The Celestial Tradition

Demetres P. Tryphonopoulos

Description

Despite the painstaking work of Pound scholars, the mythos of The Cantos has yet to be properly understood — primarily because until now its occult sources have not been examined sufficiently. Drawing upon archival as well as recently published material, this study traces Pound’s intimate engagement with specific occultists (W.B. Yeats, Allen Upward, Alfred Orage, and G.R.S. Mead) and their ideas. The author argues that speculative occultism was a major factor in the evolution of Pound’s extraordinary aesthetic and religious sensibility, much noticed in Pound criticism.

The discussion falls into two sections. The first section details Pound’s interest in particular occult movements. It describes the tradition of Hellenistic occultism from Eleusis to the present, and establishes that Pound’s contact with the occult began at least as early as his undergraduate years and that he came to London already primed on the occult. Many of his London acquaintances were unquestionably occultists.

The second section outlines a tripartite schema for The Cantos (katabasis/dromena/epopteia) which, in turn, is applied to the poem. It is argued here that The Cantos is structured on the model of a initiation rather than a journey, and that the poem does not so much describe an initiation rite as enact one for the reader.

In exploring and attempting to understand Pounds’ occultism and its implications to his [Pounds’] oeuvre, Tryphonopoulos sheds new light upon one of the great works of modern Western literature.

Sujets

• Literary criticism

Informations

• Publié par: Wilfrid Laurier University Press
• Date de parution: 30 octobre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 2
• EAN13: 9781554588053
• Langue: English

Extrait

T HE C ELESTIAL T RADITION
A S TUDY OF E ZRA P OUND S T HE C ANTOS

Demetres P. Tryphonopoulos
Despite the painstaking work of Pound scholars, the mythos of The Cantos has yet to be properly understood - primarily because until now its occult sources have not been examined sufficiently. Drawing upon archival as well as recently published material, this study traces Pound s intimate engagement with specific occultists (W.B. Yeats, Allen Upward, Alfred Orage, and G.R.S. Mead) and their ideas. The author argues that speculative occultism was a major factor in the evolution of Pound s extraordinary aesthetic and religious sensibility, much noticed in Pound criticism.
The discussion falls into two sections. The first section details Pound s interest in particular occult movements. It describes the tradition of Hellenistic occultism from Eleusis to the present, and establishes that Pound s contact with the occult began at least as early as his undergraduate years and that he came to London already primed on the occult. Many of his London acquaintances were unquestionably occultists.
The second section outlines a tripartite schema for The Cantos (katabasis/dromena/epopteia ) which, in turn, is applied to the poem. It is argued here that The Cantos is structured on the model of an initiation rather than a journey, and that the poem does not so much describe an initiation rite as enact one for the reader.
In exploring and attempting to understand Pound s occultism and its implications to his [Pound s] oeuvre, Tryphonopoulos sheds new light upon one of the great works of modern Western literature.
Demetres P. Tryphonopoulos teaches American Literature at the University of New Brunswick. His current projects include an edition of Ezra Pound s letters to Olivia Rossetti Agresti as well as a collection of essays on modernism and the occult.
The Celestial Tradition
A Study of Ezra Pound s The Cantos
Demetres P. Tryphonopoulos
Wilfrid Laurier University press
Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data
Tryphonopoulos, Demetres P., 1956- The celestial tradition
Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-88920-202-8
1. Pound, Ezra, 1885-1972. Cantos. I. Title.
PS3531.082C289 1992 811 .52 C92-093361-0
Copyright 1992 Wilfrid Laurier University Press Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L3C5
Cover design by Connolly Design Inc.
Printed in Canada
The Celestial Tradition: A Study of Ezra Pound s The Cantos has been produced from a manuscript supplied in electronic form by the author.
All rights reserved. No part of this work covered by the copyrights hereon may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means - graphic, electronic or mechanical - without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any request for photocopying, recording, taping, or reproducing in information storage and retrieval systems of any part of this book shall be directed in writing to the Canadian Reprography Collective, 379 Adelaide Street West, Suite Ml, Toronto, Ontario M5V 1S5.
for Leon Surette
C ONTENTS
A BBREVIATIONS
P REFACE
I. T HE C ANTOS AS P ALINGENESIS
1. The C antos as Palingenesis
2. Poetry as Revelation
3. The Celestial Tradition
Notes
II. T HE O CCULT T RADITION
1. The Rising Psychic Tide
2. A History of the Occult Tradition
Notes
III. P OUND S O CCULT E DUCATION
1. American Beginnings: Katherine Ruth Heyman and H.D
2. Pound s Catechesis in London (1): Yeats and the Shakespears
3. Pound s Catechesis in London (2): Upward and Orage
4. Echoes from the Gnosis : G.R.S. Mead and Pound
Notes
IV. P ALINGENESIS : K ATABASIS / D ROMENA / E POPTEIA
1. Palingenesis: Katabasis / Dromena / Epopteia
2. The Cave of Nerea : Canto 17
3. Never with this Religion / Will You Make Men of the Greeks : Canto 23
4. Yet Must Thou Sail after Knowledge : The Katabasis after Gnosis in Canto 47
Notes
V. T HE S UBTLE B ODY : C ANTOS 90 AND 91
1. Out of Erebus : Canto 90
2. The Subtle Body : Canto 91
Notes
A PPENDIX I
A PPENDIX II
W ORKS C ITED AND C ONSULTED
I NDEX
A BBREVIATIONS
The following abbreviations are used in the text and in endnotes to designate reference works. (For full bibliographical information see Works Cited and Consulted. ) ABCR ABC of Reading Companion Terrell, A Companion to the Cantos of Ezra Pound EP/JT Ezra Pound and John Theobald Letters EP/DS Ezra Pound and Dorothy Shakespear, Their Letters: 1909-1914 GK Guide to Kulchur L Selected Letters of Ezra Pound, 1907-1941 LE Literary Essays Light Surette, A Light from Eleusis: A Study of Ezra Pound s Cantos SP Selected Prose, 1909-1965 SR The Spirit of Romance T The Translation of Ezra Pound
P REFACE
Most of Ezra Pound s sympathetic readers have begun with the assumption that the significance and form [of The Cantos ] are hidden in an iterative and kaleidoscopic pattern for the assiduous and intelligent to discover ( Light 1). Daniel S. Pearlman s The Barb of Time: On the Unity of Ezra Pound s Cantos is representative of this kind of criticism which usually attempts to prove that The Cantos display perfect coherence. Since there is no narrative line, Pearlman defines the major form of the poem in terms of temporal modalities: ephemeral/recurrent/eternal. Pearlman s study, like several other studies of The Cantos, is well researched and knowledgeable; it fails, nonetheless, to give due attention to the visionary or occult component of the poem.
Despite all the painstaking work which has been done on The Cantos, the poem s mythos has yet to be fully explored. In A Light from Eleusis, Leon Surette brings us close to a proper understanding of the poem s mythos by chronicling Pound s revisionist rendering of the Odyssean myth in terms of the Eleusinian mysteries (40-66). According to Surette, the mythos of The Cantos is based on a fantasy history which can be traced in part to Jos phin P ladan, a French Rosicrucian of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (34-39, 57-60). This finding raises one aspect of Pound which has been largely neglected: his involvement with the occult. 1 It is the aim of this study to consider the relationship between Pound s ideas about poetry and his occult studies which began as early as 1904 or 1905. It is suggested that an understanding of Pound s occultism sheds new light upon the mythos of The Cantos. The present study builds upon Surette s pioneering work which still underestimates the extent of Pound s involvement with the occult.
The term occult commonly designates the study of supernatural or unusual phenomena: from psychic experiences in s ances to Black Magic and such pseudo-sciences as numerology and astrology. However, in this study the emphasis is placed on metaphysical occultism - which is different from the practice of theurgy or occult arts. I take occult to mean the whole body of speculative, heterodox religious thought which lies outside all religious orthodoxies and includes such movements as Gnosticism, Hermeticism, Neoplatonism, Cabalism, and Theosophy. Occultism always involves mysticism, a belief in the possibility of gnosis , or direct awareness of the Divine attained through myesis, or ritual initiation. This distinction between the popular notions of occultism and metaphysical occultism should be kept in mind because Pound, unlike W.B. Yeats, was not susceptible to the attractions of theurgy.
During his London years (1908-21) many of Pound s close associates - Yeats, G.R.S. Mead, Allen Upward, A.R. Orage, and Olivia and Dorothy Shakespear - had strong connections with occult groups. That Yeats was interested in all sorts of occult doctrines and practices is well known, and there is evidence that Pound observed some of Yeats s occult experiments without, however, participating in or being attracted by them (Harper, Yeats and the Occult 165; Longenbach, Stone Cottage passim). Pound s association with Mead, Upward, and Orage has not been much explored. Recently published correspondence between Pound and his future wife, Dorothy Shakespear, and Pound s letters to John Theobald and Margaret Cravens clearly demonstrate Pound s interest in the occult during the years preceding the genesis of The Cantos. Additional evidence for Pound s interest in the occult is found in unpublished Pound letters at the Lilly Library (Ezra Pound Collection, Indiana University at Bloomington), the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library (Collection of American Literature, Yale University), and the British Museum (Patricia Hutchins Collection). Drawing primarily upon Pound s published letters and unpublished letters to his parents, to Olivia Rossetti Agresti, and to Patricia Hutchins, this study traces Pound s intimate engagement with specific occultists (Yeats, Upward, Orage, and Mead) and their ideas, and argues for the importance of speculative or metaphysical occultism in the shaping of his aesthetic theories and poetry. In other words, it is argued here, first, that it is implausible to suppose Pound could have been ignorant of those occultists who at the turn of the century were the constant subject of gossip in the press of the day, and second, that Pound is often drawing on a body of opinion, belief, and experience that he encountered first hand among friends and acquaintances.
For a study of this nature, the state of Yeats scholarship is instructive. With regard to the significance of the occult for Yeats, scholars can be divided into two camps: those who have sought to evade the fact of Yeats s intense, lifelong interest in occult doctrines and activities of every sort because they have regarded them as embarrassing ; and those who are sympathetic to