Hugh Selwyn Mauberley

Hugh Selwyn Mauberley (1920) is a long poem by Ezra Pound. It has been regarded as a turning point in Pound's career (by F. R. Leavis and others), and its completion was swiftly followed by his departure from England. The name "Selwyn" might have been an homage to Rhymers' Club member Selwyn Image. The name and personality of the titular subject are also reminiscent of T. S. Eliot's main character in "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock". Structure The poem consists of eighteen short poems which are grouped into two sections. The first is an autobiography of Ezra Pound himself, as indicated by the title of the first poem, which reads "E.P. Ode pour l'élection de son sépulchre" ("Ezra Pound: Ode for the Choice of His Sepulchre"). The second section introduces us to the struggling poet "Mauberley"'s character, career, and fate. Readers have been misled by the fact that Pound assigns to every poem a title or, alternatively, a number. Thus poem I, "E.P. Ode pour l'Election de Son Sépulchre", is followed by poems II–V, that are numbered, while poems VI–IX are again given individual titles. As a consequence, in some websites poems II–V are reprinted as if they were parts II–V of "E.P. Ode". They are in fact individual poems in a sequence of which "E.P.: Ode" is only poem I. A brief analysis Hugh Selwyn Mauberley addresses Pound's alleged failure as a poet. F. R. Leavis considered it "quintessential autobiography."