Why bother with Hugh Selwyn Mauberley?
There are several reasons for bothering with this poem. The first is as a kind of limbering up exercise prior to deciding whether and how to tackle the Cantos. The second is to check out whether Eliot was correct in describing it as a 'great' poem and the third is the opportunity to engage with a very (very) early example of modernist verse.
The poem (henceforth referred to as 'HSM') has been described by Pound as a "farewell to London" and a "study in form, an attempt to condense the James novel." I'm not sufficiently conversant with the works of Henry James (who Pound admired) to comment on the success or otherwise of this 'attempt' but I do feel that the poem does manage to capture several aspects of English cultural life in the first two decades of the twentieth century whilst also managing to try out a variety of different forms with varying degrees of success.
The poem is actually a sequence of poems, some of which have their own titles whilst others are numbered. One, 'Envoi' is printed entirely in italics and several contain foreign / classical words and phrases. The range of allusions is typically vast and the reader does have to stay awake to take in the sequence as a whole. In my view the best way to read the sequence is to read one poem at a time and then check out the references prior to proceeding to the next. Readers who follow this course may need to take care not to get to drawn too far into one particular allusion, I spent far too much time on the biography of Arnold Bennett whilst reading 'Mr Nixon'.
Pound had started to write the Cantos whilst composing HSM and the latter does give a clearer insight into his way of thinking and thus provide some initial insight prior to tackling the work that was to occupy the rest of Pound's life. HSM also anticipates some of the Canto's inconsistencies and quite abrupt changes in tone. The sequence also gives a degree of insight in what it was to have been a leading member of the avant garde in London from 1908-20.
How difficult is Hugh Sewlyn Mauberley?
HSM's chief difficulty lies in its use of obscure proper names and Greek phrases (these are given in the original script). Some of the spellings are also odd, I'm not sure that anyone except Pound was using 'Heracleitus' to denote the philosopher that the rest of us known as Heraclitus. Now, it could be argued that the use of Herclitus is in itself obscure and that his presence is not taht necessary:
All things are a flowing,
Sage Heracleitus says;
But a tawdry cheapness
Shall outlast our days
There is a further argument about whether this actually makes sense. Heraclitus is one of the better know pre-Socratic philosophers and did indeed point out that all things are constantly in a state of flux, a sentiment best expressed as "You can't step into the same river twice", but it does seem a little odd to state this and then contradict it by saying that 'a tawdry cheapness' will remain fixed without explaining how. I can't escape the feeling that Heraclitus has been dragged in to give additional weight to a fairly minor point that isn't very well made.
There are also quotes in the original Greek script from Homer and from Pindar that most of us will need help with. I'm against this for all kinds of reasons but primarily because it is elitist and its use has the effect of intimidating the reader. Another reason is that it is unnecessary, both the quotes that are used could be expressed in English with or without letting us know who was being quoted.
"Siena Mi Fe', Disfecemmi Maremma'
Apart from the Greek script most of the other references can be followed through with the aid of google and things then become a lot clearer although some additional legwork may be needed on the members and activities of the Rhymers' Club who are referred to in "Siena Mi Fe', Disfecemmi Maremma' which is itself a quote from Dante. In order to make sense of this particular poem in the sequence the reader does need to know that W B Yeats was a founding member of the Rhymers' Club and that 'Monsieur Verog' referred to is Victor Plarr and the references in the first stanza pickled foetuses, the bottling of bones and perfecting the catalogue refers to Plarr's job as librarian at the Royal College of Surgeons. The Yeats connection is important because Pound worked as the older poet's secretary between 1913 and 1915.
Among the pickled foetuses and bottled bones,
Engaged in perfecting the catalogue,
I found the last scion of the
Senatorial families of Strasbourg, Monsieur Verog.For two hours he talked of Gallifet;
Of Dowson; of the Rhymers' Club
Told me how Johnson (Lionel) died
By falling from a high stool in a pub...But showed no trace of alcohol
At the autopsy, privately performed -
Tissue preserved - the pure mind
Arose toward Newman as the whiskey warmed.Dowson found harlots cheaper than hotels;
Headlam for uplift; Image impartially imbued
With raptures for Bacchus, Terpsichore and the Church.
So spoke the authour of "The Dorian Mood,"M. Verog, out of step with the decade,
Detached from his contemporaries,
Neglected by the young,
Because of these reveries.
Plarr was born in France (near Strasbourg) in 1863 but moved to Scotland after his family home was destroyed by fire in the Franco Prussian war of 1870-71. General Gallifet was a controversial figure he led a heroic charge during the battle of Sedan in 1870 and then went on to brutally crush the Parisian uprising of 1871. The Rhymers' Club flourished from 1890 until about 1895 and was defined by Yeats as 'well nigh all the poets of the new generation who have public enough to get their works printed at the cost of the publisher, and some not less excellent, who cannot yet mount that first step of the ladder famewards'.
Ernest Dowson and Lionel Johnson were reckoned to be its most able members. Apparently Oscar Wilde attended once but then refused because the venue had moved to a pub near to Fleet Street. Both Johnson and Dowson led troubled lives marred by alcohol and both converted to the Catholic faith. Johnson's fall in the Green Dragon pub was caused by a stroke and not by beinhg drunk. I haven't been able to verify Dowson's use or otherwise of 'harlots' but the DNB tells me that at the age of 22 he became obsessed by an 11 year old girl and that there is a 'strong current of paedophilia' running through his work. Ernest Headlam was a christian and socialist campaigner active during the period and Selwyn Image was a designer who was taught by Johnj Ruskin (who features in another part of the sequence. Richard Sieburth in his notes to HSM claims that Image was a member of the Rhymers' Club but I can't find any verification of this. He was however a priest as well as a designer.
As an odd kind of tribute to Plarr (whose later verse Pojnd had published) this seems reasonable enough although we are told nothing of Plarr's literary abilities other than he was 'Detached by his contemporaries, / Neglected by the young'. I don't feel that this is substantial enough to be part of a 'great' poem and I'm annoyed rather than intrigued by the clumsy reference to John Newman. I don't know why 'Verog' is used instead of Plarr and I'm not sufficiently interested to find out.
Envoi (1919)
Go, dumb-born book,
Tell her that sang me once that song of Lawes:
Hadst thou but song
As thou hast subjects known,
Then there were cause in thee that should condone
Even my faults that heavy upon me lie, And build her glories their longevityTell her that sheds
Such treasures in the air,
Recking naught else but that her graces give
Life to the moment,
I would bid them live
As roses might, in magic amber laid,
Red overwrought with orange and all made
One substance and one colour
Braving time.Tell her that goes
With song upon her lips
But sings not out the song, nor knows
The maker of it, some other mouth,
May be as fair as hers,
Might, in new ages, gain her worshippers,
When our two dusts with Waller's shall be laid,
Siftings on siftings in oblivion,
Till change hath broken down
All things save Beauty alone.
As previously stated, the poem was published in italics which marks it out visually from the rest of the sequence. I think that this is very good indeed. To get the proper names out of the way Henry Lawes was a seventeenth century musician and composer who set to music 'Goe lovely Rose', a poem by William Waller who was active at the same time.
The opening line, as well as being a variation on Waller is a device that has a long and illustious pedigree, and the theme has been done to death over the centuries but I'm of the view that the use of language is excepitonal throughout and brilliant in places - "Recking naught else but that her ghraces give" and the image of singing as sheeding treasures in the air. Geoffrey Hill has written a critical essay on 'Envoi' and he points out that Pound intended that the poem should be read slowly, citing the 1939 recording of Pound reading it at Harvard. Hill also points out the the apparently irregular line length in the 9 line middle stanza in fact conceal 6 regular pentameters. Hill's essay is illuminating but tends to make things more complex than they need to be, much effort is spent working out what it is that is said to be 'Braving time' when one of the good things about this poem is the way in which it points at several things at once. I'm also very fond of "our two dusts........oblivion" in the third stahnza because it has the right blend of the archaic and the modern whilst managing to keep some distance from both. What I've found is that 'Envoi' rewards repeated readings and the attention that is given.
The Harvard recording is magnificent - Pound at his bardic best and it's perhaps telling to note that he omits reading 'Siena' from his selection from HSM.
So, I really like 'Envoi' and think that it could be part of a 'great' sequence whereas 'Siena' isn't either substantial or interesting enough to meet that test and therefore HSM as a whole cannot be great regardless of Eliot's estimation but it does offer a foretaste of the inconsistencies, and themes that are evident in the Cantos.