A Nihilistic Journey to Restore Art in Ezra Pound's "Hugh Selwyn Mauberley"

Ezra Pound shows his pessimistic attitude toward the distorted art under the capitalism in "Hugh Selwyn Mauberley." Because the grandeur of art, especially poetry, had decayed into a lower and tawdrier class, Pound reveals his genuine lamentation of contemporary reality throughout his poem. Pound, by way of the two poetic speakers, E.P. and Mauberley, attempts to return to the classical Greek era, Egyptian art, and the Chinese orientalism. Pound's motivation for the journey relies upon the deliberate deconstruction of modern capitalism in favor of Art for Art's sake. However, he eventually recognizes the meaningless breakdown in the middle of pursuing his artistic goal. The reorientation to revive the classical values is entangled with his frustration and revulsion in himself as a decadent artist. In addition, due to the banal horror caused by the remnants of World War I, the modern age greatly suffers from the disillusionment of the broken civilization in the waste land. On the whole, Pound fundamentally articulates the nihilism of western civilization in the process of his journey into the exotic cultures such as Egypt, Greece and China.