The Brothers Crazy-mazov

William Butler Yeats I
and Yeats II


⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Ezra Pound I
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀and Pound II









"In 1913, Yeats met the young American poet Ezra Pound. Pound had traveled to London at least partly to meet the older man, whom he considered "the only poet worthy of serious study". From that year until 1916, the two men wintered in the Stone Cottage at Ashdown Forest, with Pound nominally acting as Yeats' secretary. The relationship got off to a rocky start when Pound arranged for the publication in the magazine Poetry of some of Yeats' verse with Pound's own unauthorised alterations. These changes reflected Pound's distaste for Victorian prosody. In particular, the scholarship on Japanese Noh plays that Pound had obtained from Ernest Fenollosa's widow provided Yeats with a model for the aristocratic drama he intended to write. The first of his plays modeled on Noh was At the Hawk's Well, the first draft of which he dictated to Pound in January 1916."

-- from Wikipedia


I can't imagine two crazy-er people than W.B. Yeats and Ezra Pound. Imagine them working together for several years! I have to find out more about this (i.e., reading books instead of the internet). So much for meticulous research.


Pound (second from left) and Yeats (third from left).