Jordan says that, in comparison to Saintsbury, Ezra Pound is like the Book of the Month Club! Hilarious, I wish I had thought of that line. One of Pound's chief intellectual defects was his curious insistence that the facts speak for themselves, that you can simply put a text in front of someone and, given enough time, the person will "get it." That refusal to explain anything! Imagine if Pound actually had explained what he meant instead of just endlessly hectoring in his "village explainer" tone. He would have been even more influential if he hadn't thought explaining something was beneath him. The little that he does explain is always illuminating. I remember my early frustration with the ABC of Reading when he quotes a Spenser poem and refuses to specify just what it is about these lines that make them so wonderful. He thinks that if we stare long enough at them we will be in on the secret. Now I could come up with a plausible explanation myself, but I would never be sure that this was what Pound had in mind. He is an empiricist, but he won't share his data.

Sorry. I had to get my morning tirade out of the way.