Anti-traditional Conception of Sex in Pounds Coitus Essay -- Pound Co

Anti-traditional Conception of Sex in Pounds Coitus Critics have been fascinated and often baffled by Ezra Pounds devious poetic style, which ranges from the profound simplicity of In a Station of the Metro to the complex intertextuality of the Cantos. Pounds significance derives largely from his constant resolve to break traditional rebound and ideology, both literary and poetic. What is particularly unique about Pound, however, is that as he continually establishes precedence, he rarely abandons his thorough knowledge and appreciation of classical literature, lottery heavily from his literary and historical education in even his most groundbreaking works. Coitus, one of Pounds early short works, exemplifies both his interest in the simple, economical techniques of vorticism and his homage to the classics, interrelating them to create a statement that is unique and anti-traditional. COITUS The gilded phaloi of the crocuses are thrusting at the spring air. Here is there naught of assassinated gods But a procession of festival, A procession, O Giulio Romano, Fit for your spirit to dwell in. Dione, your nights are upon us. The dew is upon the leaf. The night about us is restless. Although classical allusions and imagist influences are an inherent part of Coitus, it is the disturbingly stark sexual force that dominates its tone. However bluntly carnal the poem seems, it does not at any point explicitly stir sex, except in the unmistakable directness of the title. Pound renders his tone through a montage of classical allusions and phallic imagery which resemble the vorticistic Japanese haiku the spring and ending two lines share similarities with Pounds... ...ion, yoking allusive fragments of western culture with elements of modern life. By combining the ancient with the new, Pound produces disturbing and sexually centered anachronisms that take advantage on the previous history of literature but also revolutionary modern theories psychological, sexu al and literary. As a whole, Coitus is an atom of knowledge, capable of split and exploding into far reaches of historical and literary realms, yet instantly and intriguingly disturbing for its modern sexual tone. The following poems are borrowed from page 109 of Personae The Collected Shorter Poems of Ezra Pound, 1926. IN A pose OF THE METRO The apparition of these faces in the crowd Petals on a wet, black bough. ALBA As cool as the pale wet leaves of lily-of-the-valley She lay beside me in the dawn.