Hugh Selwyn Mauberley (Poem Summary)

Poem Summary

E.P. Ode Pour L’election de Son Sepulchre

The first section of this long sequence introduces the reader to almost all of the themes and content of “Hugh Selwyn Mauberley.” The displacement of Pound’s own self into a persona, the allusions to literary history, the foreign phrases: all of these typical Poundian elements appear in this first poem.

The section’s title means “E. P. Ode for the Selection of His Tomb” (an allusion to the French poet Ronsard) and this section is, in a sense, a eulogy for “E. P.,” Pound’s aesthete alter ego. Written like most of “Hugh Selwyn Mauberley” in quatrains (four-line stanzas), this section tells of E. P., who “strove to resuscitate the dead art / Of poetry” by means of resurrecting the old idea of “‘the sublime’.” The poem’s subject is clearly based on Pound himself, “born / In a half savage country” (Pound was born in Idaho). In this section, E. P. is an aspiring artist, admiring Flaubert (who, famously, pursued “le mot juste,” or the exact word, and sought to create an art that was all style and no content) and “unaffected by ‘the march of events.’” The portrait of E. P. is of an erudite, well-educated, classically-steeped aesthete: the very model of the late Victorian poet. Yet we already know that this E. P. will die, for he “passed from men’s memory” in his thirty-first year (the French quote is from Pound’s idol Francois Villon, and the reference is to the profound change in Pound’s poetry that occurred in his thirty-first year).

Ii

The second section moves away from the subject of Pound himself and attempts to describe the artistic scene in London in the early 1900s. “The age demanded,” Pound tells us, merely images; the age will settle for “mendacities” (lies) rather than the “classics in paraphrase” (this reference is to the hostility that greeted Pound’s loose translation of Sextus Propertius’s Latin lyric poems). Many art lovers in London in the 1910s were interested in art that was outwardly attractive but not deeply beautiful, immediately pleasing but not enduringly rewarding. Contrasting a “prose kinema” (i.e., versions of primitive movies told in literature) to alabaster (one of the most beautiful materials used in classical sculpture), Pound asserts that “the age demanded” the former. One of the primary themes of “Hugh Selwyn Mauberley” is the difference between art that aspires only to outer beauty and art that aims at profundity. In the early poems, Pound portrays E. P. as a figure only too happy to pursue shallowness in art and the cheap reproduction of what has worked before.

Iii

In the third section, Pound details objects that “tasteful” people appreciated in the 1910s. Much of this section is simply contrast: Pound contrasts a typical artifact of Edwardian London with a legendary classical object and wants the reader to understand the cheapness of the former. He contrasts a “tea-rose tea-gown” with the legendary gauzy fabric produced by the Greek island of Cos and the pianola (a player-piano) with the legendary lyre on which the Greek poet Sappho composed her verse.

As the section progresses, Pound begins to forward some explanations for this “tawdry cheapness” that characterizes his age. Capitalism and Christianity, he feels, have eaten away at the greatness and authenticity of classical culture. He compares the “maceration” (wasting away of the body, as by extreme fasting) of Christ’s body in the communion sacrament to the festivals of wine and music that honored the Greek god Dionysus, and states that Caliban (the savage slave in Shakespeare’s Tempest) has replaced Ariel (a fairy in the same play). In the fourth stanza Pound states that “beauty” in ancient Greek, is “decreed in the market place.” This section bemoans the cheapness that capitalism and the melodrama of Christianity have brought to culture.

Iv

The fourth section takes readers from the parlors of early twentieth-century London to the muddy battlefields of World War I. This section’s main thrust is that the slaughter of the war was perpetuated by lies and by the intentional deceits perpetrated by politicians and the wealthy. Focusing on why young men would volunteer to fight, Pound identifies several varieties of self-delusion. Some of the men fought “pro domo,” or “for home”; some fought because they sought adventure; some because they wanted glory; some because they feared ridicule; and some just because they were disposed to violence. Nowhere in this poem does Pound mention the kinds of soldiers that politicians and generals talk about: young men who are willing to give up their lives for abstract concepts defined and defended by those in power.

After listing the reasons some went to war, Pound describes the war’s effects. He alludes to Horace’s famous line about patriotism, “dulce et decorum est pro patria mori” (sweet and fitting it is to die for one’s country) and angrily denies it: “non ‘dulce’ non ‘et decor’... / walked eye-deep in hell.” Pound tersely illustrates the conditions of trench warfare and angrily attacks the “old men’s lies” that caused so many to die.

V

Although it is short, this section may be Pound’s most well-known from this poem. In its eight lines, Pound bitterly states that there was no point to the war, that even if the war was, as the “old men” of section IV said, a sacred effort to defend civilization as we know it, civilization’s defense was not worth all of those deaths. In the end, Pound says, “a myriad” died “For an old [b — — ] gone in the teeth, / For a botched civilization.” Especially surprising is Pound’s verdict that art is not worth defending with young men’s lives: he boils down the aesthetic heritage of section II to “two gross of broken statues... a few thousand battered books.” At this point in the poem, Pound the narrator can clearly be seen to disagree with E. P., who presumably would hold art as being the most valuable thing in the world, very much worth defending with one’s life.

Yeux Glauques

The subject of “Yeux glaugues” (“grey eyes”) is the artistic movement known as the Pre-Raphaelites. These artists — led by Edward Burne-Jones, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and Rossetti’s sister Christina — named themselves after the period before the Italian Renaissance painter Raphael became dominant. They favored a shimmering, detailed, highly emotional presentation of their subject matter, such as is present in Burne-Jones’s painting King Cophetua and the Beggar-Maid.

This section describes the hypocritical relationship between English politics of the late Victorian period and Pre-Raphaelite art. Prime Minister Gladstone and the art reviewer Robert Buchanan represent the conservative Victorian culture that disliked Pre-Raphaelite art and condemned its lack of morality. Pound viewed Gladstone and Buchanan as comics but feels they were still very harmful in their own time. And although Pound sympathized with the Pre-Raphaelites (and certainly E. P. would have found them kindred spirits), he felt that such Pre-Raphaelite art as Burne-Jones’s aforementioned painting did not sufficiently confront social conditions. Such art aestheticized poverty while Pound would have had them attack the conditions that cause poverty.

“siena Mi Fe’; Disfecemi Maremma”

The title of this section comes from Dante’s Purgatorio; it means “Siena Made Me; Maremma Unmade Me.” This quote was spoken by “La Pia dei Tolomei,” who was murdered by her husband in the swampy Maremma region. Rossetti painted her. This section presents a number of anecdotes of the aestheticists whom E. P. admires. While the previous section focused on the visual arts and the relation between politics and painting, this section discusses poetry and, in particular, the “Rhymers’ Club” of poets of the 1890s. Lionel Johnson was the central figure of this group (Pound edited a collection of his verse during his early days in London), and Pound’s friend and mentor William Butler Yeats also was a member. John Espey, an early scholar of this poem, identifies M. Verog as Victor Plarr, who was librarian of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1909 (when Pound first came to London). This section is suffused with images of decay, of unnatural preservation, and of tawdriness.

Brennbaum

This short section is generally regarded as an early manifestation of Pound’s growing anti-Semitism. “Brennbaum” is a figure for Max Beer-bohm, a Jewish artist active in London in the 1910s, whom T. S. Eliot also caricatured.

Mr. Nixon

One of Pound’s favorite stories to tell was of his meeting with Henry James soon after Pound arrived in London. James at the time was unquestionably the leading figure in American literature, and, in “Mr. Nixon,” Pound provides a short, satirical portrait of James’s advice to him. Some critics feel that Mr. Nixon is also a representation of Arnold Bennett, an important figure in the English literary scene in the early 1900s whose practical and capitalistic approach to art Pound would have reviled. At the same time, this section is a parody of one of James’s own stories, “The Advice of the Master.” The primary thrust of this section is to present another kind of figure from London’s literary scene of the early 1900s, the practical-minded, pretentious, self-appointed advisor to a young writer.

X

This short section, according to scholar Christine Froula, is based on an interlude in the life of Ford Madox Ford, a novelist active in London at the time and a friend of Pound’s. Contrasting with the well-fed, self-satisfied Mr. Nixon is the starving artist of this section, who returns to his cabin with its “sagging roof” and “creaking latch” where he and his “placid and uneducated mistress” enjoy each other’s company.

Xi

Like section X, this poem is a subtle description of sexual behavior of the time. The bohemian lovers become the proper woman and the “Conservatrix of Milésien.” This obscure allusion is to the lost ancient Greek erotic text, the Milesian Tales. Broken up into two short stanzas, this section describes a “bank-clerkly” Englishman, presumably shy and sexually inexperienced, about to have a rendezvous with his lover, whose own sexual attitudes are based on her grandmother’s advice about what is proper for her station.

Xii

This section illustrates the literary salon culture in which Pound refused to take part. The salons, generally led by women, were a development of the eighteenth century, when upper-middle-class women cultivated an appreciation for art. In this poem the “I” goes to the home of the Lady Valentine, the salonniere, to seek her approval for his verse. The narrator here is nervous about frivolous things such as his coat and his appearance, which Pound emphasizes to illustrate how salon society was primarily concerned with appearances, social niceties, and the like, rather than the value of art. The end of the section, contrasting the sale of “half-hose” (stockings) with “Pierian roses,” alludes to Sappho’s line about Pierian roses and again indicates how Pound felt that literary salons were not really concerned with genuine evaluation of art.

Envoi (1919)

An “envoi” is a send-off; often it is an author’s final word to his or her literary composition, wishing it well as it goes to be appreciated by the public. This envoi is a send-off in a number of ways: it is the poem’s farewell to the character of E. P.; it is an imitation of the Renaissance poem “Go, Lovely Rose” by Thomas Campion; and it says a definitive goodbye to the aestheticist verse of E. P. and the Victorian period. The poem is remarkably accomplished both in its imitation of Campion’s poem and in its sophisticated use of musical rhythms. Pound argued for a meter that was based on the musical phrase, and “Envoi” clearly embodies this, especially when compared to the short, irregular, and often forced tempos of the earlier sections of “Hugh Selwyn Mauberley.”

Mauberley (1920)

In this section, Pound introduces a new character, “Mauberley.” Mauberley is an aesthete like E. P. but less earnest, less naive, and less desirous of joining the literary circles of his time. However, he is no more sophisticated than was E. P. This first poem portrays Mauberley as another kind of aesthete, one for whom art is engravings and etchings. Pound also introduces the motif of the medallion here with the allusion to Pisanello, an Italian Renaissance artist who struck medals.

Ii

This long and complex section illustrates how Mauberley’s growing fascination with aestheticism prevents him from reaching a sexual connection with a woman. Pound was fascinated with the relationship between creative energy and sexual energy, and developed a number of spurious theories about sex and creativity. In this section, Mauberley’s fascination with the bric-a-brac of the aesthetic life (ambrosia, orchids) and his immersion in cultural heritage render him unable to relate on an immediate physical level with a woman.

“the Age Demanded”

“The Age Demanded” puts the reader deeply into the head of Mauberley, who is lapsing into solipsism (a theory holding that the self is the only existent thing). The Latinate words of this section and its long lines contrast with the short lines and more concrete diction of earlier sections and underscore Mauberley’s retreat into his own head. As Mauberley develops an ever-finer aesthetic sense, he begins to lose touch with the outside world. “Beauty,” as in line 321, could make his month more “temperate.” Mauberley is retreating into isolation; “By constant elimination” of the outside world, “The manifest universe” of aesthetic refinement “Yielded an armour / Against utter consternation.” As he further develops his artistic sensibility, Mauberley becomes less and less capable of creating original art. Pound notes in the later stanzas of this section that this development will lead “To his final / Exclusion from the world of letters.”

Iv

Although it is not explicitly mentioned, the image underlying this whole section is that of the lotus-eaters of Homer’s Odyssey, in which many of Odysseus’s sailors are lured onto an island where they learn to eat the fruit of the lotus. This fruit is like a drug and makes the sailors never want to leave the island. Mauberley’s drift into aesthetic reverie, Pound suggests, is like the surrender of the sailors to the fruit of the lotus. The section is dominated by images of warm places (Molucca, the Simoon winds of the African deserts) and islands (a “coracle” is a small boat). The section ends with Mauberley’s possible end: “‘I was / And I no more exist; / Here drifted / An hedonist’.”

Medallion

Like “Envoi,” “Medallion” completes one of the poem’s sections and is therefore doubly complicated. Most of the sections either observe E. P./Mauberley or are in the voice of the character; “Envoi” and “Medallion,” by contrast, might be examples of their own work, or might be examples of Pound’s work as influenced by them, or might be something else entirely. Scholar Christine Froula argues that “whereas the ‘Envoi’ represents the lyric mode, ‘Medallion’ represents ‘Imagistic’ poetics.” (“Imagism” was a school of verse headed by Pound in the mid-1910s.) But Jo Brantley Berryman, another critic, feels that “Medallion” is actually the voice of the contemporary Pound because the poem exhibits characteristics of the Vorticist movement. The Vorticist movement was a literary/artistic movement in London that took place around 1915 – 1917. The main instigators were Pound and Wyndham Lewis, who published a journal called BLAST. The movement was much like Imagism but valued art that was more intense, violent, and powerful.

“Medallion” is an attempt “To present the series / Of curious heads in medallion,” in the words of an earlier section, and, unlike the rest of the sections here, “Medallion” follows imagist dogma: it presents images, but it does not comment. In many ways, “Medallion” is the most accomplished and sophisticated poem that Mauberley could have produced, and it is indeed a fine poem from a sure hand with imagery. However, it is bloodless and irrelevant. Mauberley’s careful cultivation of his aesthetic sensibilities rendered him unable to create, and this limits his verse’s importance. “Medallion” shows that Mauberley’s aesthetic sensibilities are indeed very sharp, but at the same time the section leaves the reader unsure as to its relevance. We understand why Pound felt that he had to leave this kind of aestheticism behind when he left London, especially because he wanted his poetry to become more, not less, socially involved.

Media Adaptations

• In 1958, after being released from St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Washington, D.C., Pound made a series of recordings that feature him reading his own poetry, including “Hugh Selwyn Mauberley,” for the Caedmon record label. Many libraries still have the original vinyl LPs of these recordings, and they have been reissued by HarperCollins in audiocassette form and by Caedmon/HarperCollins in audiobook format (2001).