As a child, I made many pacts with friends for extraneous reasons. “Don’t tell Tommy I like him.” The ever-popular “Let’s stay friends forever.” However, such pacts usually withered away and were soon forgotten as quickly as the person who inspired them. In Ezra Pound’s poem “A Pact,” the narrator, assumed to be Pound himself, speaks of a pact he is newly making with Walt Whitman, agreeing to accept Whitman and his writings.
Pound begins the poem with straight-forward lines expressing his long-lived aversion to Whitman. “…I have detested you long enough” (ll. 2). The reader can assume that Pound has never warmed up to Whitman’s work previously, and is perhaps experiencing a change of heart. However, the first line of the poem implies that the pact being made is two-sided, involving both Pound and Whitman physically. Knowing of Pound’s poetic connections, it can be suggested that he dealt with Whitman on a personal basis. However, Walt Whitman died in 1892, the year in which Ezra Pound was a mere seven years old.
It is then inferred that Pound sees Whitman as the anti-thesis of an idol or role model, but has decided to come to terms with this aversion and embrace Whitman as a poet. “The Pact,” published in 1916, seems to be a nearly back-handed tribute to the late great in the eyes of Pound, who might almost feel dwarfed by Whitman in terms of talent. The lines that follow further this theory. Pound calls himself a “grown child,” sheepishly admitting his hatred for the man while hardly praising him. He continues the insult, calling Whitman his “pig-headed father,” which tells the reader that, in a way, Pound feels intimidating by Whitman so much as to compare him to a father figure, or perhaps the father of poetry. He is a mere child, rash in his hatred, teeming with contempt, slowing warming up to the man he has for so long denounced.
Continuing with line five, Pound begins to credit Whitman for paving the way for him. He “tells” him that he is ready to let go and move out on his own; he is “old enough to make friends” and can manage for himself. This symbolizes his freedom from the dead poets – the late greats – who have daunted him in his earlier years. Whitman has “broke(n) the new wood,” but it is Pound who must now create masterpieces and great literary works from what has been provided (ll. 6-7). In the conclusion, Pound connects himself to Whitman, sealing the “pact” and settling his emotions for the poet. He uses the word “commerce” to evoke the idea of exchange for goods, implying that writing is based on inspiration, and Whitman is loaning Pound some of his.
As Walt Whitman had been deceased for some time when “The Pact” was written, Ezra Pound lends to signify his relationship with all of the dead poets, denouncing and praising their life-time accomplishments. Though it is unclear, Pound seems to be suffering from a sort of jealousy complex, feeling competitive with dead men who lap him generationally. And while this pact did not involve two children, a handshake, and a wad of spit, Ezra Pound might just have stayed true to his word.
