social and economic position of each one and the only thing he wants to have in life. It talks about a girl, maybe she is his girlfriend, his lover, or simply, his friend.

Through the poem he is showing how he is in these moments, how he is feeling, how he understands the mentality, and the ideological point of his time.

He is telling us in what situation he is. There is one person speaking in the poem and he is addressing a girl.

He is saying to his friend that the position they have in life does not matter; the economic and social situation, if they are rich or not, if they have more money than others, or if they are in a higher class.

He does not mind that he is poorer than other people or that he does not have properties or ownerships. He is concerned about other less superficial things.

What is important here is that the only relevant things in life are not the material things, like money or the position in our jobs, or things like that.

In this first paragraph he uses the metaphor of the “butlers” and “friends” (lines 4-5). With “butlers” he is referring to the rich persons; the highest class, and with “friends” he is referring to the poor persons; the lowest class. Pound plays with two common words used everyday but they have a deep meaning that symbolises the position of each one.

He also emphasizes the vocative “my friend” (line 2) to wake up the reader and put him/her into the reading. He brings near the reader to the text to understand what he is going to say.

Therefore, he also uses words like the verbs “come” (lines 1, 2, 5) to call us and pay attention to the poem.

With this first paragraph he wants to communicate that it is better to be poor but having good “friends” (line 3) than to be rich and have no friends beside your “butlers” (line 3). And also that he appreciates more one person who speaks, talks, and shares feelings with a “friend”, than one person who is next to you attending you at any moment then you want a “butler”, but only for one reason; money. It is not the same.

Because of that, he tells his friend that they have to be happy since they are so lucky to be as they are and to have what they have.

In the second and last paragraph he is trying to present us a place where there are two persons; he and his friend, face to face, in harmony, in peace.

He wants to put the information and the ideas of the first paragraph into the second one that is a particular situation in a particular moment. In the first paragraph he is remembering her all we have mentioned and now in this one he is putting an example or simply saying a situation to understand how they feel in this moment and what they need in life.

For that reason, Pound uses the metaphor of the “dawn” (line 6). To introduce the calmness and the tranquillity in the poem he uses the word “dawn” that symbolizes peace and stillness. Exactly, he writes “dawn enters with little feet” (line 6) that means that dawn comes little by little, and the more he is in contact with it the nearer is his “desire” (line 8).

The answer is in the last three lines. They are the most important lines of this poem. We can say that the poem is condensed in these three lines that he has left them to the end of the poem.

This is his only and own desire in life. With a metaphor he explains all he wants. “Nor has life in it aught better Than this hour of clear coolness, the hour of waking together” (lines 9-11).

That means that he does not mind the other people, how rich they are or how much money they have, or what their social or economic positions are. What he minds is that he is happy since he has someone who shares moments and feelings with, someone who wakes up beside him with, someone to be with and a person who he shares all with.

(http://www.lit.kobe-u.ac.jp/~hishika/pound.htm. Picture from Mindscape Student Reference Library. Last updated: 30 April 2004 (all links checked) 20th-century Poetry Index Page Quid prodest hoc ad aeternitatem, Professor Eiichi Hishikawa, Faculty of Letters, Kobe University. Visited on March 16, 2006)