John Quinn (1870-1924) attorney for Pound and Eliot, modern art collector, and the guy who made the Armory Show (1913) happen, is a neglected but important figure from the American Midwest who ended up working for British intelligence and upon his death was in possession of the original manuscript of T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land” with all the valuable cross outs and edits. The following is a conversation with my literary friend, X___ and you can see how it inspired this Scarriet article; I’ve decided to let the inspiration be seen in its raw form. I came up with the phrase “Collapse Chic” during the conversation with my brilliant acquaintance. Some things are best dropped right from the tree onto the grass:
He must have meant something to TSE for Tom to give Quinn the ms. The Reid bio of Quinn won the Pulitzer, talks of British intelligence and Aleister Crowley and Tammany Hall (Horace Greeley, Poe’s enemy, was also mixed up with Tammany corruption). The book of all books on Modern Letters 1850 to 1950 waits to be written. I’m too lazy to write it.
“No, it is simply a financial transaction. Quinn was collecting, and the ms. obviously meant less to TSE than the dough. Back then, collecting mss. of living authors was somewhat rare.”
Do we know how much, or whether money even changed hands? We always focus on the authors themselves in terms of making their own reputations, but I see it differently. I believe it’s people like Quinn “behind the scenes” with money and connections and legal expertise who are driving the car, not TS Eliot. My guess is that timid and doubtful Eliot was only too happy to give the ms. to Quinn as the best guarantee of his legacy. It was Quinn who negotiated deals for Pound and Eliot. Pound was still editing The Waste Land when it won the Dial Prize. It was a fait accompli. And these sorts of things happened because guys like Quinn know how to stack the deck. Quinn wasn’t collecting modern art out of love. Nor was John Dewey. “Love” of the “new” in Modernist circles was simply what they call “buy low and sell high.” Quinn was not purchasing the ms. from Eliot as some starry-eyed fan. Eliot was beholden to Quinn. Of course literary professors with 20/20 hindsight will disagree with me. But they might be wrong…
…I just looked it up. Eliot wanted no money—he gave his ms. to Quinn as a means to “preserve” it (Pound’s edits needed to be preserved was Eliot’s “reason”—I think it was probably more so that one could see some beautiful lines by Eliot which Pound nixed. Eliot trusted the worldliness of Quinn; he was hedging his bets.) Quinn as a matter of honor nevertheless gave Eliot $140.00. It was later sold by Quinn’s niece for much more.
“I think Eliot could easily have entertained both reasons. He had a complicated and many-layered mind–and he was not above naivete. Remember, too, that he was shocked and appalled by Pound’s scheme to have a bunch of people back Eliot with the equivalent of his salary for five years. Remember, too, that the manuscript was of the greatest poem of the Moderns.”
It was clear Eliot had talent, but I doubt anyone thought The Waste Land was going to be a best-seller. It was either Pound’s way (hitting up wealthy dames) or the American way—teaching writing, a career European literati thought beneath them. Turned out the Americans knew best: the New Critics getting the new writing (and Frost) into the schools was a fortuitous path, probably easier than getting Duchamp and modern art into museums. Looking back it’s hard to know what was inevitable and what took real work and scheming.
“Of course many plans for plumping this author or that have come to nothing. (Delmore Schwartz thought Genesis was surefire and kept warning [James] Laughlin that there was a “conspiracy” against him.) The Waste Land, however, had fairly robust criticism against, but college students took to it rapidly. Probably it spoke to their feelings about the collapse of culture after the war. Now we have Amanda Gorman for that.”
Who prevents the “collapse of culture,” though? If The Waste Land deftly reflects “collapse;” like the dyer’s hand, it participates in it. And should all poets & artists go on reflecting & recording the “collapse of culture,” until the “collapse of culture” accelerates the world into Gorman and illiteracy? My problem with Modernism (as brilliant as guys like Eliot were) is that it finally marks collapse and collapse only, unless you think the Cantos or 4 Quartets or Finnegans Wake will save us (I doubt it). Schwartz, like my parents, were haunted by Adlai Stevenson’s loss. Delmore was also angered by Pound’s Bollingen, but to me Schwartz (with Berryman, Jarrell, Lowell) represents the next generation dragged down by Modernist “collapse-chic.” There was nothing great or noble to inherit, just estrangement, and not a good, revenge-of-hope, Romantic kind of estrangement, just undisciplined, resigned, half-hearted Marxist, literary-pretentious, estrangement.
“I don’t think anyone can stop a Gorman, who answers a felt need. There have always been poets like her, and they’ve usually been forgotten very quickly. / Honestly, I don’t worry about whether poetry is or isn’t contributing to collapse. It can only reflect its times–well, or badly. Im glad to have Frost to appreciate, and glad to have TSE, EP, Moore, Stevens, and WCW.”
“Collapse-Chic,” which grew out of our Quinn conversation will be the next pro-Romantic, anti-Modernist Scarriet rant. Collapse-chic propelled the Modernists and their Waste Land flagship— but conflagration followed in its wake, a “burnt ends” prophecy. The only public splash poem since has been “Howl.” Talk about Collapse-chic. Plath/Sexton. The gibberish of Ashbery and Black Mountain, Jorie Graham, billions of forgettable workshop poems. Surely I can’t deny your “what is, is” philosophy; I embrace it every day. TSE is miles better than EP (who had his translating, lyric moments) Moore (meh) Stevens (Keats-lite, fun sometimes, I’ll admit) WCW (never liked). Tending that coterie will be a progressively lonely island in the years ahead, a black mountain head sticking out of a vast, politically correct, sea. I’m putting my money in Plato-Dante-Shelley (Shakespeare, Milton, Goethe, Pushkin, Heine, Tennyson, Whitman, Dickinson, TSE, Millay, Bishop, Justice, Larkin, Mazer).
“Can’t argue with many on that list at the end, though my mansion has more flats.”
And there ends the essential conversation which produced Collapse-Chic. I could have added hundreds more poets to my list and my literary friend many, many more, obviously.
Who is my literary friend? I will never tell. He might be English, you say?
Romantic poems by the dead have been my tarot cards, telling me how to act.
Books have been nearly my all. But the living occasionally amuse. I amused myself by handing Camille Paglia a poem of mine out of respect for her; what an idiot I could be!
Has poetry made me an idiot?
Am I part of this “collapse” which I am perhaps too arrogantly advertising? Yes, indeed. I think we are all in its net. Letters has become primitive. Don’t let the “sophistication” of a Charles Olson or any avant poet, or long-winded novelist, fool you. Letters is primitive now compared to the 19th century. Maybe this “collapse” is a good thing, or something necessary to go through for the sake of a “revolution.” I doubt it. I just think it’s a collapse. We may as well admit it.
I have had the good fortune to interact with the best literary minds of the last 100 years, all by accident, really. Paul Engle. I remember him quoting Yeats to me, “If it doesn’t sing, it doesn’t talk!” Paul Engle was a man of great energy and force. Donald Justice was sensitive and kind. Engle, when I knew him, was at Iowa’s International Writing Program—where I interned as an Iowa student. Engle retired and left the famous Iowa Workshop to poets like quick Marvin Bell and calm Donald Justice, among others; Engle confided to me he wasn’t impressed by the new generation; Paul hosted 30 writers lavishly in Iowa City (including stipends to travel the U.S.) every year: dignified female writers from Norway, slovenly writers, European frankness, Egyptian cigarettes, Indian song moments, at the Mayflower hotel in Iowa City! In Harvard Square, Helen Vendler laughing in my face when I asked her about Poe. I told Galway Kinnell after a reading at the Longfellow House that his poem on Shelley was mean, after I told him “When One Has Lived A Long Time Alone” was his best poem. I informed Harold Bloom at a book signing he was unfair to Poe and surprised when he said, in a melancholy tone, “yes I was intolerant.” I witnessed Philip Nikolayev politely destroy the great critic Marjorie Perloff in a concrete poetry debate at the Hong Kong restaurant. Life moves fast, but so does Letters. Be careful what you say. There are so many reasons to be forgotten.
The Collapse may include the collapse of you, as infinitely chic as you are.