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

Anti-traditional predilection of Sex in Pounds Coitus Critics have been fascinated and often deep in thought(p) by Ezra Pounds shifting 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 fragment to break traditional form and ideology, both literary and poetic. What is particularly curious about Pound, however, is that as he continually establishes precedence, he r bely abandons his exhaustive knowledge and appreciation of classical publications, drawing heavily from his literary and historical education in even his most groundbreaking works. Coitus, one of Pounds wee short works, exemplifies both his interest in the simple, efficient techniques of vorticism and his homage to the classics, interrelating them to make out a statement that is unique and anti-traditional. COITUS The gilded phaloi of the crocuses are garget at the spring air. He re is there naught of dead gods save a procession of festival, A procession, O Giulio Romano, Fit for your spirit to hold out 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 congenital part of Coitus, it is the impressly stark sexual force that dominates its strengthen. However brusquely carnal the poem seems, it does not at any point explicitly mention sex, except in the unmistakable directness of the title. Pound renders his tone through a montage of classical allusions and phallic imagery which agree the vorticistic Japanese haiku the beginning 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 capitalize on the previous history of literature but also revolutionary modern theori es psychological, sexual and literary. As a whole, Coitus is an atom of knowledge, capable of splitting 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 STATION OF THE METRO The tail of these faces in the crowd Petals on a wet, black bough. ALBA As collected as the pale wet leaves of lily-of-the-valley She lay beside me in the dawn.