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in/of
The
Dialect
Modernism: Pound
and
Racial
Eliot's
Masquerade
Michael North
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Pound deeply feared.Dialect, which was to signifythe subversive freedomof the modernist,also marksthe languageof modernism with this fear.
3
A good example of these ironies is one of the poems Eliot
wrote in Frenchin 1916, a poem so close to Deleuze and Guattari it might have been writtento illustrateboth the rangeand
the limits of their theory. "MelangeAdultere de Tout" takes
its title and its tone from Corbiere and its conclusion from
Rimbaud, perhaps from the very text quoted twice in AntiOedipus.10The basic theme is deracination,which the poem
definesin threedifferentbut relatedways. The speakerwanders
fitfullyfrom place to place, and the recurrentconceit on which
the poem is built is that this movement through space means
alterationof personalityas well: "En Amerique, professeur;/
En Angleterre,jouraliste" (CompletePoems 28). Finally, the
poem expressesinstability of place and identity by variations
in language.Writtenin French about an American much like
Eliot himself, the poem includes German terminology,American place-names, French slang, and sheer nonsense like "tra
la la," to which Eliot gives the emphasis of rhyme. The poem
rubs familiarnames like "Omaha"up againstthe exotic: "De
Damas jusqu'a Omaha." It holds "Emporheben"and "Tra la
la" at an equal, if opposite, distance,definingits own idiom by
the vast differencebetween them. The very idea of linguistic
decorum, of a single standardof diction or tone, is mocked by
the easy movement between these extremes.In short, the language of the poem is what Deleuze and Guattaricall "a schizophrenicmelange,a Harlequincostume in which verydifferent
functions of languageand distinct centersof power are played
out, blurringwhat can be said and what can't be said ..."
(Kafka26).
As such, Eliot's "Melange"representsperfectlythe process
Deleuze and Guattari call deterritorialization,for the protagonist's movements from country to country unsettle identity
and languageat once, so that Omaha can seem as distant as
Damascus and sound as foreign as Emporheben.The natural
goal of this deterritorializingprogressabout the globe is, of
course, Africa, and the final version of the harlequincostume
is a savageskin robe: "Je celebraimon jour de fete / Dans une
oasis d'Afrique/ Vetu d'une peau de giraffe"(CompletePoems
29). Thus Eliot's speakerbecomes William Blackstone,albeit
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Birth, and
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7. See also Rourke'sdiscussion of the simultaneousgrowthof the "Yankee" role and the black minstrel stereotype(70-90); Huggins244-301; and
Ostendorf80.
8. Evidence that Eliot would have concurredin Aiken's account of their
feelingsis provided in "Eeldropand Appleplex,"which is generallyheld to
be aboutthe collaborationof Eliot and Poundbut which also bearsa number
of close similarities to the relationship of Eliot and Aiken. For example,
Eeldropand Appleplexrushout wheneverthereis a disturbancein the street
so that Eeldropcan listen to the lower ordersand register"in his mind their
oaths, their redundanceof phrase,their various mannersof spitting."
9. See also the account in "King Bolo" 21. As Aiken's title suggests,the
infamous King Bolo poems were supposed to be part of this modernist
affrontto literaryand scholarlyrespectability,and of course, they too depended heavily on racist slurs and stereotypes.
10. For brief discussions of this poem, not much noticed in the criticism
on Eliot, see Smith 35 and Moody 57.
11. Note the revealinguse of the word adulteratein AfterStrange Gods:
"The populationshould be homogeneous;wheretwo or more culturesexist
in the same place they are likely either to be fiercelyself-consciousor both
to become adulterate"(20).
12. "By the WatermelonVine" is listed as "NegroSong"in Sears41, and
under "Minstrel" in Stecheson 237. Valerie Eliot gives its date of first
performanceas 1904, but both Lax and Mattfeld give the date as 1914,
suggestingthat Eliot might have heard it close to the time when the earliest
shardsof The WasteLand were assembled.For informationon the original
performanceof "My Evaline" in 1901, see Bloom 1529.
13. Sandershas suggestedthat in draft form The WasteLand resembled
the traditionalminstrelshow form, with the last four sectionscorresponding
to the olio and Tiresias as Mr. Interlocutor.
14. This line has been excised from the severely bowdlerizedversion of
this letter printed in Selected Letters 171-72. There is no room here to
investigate the intricate relationshipbetween Pound's racial masking and
the convoluted cross-sexual role he casts himself in in these letters. The
latter has been investigatedby Koestenbaum.
15. See the discussion of this typescript, on deposit with the Hayward
bequest in the libraryof King's College, Cambridge,in Sidnell 263-65. I
am indebted to Ronald Bush for this reference.For a useful discussion of
Sweeney in light of Eliot's interest in the primitive, see Crawford.
16. "Under the Bamboo Tree" was one of the most popular American
songs of the period, selling 400,000 copies in less than a year. Yale undergraduatesturned it into a football fight song (Levy 89), and it became so
prevalentamong black audiencesthat childrenin Washington,DC, used an
adaptationof it as a mildly obscene street chant (Toomer 51).
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Works Cited
Ackroyd,Peter. T. S. Eliot. London: Crowley,Tony. The Politics of Discourse: The Standard Language
Hamilton, 1984.
Questionin BritishCulturalDebates.
Aiken, Conrad. "King Bolo and London:Macmillan, 1989.
Others." T. S. Eliot: A Symposium.
Comp. Richard March and Tambi- Davie, Donald. Ezra Pound. New
muttu. 1949. Freeport, New York: York: Viking, 1975.
Books for Libraries,1968. 20-23.
Deleuze, Gilles, and Felix Guattari.
. Ushant. New York: Duell, Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and
1952.
Schizophrenia.1977. Trans. Robert
Hurley, Mark Seem, and Helen R.
Baker, Houston A. Modernismand Lane. Minneapolis:U of Minnesota
theHarlemRenaissance.Chicago:U P, 1983.
of Chicago P, 1987.
. Kafka:Towarda MinorLitBloom, Ken. American Song: The erature. Trans. Dana Polan. MinCompleteMusical TheatreCompan- neapolis:U of MinnesotaP, 1986.
ion. New York:Facts on File, 1985.
. A ThousandPlateaus: CapBrathwaite,EdwardKamau.History italism and Schizophrenia. Trans.
of the Voice:TheDevelopmentofNa- Brian Massumi. Minneapolis:U of
tion Languagein AnglophoneCarib- Minnesota P, 1987.
bean Poetry. London: New Beacon,
1984.
Eliot, T. S. AfterStrangeGods.New
York: Harcourt, 1933.
Bush, Ronald. The Genesis of Ezra
Pound's Cantos. Princeton:Prince. The Complete Poems and
ton UP, 1976.
Plays, 1909-1950. New York: Harcourt, 1971.
Carpenter, Humphrey. A Serious
. "Eeldrop and Appleplex."
Character:The Life of Ezra Pound.
Little ReviewMay 1917: 7-11.
London:Faber, 1988.
Cowley, Malcolm. Exile's Return:A
LiteraryOdysseyof the 1920's. New
York: Viking, 1951.
. For LancelotAndrewes:Eson
says Styleand Order.GardenCity,
NY: Doubleday, 1929.
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Sanders,Charles."The WasteLand:
The Last Minstrel Show?" Journal
of Modern Literature8 (1980): 2338.
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