Volume 31, Number 20 · December 20, 1984
Sly Signature
By George P. Savidis
In response to The Waste Land Without Pound
(October 11, 1984)
To the Editors:
Although, as an amateur of Eng. Lit., I am tempted to share Mr. Louis Auchincloss' feeling "that an expanded Waste Land would be more coherent" [NYR, October 11]—and, inevitably, more verdant—, I am equally tempted to question his (and anyone else's) idée reçcue that T.S. Eliot's dedication of this major composition to Ezra Pound has to be taken as an unreserved acknowledgment of Pound's superior craftsmanship. At best, the text of the dedication:
For Ezra Pound
il miglior fabbro
implies the following ironic equivalence:
(Dante \g< Arnaut): (Eliot \g< Pound).
On the other hand, ever since my undergraduate days, I have often wondered whether the Italian tag should not simply be read as a sly signature, i.e. (il miglior fabbro) = (T.S.E.).
George P. Savidis
Harvard University
Cambridge, Massachusetts