Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

"To Formianus' Young Lady Friend; After Valerius Catullus" by Ezra Pound is a piece replete with biting satire and social critique. It is a translation or adaptation of work by the Roman poet Catullus, who was well-known for his love poems and invectives. Like many of Pound's poems, this one too engages deeply with history, but its resonance with modern vanity and societal definitions of beauty make it acutely relevant to any age, encapsulating the perpetual human preoccupation with physical attractiveness.

The poem opens with an ironic "All Hail!" and proceeds to describe a young woman in terms that are conspicuously unflattering. Each feature is delineated as "by no means" this or that-too small, too elegant, etc.-a backhanded way of saying she's quite the opposite. There's a clear disconnect between her actual appearance and what is socially perceived as beautiful. Despite her unremarkable looks, the young woman is hailed as beautiful, thanks to her association with Formianus, a vendor of cosmetics. One senses the complicity between society's standards of beauty and the commercial products that promise to achieve them.

Then, the young woman is compared to Lesbia, who in Catullus's poems is the epitome of beauty and desirability. This comparison elevates her, but it's a sham, a facade maintained by cosmetics and societal delusion. Pound uses this absurdity to comment on the artificial constructs of beauty, both in Roman times and in his own. The cosmetic vendor Formianus can be seen as a representation of an industry that capitalizes on insecurities, an industry that existed in ancient Rome, in Pound's time, and that continues to flourish today.

The concluding line, "O most unfortunate age!", serves as an indictment not just of the age Catullus or Pound lived in, but of any age, including our own, where external beauty is given such high currency. It is unfortunate not because people want to be beautiful, but because the aspiration often leads to a sort of collective blindness, where people are appreciated not for their genuine qualities but for their adherence to arbitrary standards.

It's worth noting that the young woman isn't really the target of the satire; she is more a symptom of a broader societal ill. She is what society makes her: a figure praised for her beauty when she is, in fact, rather unremarkable. This woman's circumstances provoke questions about how much of what we find attractive is dictated by society and how much is inherent. Where does that leave individuality and the appreciation of diverse types of beauty?

Pound's poem, then, serves as a critique of the societal obsession with beauty and the commodification of attractiveness. By invoking Catullus and Lesbia, and juxtaposing them with a rather ordinary woman who gains her beauty from cosmetics, he offers a timeless commentary on the often vacuous nature of aesthetic standards. The poem's lingering message is uncomfortable but essential: we are an unfortunate age, not because we strive for beauty, but because we have allowed it to be defined for us.

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