“Objectivists” 1927-1934 Section 8 - Sincerity and Objectification Contents

Notes - Section 8 - Sincerity and Objectification

1 Humanities Research Center, The University of Texas at Austin. Zukofsky’s manuscript is described in Marcella Booth, A Catalogue of the Louis Zukofsky Manuscript Collection (Austin: The University of Texas, 1975), E5a; hereafter cited as Austin, SO. Zukofsky mentioned that it was finished in his letter to Pound of 14 February 1930; the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University; hereafter cited as Yale.

2 From 6 November 1930, Zukofsky repeatedly asked Pound to revise and shorten the essay for him, but on 9 December 1930 when Pound’s revision arrived from Rapallo Zukofsky had already shortened it himself, he said, from 27 to 15 pages. These letters from Zukofsky to Pound are at Yale. The essay was printed in Poetry: A Magazine of Verse, 37, 5 (February 1931), 272-275.

3 “An Objective,” section II, Prepositions: The Collected Critical Essays, Expanded Edition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981), pp. 12-14.

4 Literary Essays (New York: New Directions, 1968), p. 22: “It does not matter whether the author desire the good of the race or acts merely from personal vanity. The thing is mechanical in action.” And, quoted by Robert Creeley, “A Note,” in “A” l-l2 (Garden City: N.Y.: Doubleday, 1967), p. xii: “You live with things as they exist and as you sense them and think about them. . . . Otherwise how sincere your intentions doesn’t matter.”

5 Literary Essays, p. 22.

6 Austin, SO, p. 1.

7 Austin, SO, p. 16; Poetry (February 1931), 283 (revised).

8 Austin, SO, p. 3; Poetry (February 1931), 273.

9 Austin, SO, p. 2; Poetry (February 1931), 272. “Wringing, wringing his pierced hands . . .” Poems 1918-1936: Volume I of the Complete Poems of Charles Reznikoff, ed. Seamus Cooney (Santa Barbara: Black Sparrow Press, 1976), p. 16; hereafter cited as CPI.

10 Austin, SO, pp. 2-3; Poetry (February 1931), 272-273. The two-paragraph piece beginning “Queen Esther,” and “Nightmares,” CPI, pp. 191, 202.

11 Austin, SO, p. 3.

12 Literary Essays, p. 9.

13 Austin, SO, p. 4; Poetry (February 1931), 273 (revised).

14 Austin, SO, p. 4; Poetry (February 1931), 273-274.

15 Austin, SO, p. 9; Poetry (February 1931), 278-279.

16 Poetry (February 1931), 280.

17 Austin, SO, p. 12; CPI, p. 41, No. 2.

18 Austin, SO, p. 16; Poetry (February 1931), 273.

19 Austin, SO, pp. 16, 18-20, 13, 22.

20 Poetry (February 1931), 268.

21 Austin, SO, p. 22.

22 Austin, SO, p 4; Poetry (February 1931), 273-274.

23 The Contemporary Writer: Interviews with Sixteen Novelists and Poets, ed. L. S. Dembo and Cyrena N. Pondrom (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1972), p. 217.

24 Austin, SO, p. 6; Poetry (February 1931), 284.

25 Austin, SO, p. 8; Poetry (February 1931), 277.

26 CPI, p. 36, No. 25.

27 Austin SO, pp. 5-6; Poetry (February 1931), 275.

28 CPI, pp. 207, 16, Nos. 2, 14.

29 Austin SO, p. 6; Poetry (February 1931), 275-276.

30 Austin, SO, p. 8; Poetry (February 1931), 278.

31 Zukofsky, Letter to Rakosi, 2 June 1931, Austin.

32 Austin, SO, p. 8; Poetry (February 1931), 276-277.

33 See William James, Psychology: Briefer Course (New York: Macmillan, 1962), pp. 25-29.

34 Literary Essays, pp. 3, 4.

35 Austin, SO, p. 8; For Poetry (February 1931), 278. Zukofsky changed “presentation” to “tangible rendition.”

36 Austin, SO, p. 10; Poetry (February 1931), 279.

37 Antheil and the Treatise on Harmony, With Supplementary Notes (Chicago: Pascal Covici, 1927), pp. 13, 21.

38 Literary Essays, p. 9.

39 Gaudier-Brzeska: A Memoir (New York: New Directions, 1974), p. 84.

40 Translations (New York: New Directions, 1963), 23.

41 New Age, 16, 13 (28 January 1915), 349-350; Selected Prose 1909-1965, ed. William Cookson (New York: New Directions, 1975), 375.

42 The Contemporary Writer, p. 176. The line occurs in “Psalm: Veritas sequitur . . . “ Collected Poems (New York: New Directions, 1975), p. 78.

43 Austin, SO, p. 10; Poetry (February 1931), 279; CPI, p. 118, No. 55.

44 Imaginations, ed. Webster Schott (New York: New Directions, 1970), pp. 133-134.

45 New Age (28 January 1915), 349-350; Selected Prose, pp. 374-375.