70 In 'The Wanderer: A Rococo Study,' Williams calls forth a muse imaged first as a female crow who 'sprang from the nest' to guide him, then as a crone who gives him insight. Yet this modern Beatrice is essential, for she leads him 'upward/ To the centre of all crur.h': So muse l bear thee with me Rape into this great involving flame, Calling ever from the midsr thereof, 'Follow! Follow!' And in the glory of our meering Shall the power be reborn. Of broidered days foredone,' protests r.he poet co his muse.

69 'I cannot bow co woo thee/ with honey words and flower kisses /. , to whom Pound was briefly engaged during r.he rinJe of his earliest Imagist exploration.s. Martz, 'addressed co a lady who seems to be an image of poetic inspiration,' probably in facer.he poet H.D. ' 68 Anoe.her early poem, 'The Summons,' is, according to Pound scholar Louis L. M)' song was ablaze Wtth her and she wenr from me As flame leavech rhe embers so went she unto new forests And the words were with me crying ever ' Pound's 'Praise of Ysolt ,' for example, resembles troubadour poetry in its homage ro a woman of transcendent powers, yet it is Wordsworthian in its appropriation of che song of a solitary reaper: But my soul sem a woman, a woman of the wonderfolk, A woman as fire upon che pine woods cryi ng 'Song, a song.'' As che flame crieth unto che sap. Particularly in their early poems, both Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams Women Poets and Creative ldentiry 21 rely heavily on rhe conventional poet-muse interaction. Most of the sign ificant male modernists-Pound, Williams, Eliot, Auden, Stevens, Yeats - also invoke female muses, in uaditional or nontraditional ways. ' 67 From what or whom the poet 'receives ,' Emerson does not explicitly reveal, yet he rejects the 'courtly muses of Europe' for the homespun inspiration of a feminized America. ' Yet 'plain old Adam' is ofcen exalted Emerson describes him in 'The Poet' as 'the Namer or LanguageMaker,' 'the man without impediment, who sees and handles chat which others dream of, traverses the whole scale of experience, and is represen tative of man, in virtue of bei ng the largest power to receive and to impart. the simple, genuine self against the whole world.

, THE PERGAMON TEXTBOOK INSPECTION COPY SERVICE An inspcc1ion copy o f any book published in the Perga mon lnternaliona l Li brary will gladly be sent to academic staff without obligation for their consideration fer course adop1ion or reco mm Bue Whitman's muse is also fem ale: recall the maternal sea of 'Out of rhe Cradle Endlessly Rocking,' the 'old crone' who at last, the poet cells us, 'whisper'd me.' 66 For Emerson, the poet is also an isolated figure, 'the plain old Adam.

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Table of contents : Contents A Whole New Psychic Geography My Scourge, My Sister Write, Write or Die Toward Durable Fire Nothing but Myself? My Selves Sisters in Pain Unlearning to Not Speak Index Citation preview

Invoking a muse definition