Editing Ezra Pound (section)

===''Hugh Selwyn Mauberley''===
{{further|Hugh Selwyn Mauberley|Wikisource:Hugh Selwyn Mauberley}}
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<poem>[[File:Hugh Selwyn Mauberley initial F.png|80px|frameless|left|alt=F]]OR three years, out of key with his time,
He strove to resuscitate the dead art
Of poetry; to maintain "the sublime"
In the old sense. Wrong from the start—

No hardly, but, seeing he had been born
In a half savage country, out of date;
Bent resolutely on wringing lilies from the acorn;
[[Capaneus]]; trout for factitious bait;

Ἴδμεν γάρ τοι πάνθ', ὅσ' ἐνι Τροίῃ{{efn|[[Homer]], [[Odyssey]] 12.189: "For we know all that [happened] in Troy"{{refn|Tryphonopoulous and Dunton (2019), 68}}}}
Caught in the unstopped ear;
Giving the rocks small lee-way
The chopped seas held him, therefore, that year.
</poem>
 |source= —&nbsp;''[[Hugh Selwyn Mauberley]]'' (1920)<ref>[https://archive.org/details/hughselwynmauber00pounrich Pound (1920)], 8 (8–13); Pound (2003a), 549 (549–563)</ref>}}
By 1919 Pound felt there was no reason to stay in England. He had become "violently hostile" to England, according to Aldington,<ref name=":3">Aldington (1941), 217</ref> feeling he was being "frozen out of everything" except the ''New Age'',<ref>Moody (2007), 399</ref> and concluding that the British were insensitive to "mental agility in any and every form".<ref>Moody (2007), 402</ref> He had "muffed his chances of becoming literary director of London—to which he undoubtedly aspired," Aldington wrote in 1941, "by his own enormous conceit, folly, and bad manners."<ref name=":3"/>

Published by [[John Rodker]]'s The Ovid Press in June 1920,<ref>Moody (2017), 378, note 2</ref> Pound's poem ''Hugh Selwyn Mauberley'' marked his farewell to London, and by December the Pounds were subletting their apartment and preparing to move to France.<ref>Moody (2007), 387, 409</ref> Consisting of 18 short parts, ''Mauberley'' describes a poet whose life has become sterile and meaningless. It begins with a satirical analysis of the London literary scene before turning to social criticism, economics, and the war. Here the word ''[[usury]]'' first appears in his work. Just as Eliot denied he was Prufrock, Pound denied he was Mauberley.<ref>Adams (2005), 150</ref> In 1932 the critic [[F. R. Leavis]], then director of studies in English at [[Downing College, Cambridge]], called ''Mauberley'' "great poetry, at once traditional and original. Mr. Pound's standing as a poet rests on it, and rests securely".<ref>Leavis (1942), 150</ref>

On 13 January 1921 Orage wrote in the ''New Age'': "Mr. Pound has shaken the dust of London from his feet with not too emphatic a gesture of disgust, but, at least, without gratitude to this country.&nbsp;... [He] has been an exhilarating influence for culture in England; he has left his mark upon more than one of the arts, upon literature, music, poetry and sculpture; and quite a number of men and movements owe their initiation to his self-sacrificing stimulus&nbsp;..."<ref name=Orage1921/>

<blockquote style="border-left: 3px solid #ccc;">With all this, however, Mr. Pound, like so many others who have striven for advancement of intelligence and culture in England, has made more enemies than friends, and far more powerful enemies than friends. Much of the Press has been deliberately closed by cabal to him; his books have for some time been ignored or written down; and he himself has been compelled to live on much less than would support a navvy. His fate, as I have said, is not unusual&nbsp;... Taken by and large, England hates men of culture until they are dead.<ref name=Orage1921>[https://repository.library.brown.edu/studio/item/bdr:450919/PDF/ Orage (1921)], 126–127; Moody (2007), 410</ref>{{efn|On 13 January 1921, shortly before or after he left for France, the ''New Age'' published a long statement of Pound's philosophy, which he called his ''Axiomata'' and which included:

:(1) The intimate essence of the universe is ''not'' of the same nature as our own consciousness.
:(2) Our own consciousness is incapable of having produced the universe.
:(3) God, therefore exists. That is to say, there is no reason for not applying the term God, ''Theos'', to the intimate essence&nbsp;...<ref>[https://repository.library.brown.edu/studio/item/bdr:450919/PDF/ Pound (1921)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220319074008/https://repository.library.brown.edu/studio/item/bdr:450919/PDF/ |date=19 March 2022 }}; Witemeyer (1981), [https://archive.org/details/poetryofezrapoun0000wite_e2d2/page/25 25–26]</ref>}}</blockquote>