attributes his own difficulties to excessive scholarship on the
part of the author. "This," he will say of some of the poems in
Provencal form or on Provencal subjects, "is archaeology; it
requires knowledge on the part of its reader, and true poetry
does not require such knowledge." But to display knowledge is
not the same thing as to expect it on the part of the reader;
and of this sort of pedantry Pound is quite free. He is, it is
true, one of the most learned of poets. In America he had taken
up the study of Romance Languages with the intention of
teaching. After work in Spain and Italy, after pursuing the
Provencal verb from Milan to Freiburg, he deserted the thesis
on Lope de Vega and the Ph.D. and the professorial chair,
and elected to remain in Europe. Mr. Pound has spoken out
his mind from time to time on the subject of scholarship in
American universities, its deadness, its isolation from genuine
appreciation, and the active creative life of literature. He has
always been ready to battle against pedantry. As for his own
learning, he has studied poetry carefully, and has made use of
his study in his own verse. "Personae" and "Exultations"
show his talent for turning his studies to account. He was
supersaturated in Provence; he had tramped over most of the
country; and the life of the courts where the Troubadours
thronged was part of his own life to him. Yet, though "Personae"
and "Exultations" do exact something from the reader, they do
not require a knowledge of Provencal or of Spanish or Italian.
Very few people know the Arthurian legends well, or even Malory
(if they did they might realize that the Idylls of the King are
hardly more important than a parody, or a "Chaucer retold for
Children"); but no one accuses Tennyson of needing footnotes, or
of superciliousness toward the uninstructed. The difference is