pensamiento critico y practica poetica en donald davie - Universidad ...

general. Por lo que a la critica literaria respecta, Davie declara abiertamente que
Pound es su modelo (citamos in extenso):
1 weuld like fo think thai ihe sari of criticism that 1 have practice is modeled
upen an American critic, 1 mean Ezra Pound. And, of ceurse, its perfectly true
thai Pound’s criticism dees disconcert and somefimes enrage American as weIl
as British readers. But Ef seems te me quite plain in Peund’s career as a whole
that he>s brusque because of impatience, and hes impatient because of ihe
things that he envisages British and American peetry deing, which lhey
manifestly are not deing. 1 think he also is a profeundly generous critic, that he
does attack Ihe second raters only because he is determined te clear a space
where file really geod talenfs of bis time become conspicueus and visible. And
one thEng thai nebody denies about Pound is, in fact, the practical generosify of
bis concerns for his peers like Eliot and Joyce and Frost and D. H. Lawrence
and Marianne Meore and William carlos Williams. 1 would nol say, 1 ceuld net
say, thai ve been as gener~us as Pound was in actually giving time te
advancing the claims of my centemporaries and rivals rather that advancing
my own career —which is cerfainly what Pound did through long perieds. Buí l
have in fact done sorne championing of peeple whe might otherwise have been
considered my rivals. 1 weuld like fe have done more. And 1 weuld like fo think
thaf when 1 knock ether people, ¡fis not because of personal hestility teward
them or spite against them, buí because 1 can see thai Ef their defects are nol
recegnized, then some other poet like them, buí significantly different and
better. Es going te get ebscured. (TTE, 33-34)
En cuanto a su labor como profesor de escritura creativa en Stanford, Davie
no hace sino poner en práctica las cualidades que alaba en Pound:
profesionalidad y orientación pedagógica.
Por todo lo anteriormente expuesto, podemos afirmar que, en el caso de la
relación literaria entre Davie y Pound, el término “influencia” se queda corto.
Siguiendo a Harold Bloom (1995), podemos decir que Davie lleva a cabo una
lucha (agon) con Pound. Tal como intentaremos demostrar en este capítulo,
Pound es su incómodo eidos de poeta, un imperfecto autorretrato imaginario:
un yo ideal, en suma, que no acaba de convencer.
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