1 âIn the Meantime, My Songs Will Travelâ
Ezra Poundâs Elektra and Cathay
In a 2013 introduction to the Journal of Modern Literature, Jean-Michel RabatĂ© advocates for a âbroader hospitality to verbal, linguistic, ethnic and conceptual otherness [as it] corresponds to a new perception of the modern.â1 He continues by claiming that
the modern appears then as more internationalist than Anglo-Americanâthus, we have here a strong cluster on Joyce, Eliot, Aragon, James and a few other âusual suspectsâ of high or later Modernism. Accordingly, Modernism has expanded; it has crossed new conceptual and geographical borders in order to turn into todayâs diasporic and dialogic modernity. Such modernity relies on more than one language, more than one accent, more than one skin color. It is founded on a renewed sense of the marginalized, be it called the exotic or the exilic, which includes several âinner exiles,â as the Harlem Renaissance embodied one for mainstream American culture in the twenties; a Modernist hospitality to the other will push forward the practice of translation, turning it into a creative and disorienting tool.2
For over two decades, Modernist studies has expanded beyond Anglo-centric tendencies, as RabatĂ© indicates. Modernism qua multilingual movement pushed âforward the practice of translation, turning it into a creative and disorienting tool.â RabatĂ© refers to the practice of translation during Modernism as âa creative and disorienting tool,â and certainly, as in the case of Homage to Sextus Propertius (1919), the poem enacts both a creative and disorienting translation style. Additionally, Ignacio Infanteâs After Translation: The Transfer and Circulation of Modern Poetics across the Atlantic (2013) stresses that the very function of translation was embedded in Modernism.
Others have remarked that contemporary analysis of Poundâs translations lacks engagement with current trends in translation studies. For example, Alan Golding, citing Bob Perelman, argues that it is ââtime to translate Modernism into a contemporary idiomââŠthat translation must involve the question of what it means to read Pound now.â3 There is little doubt among contemporary scholars that discussions of Poundâs translations need to be rendered âinto a contemporary idiom.â Placing this contemporary idiom in conversation with Modernist translation means looking beyond antiquated conversations about the binary nature of the textâthat is, a formally equivalent or dynamically equivalent translation. Adam Piette, in his 2008 essay, âPoundâs âThe Gardenâ as Modernist Imitation: Samain, Lowell, H.D.,â agrees with me:
Translation theory has too often assumed that a binary simplicity governs the relations between source and target culture in the transactions of translation. To paraphrase Pound, we can argue that modernist translation has no simple model for the cultural work it is doing on both source and target cultures: the translation may augment, diminish, multiply, or divide the source textâs verbal energies; or use the source text to augment, diminish, multiply, and divide the target cultureâs power of tradition.4
Pound himself claimed that language should not be categorized as âmerely positive and negative; but let us say +, â, Ă, Ă·, +a, âa, Ăa, Ă·a, etc.â5 Roland VĂ©gsĆâs 2010 essay, âThe Mother Tongues of Modernity: Modernism, Transnationalism, Translation,â advances exactly this idea: that Poundâs âcontroversial âcreative translationsâ [show] us that translations can aspire to become poems in their own right.â6 When discussing Poundâs translation of Elektra, it is ineffective to try and label it a formally or dynamically equivalent translation. For one, his Elektra defies any easy classification; secondly, such binary arguments tend to overwhelm what could be a much more productive conversation without resorting to hotly debated issues of what constitutes formally and dynamically equivalent translations.7
This chapter is divided into two sections: the first half is devoted to Poundâs translation of Elektra and the second half explores Poundâs collection Cathay. With Elektra, I first unpack the inherent sonic and semantic complexities of Poundâs translation before utilizing Jack Halberstamâs concepts of âlow theoryâ and âshadow feminismâ to examine Elektraâs agency throughout the play. My discussion of Cathay first requires a detailed survey regarding the production of the collection in light of recent research on the poems. Theories by both Halberstam and JosĂ© Esteban Muñoz provide valuable insight into the collection, specifically in regards to the following topics: models of success and failure, gendered power dynamics, futurity and queer utopias, modes of becoming, and performativity. The issues I consider thus seek to expand conversations about Poundâs work not just in relation to translation, but also that of gender and sexuality.
Elektra offered Pound an opportunity to innovate his translation practices just as much as it afforded him the chance to identify with a character like Elektra during his own unraveling at the hands of the U.S. legal system and his psychiatric care under Dr. Winfred Overholser.8 The play functions as a radical way for Pound to address issues of mental health, gender roles and expectations, as well as power structures. By channeling his experiences in what David A. Moody refers to as Poundâs âtragic years,â Pound focuses on how failure and unbecoming may, in fact, catalyze new sites of knowledge and artistic originality.9 Despite his tragic circumstances, Poundâs confinement at St. Elizabeths was a productive period for the poet, during which he translated Sophoclesâs plays, Elektra (1949) and Women of Trachis (1956); a number of works by Confucius, including Confucius: The Great Digest & Unwobbling Pivot (1951), The Confucian Analects (1951), The Classic Anthology Defined by Confucius; translations from poems by Rimbaud, Montanari, Tailhade, Horace; Pavannes and Divagations (1958); and two new sections for The Cantos: âRock-Drill De Los Cantaresâ (1955) and âThrones de los Cantaresâ (1959).
Poundâs renewed interest in translating Greek emerged during his work on the Pisan Cantos while he was imprisoned at the United States Army Disciplinary Training Center north of Pisa, where he was placed in one of the campâs six-by-six feet steel outdoor cages, otherwise known as a âdeath cell.â Poundâs cage in particular was reinforced with heavier steel to prevent fascists from attempting to break him out. He spent three weeks isolated in this cage, sleeping on the concrete without any access to communication or exercise. The circumstances put immense physical and mental strain on Pound, and after two-and-a-half weeks, he began to have a breakdown. By the third week, medical staff removed him from the cage and on June 14 and 15, he was examined by psychiatrists, who determined that Pound had suffered symptoms of a mental breakdown. He was then relocated to his own tent, where he was allowed reading material. It was during this time that he began to draft what became to be known as The Pisan Cantos (later published in 1948). Extant sheets of toilet paper displaying the beginning of Canto LXXIV implies that he started writing it while imprisoned in the cage.10 On November 15, 1945, Pound was transferred to the United States with an arraignment in Washington, D.C., on November 25 for charges of treason. During the trial, Pound was defended by Julien Cornell, a New York attorney and special counsel to the American Civil Liberties Union, who advised Pound to take a plea of insanity, which ultimately condemned Pound to spend the next twelve years at St. Elizabeths Hospital, where he was admitted after the trial.
Because of this insanity plea, Pound was advised not to demonstrate any evidence of sanity while he translated Elektra with the classicist, Rudd Fleming (âPound did not wish it to appear that he was âsaneâ enough to translate Greek,â informs Richard Reid),11 who was supposed to publish the work in his own name in order...