"The Builder's Whim": pound, ethics, and the whimsical poet
"The Builder's Whim": pound, ethics, and the whimsical poet
This article considers whimsy as an ethical defence for poetry, focusing on the work of the Ezra Pound. It outlines the New Critical justifications for Pound receiving the Bollingen Prize in 1948, and considers two versions of the whimsical defence with reference to Emerson and Hume. The first section notes how early poems and their reception work through the implications of these defences, with reference to time-wasting and literary production. It goes on to consider the relationship between whimsy and waste more widely in modernist literature, and notes how the notion of will is often linked to violence. It concludes by close-reading the beginning and ending of The Cantos, suggesting how the "builder’s whim" at the centre of the poem can help us rethink the relationship between form and ethics.
274–291
May, Will
f41afa4c-1ccc-4ac6-83b6-9f5d9aad0f67
May, Will
f41afa4c-1ccc-4ac6-83b6-9f5d9aad0f67
May, Will
(2020)
"The Builder's Whim": pound, ethics, and the whimsical poet.
The Literary Imagination, 22 (3), , [imaa005].
(doi:10.1093/litimag/imaa005).
Abstract
This article considers whimsy as an ethical defence for poetry, focusing on the work of the Ezra Pound. It outlines the New Critical justifications for Pound receiving the Bollingen Prize in 1948, and considers two versions of the whimsical defence with reference to Emerson and Hume. The first section notes how early poems and their reception work through the implications of these defences, with reference to time-wasting and literary production. It goes on to consider the relationship between whimsy and waste more widely in modernist literature, and notes how the notion of will is often linked to violence. It concludes by close-reading the beginning and ending of The Cantos, suggesting how the "builder’s whim" at the centre of the poem can help us rethink the relationship between form and ethics.
Text
LI-Builder's Whim
- Accepted Manuscript
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Accepted/In Press date: 19 January 2020
e-pub ahead of print date: 17 May 2020
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Local EPrints ID: 437670
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/437670
ISSN: 1752-6566
PURE UUID: 460a09df-1169-44b8-b9d6-ee92160f2d57
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Date deposited: 10 Feb 2020 17:31
Last modified: 17 Mar 2024 05:17
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