Books in Brief

Pavannes and Divigations, by Ezra Pound (New Directions, $4.75). A miscellany of serenades — some light, some serious—and all strummed under the balcony of Pound’s first and greatest love, the Art of Poetry. Or to mix metaphors, now that “it miglior fabbro” has returned to Italy, and our government has had its pound of flesh, and our righteous indignation has been slaked, it will maybe become possible to see him for what he has always been: the most tirelessly loyal patriot of the Republic of Letters the world has ever had. There is only one country Pound really knows, really loves, and that is the United States of Literature. He has been its Patrick Henry, Paul Revere, Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain boys all enthusiastically rolled into one man from Idaho. A man should be judged by his service to what he loves: and since 1910, no man—not even the blessed Ford Madox Ford—has served readers and writers with more zest, disinterest and integrity than Ezra Loomis Pound. Q.E.D.

R. PHELPS

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Pavannes and Divigations, by Ezra Pound (New Directions, $4.75). A miscellany of serenades — some light, some serious—and all strummed under the balcony of Pound’s first and greatest love, the Art of Poetry. Or to mix metaphors, now that “it miglior fabbro” has returned to Italy, and our government has had its pound of flesh, and our righteous indignation has been slaked, it will maybe become possible to see him for what he has always been: the most tirelessly loyal patriot of the Republic of Letters the world has ever had. There is only one country Pound really knows, really loves, and that is the United States of Literature. He has been its Patrick Henry, Paul Revere, Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain boys all enthusiastically rolled into one man from Idaho. A man should be judged by his service to what he loves: and since 1910, no man—not even the blessed Ford Madox Ford—has served readers and writers with more zest, disinterest and integrity than Ezra Loomis Pound. Q.E.D.

R. PHELPS