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ARYA PK

RAJIV C KRISHNAN

LIT110

12TH SEPTEMBER 2018

Analysis of Hugh Selwyn Mauberly-Part 1

The first part poem the poem Hugh Selwyn Mauberly gives the images of war in

subtle ways. While reading the poem we could get the images of injured soldiers and a

deceit society in the hands of religious authorities and the political bureaucrats. As it

deals with war and other experiences in the 20th century we could trace the trauma of a

society a War hysteria may be in the context of this poem. Especially in the part “These

fought in any case”.

It is about the ‘Modern world’ as we know the quintessential cause of the trauma

is the modern world itself and that is why pound tries to define how war plays a

significant role in the trauma of the modernist society or in 20th Century Europe. Pound

as a poet strived and failed to revive the so called Conventional “art Of poetry”. This

could be his strive to bring back the faith of the people through his writings. He believed

that as an artist it is his duty to make a change in the society in regard of the chaotic

situation and the foul psychological plays happened during that time. “He strove to

resuscitate the dead art Of poetry; to maintain “the sublime” ”

The reference to “Capaneus” indicates the young man who went for war.

Capaneus was a Greek Hero embodies immense strength and body he was an outstanding
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Warrior. ‘Warrior’ The Europe needed Warriors to fight and bleed for the country. Here

we could see how the War hysteria in his poetry starts to develop. It is the stress that they

faced turned out as this urge for war even after being aware of all the consequences and

pain. War changed the life of the people the trauma of war evolved into a hysteria people

believed that it is the only way to get out from the trap so the parents sent their sons to

war. But the trauma soldiers had faced was different from the trauma of common people.

Soldiers became mere machines in the hands of the state. They were ready to

fight even if they are not they had to fight. These people were forced to fight in the

deadly war with any guarantee of life. “These fought, in any case” Slaughtering became

love for some people either because of the psychological impact of the slaughtering or

because of keeping up the manliness, but there others who doesn’t wanted to kill. The

trauma was different even among the soldiers.

Some quick to arm,

Some for adventure,

Some from fear of weakness,

Some from fear of censure,

Some for love of slaughter, in imagination,

Learning later… `

He calls the soldiers as Professional Patriots. “Eye deep” indicates the stress of
these soldiers and how they are tired without even proper food or living in trenches and
the shell shock. They are driven away to war fields on lies of the society and after that
they will return to the same society of infamy. Coming back home itself was an
unbelievable thing for them. They become alienated with their self, family and society.
They might have injured or became handicapped the rest of the life would be in misery
if they couldn’t cope up with that. It need a great courage to be in a place with false
ideas than never before
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Youths were sacrificed for the war for nothing

Wastage as never

Before,

Young blood and high blood,

Fair cheeks, fine bodies:

The “Circe’s hair and “Sirens songs” from Homer’s Odysseus reminds us of

Cantos. Pound considers the situation of 20th century as equal to Odysseus who trapped

in the shipwreck. ‘Sirens song’ are the songs of beautiful women who sang on some a

rock, the tune tempted sailors and tricked sailors to sail into the rocks. Pound here says

about the possibilities of being completely destroyed unless they didn’t went back to a

level of change that would have helped them to live in a more peaceful and organized

way. Pound also mentions about the “usury” or the bankers and money lenders,

according to pound it is equal to sin. He constantly says a how Modernist era demands a

mould to survive from this trauma of modern world.