Ferdinand (1961)

1940-17 June 1942/ Quarterly Review of Literature (May & Nov. 1950)

 

Commentary

Greene, Jonathan. “Zukofsky’s Ferdinand.” MAPS 5 (1973): 131-136. Rpt. Terrell (1979): 337-341.

Twitchell-Waas, Jeffrey. “Louis Zukofsky.” Review of Contemporary Fiction 22.3 (Fall 2002): 26-37.

 

LZ and WCW exchanged comments on this story, although unfortunately some of the letters have been lost; see WCW/LZ 287-288, 302-305

 

Note on the Text: There are two distinct printings of the Dalkey Archive edition of Collected Fiction (1990), which effects some of the pagination, although there is no indication of the difference in the later reset printing. In both editions, Little is photostatted from the original Grossman publication (1970), while the additional stories collected as It Was were set in a different and somewhat unsightly type, which apparently is why the latter was reset to make a more uniform looking volume in 1997. As a result, the pagination is the same for Little, but different for the other stories. In the notes I have referred to the most recent (1997) printing. In the paperback editions, the earlier printing has an all-white cover with a full front cover photo of LZ, while the 1997 printing has a mostly black cover with a reduced and cropped photo of LZ on the front.

 

Notes to Ferdinand

 

197            Portofino: as LZ mentions, a village on the Italian Riviera nestled along the sea and backed against mountains with a central square, the Piazetta, facing the harbor. Portofino is very near Rapallo to the east of Genoa, so perhaps visited by LZ when he stayed with EP in Aug. 1933.

197       fiacre: a small hackney carriage (AHD).

199            Linnaeus: Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778), the great Swedish botanist who proposed the modern system of botanic classification.

204       capital city of the world: Paris.

207       one poet—a cannonier dangerously wounded so that “a star rayed his forehead”…: the French poet Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918), fought in World War I, initially serving with the artillery, and suffered a near fatal star-shaped head-wound from a piece of shrapnel—one of the more famous war wounds in literary history. In “Tristese d’une Étoile” (Sorrow of a Star) from Calligrammes (1918), Apollinaire alludes to this wound: “Une étoile de sang me couronne à jamais” (A star of blood crowns me forever).

216       But the Russians, the first to isolate themselves…: when the Bolsheviks came to power in the October Revolution of 1917, they soon withdrew Russia from World War I, signing the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Germany in March 1918. In response, the Allies sent an expeditionary force consisting primarily of British, French and U.S. troops into northern Russia, who became involved in the Russian Civil War on the side of the Whites against the Communist government, but eventually withdrew in 1919.

220       White Russian: designates those who fought or sided against the Bolsheviks in the Russian Civil War following the October 1917 Revolution. The conflict continued until the Whites were finally defeated in 1921, when close to a million people emigrated to various capitals around the world.

220       An Englishman, who loved to sail…: this character is based on LZ’s friend Basil Bunting (1900-1985), who was an avid sailor and a translator of classical Persian, including Firdosi (c.940-1020), the great epic poet of the Shahnamah or Epic of the Kings.

220       Merrie Isle: i.e. England.

220       “the rabbin”: this character is presumably based partially on LZ himself, although many details are not biographically true.

221            Creeping Charlie…: reappears often in the latter half of Ferdinand and can designate several different plants, including the ground ivy (Glechoma hederacea), originally from Europe but naturalized throughout much of North America. However, judging from the description of the flower and leaves, it is more likely LZ has in mind the Commelina viginica or Virginia dayflower, which can easily be confused with the Wandering Jew (Tradescantia fluminensis). All three names are loosely conflated at 240, which also refers back to the forgotten Latin name here (see WCW/LZ 304-305 where the two are clearly discussing these names and identifications).

221            Crèvecoeur’s eighteenth century anticipation…: Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur (1735-1813), French American author of Letters of an American Farmer (1782). In Letter XI, which presents itself as a letter from a Russian giving an account of his visit to John Bertram, to whom he makes the observation: “I view the present Americans as the seed of future nations, which will replenish this boundless continent; the Russians may be in some respects compared to you; we likewise are a new people, new I mean in knowledge, arts, and improvements. Who knows what revolutions Russia and America may one day bring about; we are perhaps nearer neighbours than we imagine.”

222       King, Minuchihr I: Minuchihr was an ancient Persian king who is an important character in Firdosi’s Shahnamah (Epic of the Kings). This speech is a modernization of part of Minuchihr’s speech on ascending to the throne in Firdosi; for a translation of the original passage see note at Arise, Arise 22 where it is alluded to. Firdosi and the Shahnamah are mentioned or quoted at 12.227.17-27, 18.394.6 and Bottom 121 (see 220).

222            Barnacle Bill: archetypical sailor, from a well-known drinking song, “Barnacle Bill the Sailor.”

225       the day that Manchuria had been invaded by the Japanese: as a result of the so-called Mukden Incident on 18 Sept. 1931, the Japanese army immediately invaded and occupied Manchuria.

225            thirteen years since the peace was fashioned…: referring to the Treaty of Versailles of 1919 that officially concluded World War I and for the most part reaffirmed or even augmented the colonial empires of the Allied powers and Japan.

225            necessitous poor: see note at 227 below.

226       Cape Cod girls they have no combs…: a well-known traditional shanty or sailors song.

227       “the necessitous poor”—a tautology of a seventeenth century English economist…: from the economist and social reformer John Bellers (1654-1725), Essays About the Poor, Manufactures, &c. (1699), as qtd. by Marx in a footnote in Capital, Chap. XV; LZ included this passage among the many quotations from Capital in the “Aids” to First Half of “A”-9 (1940): "The uncertainty of fashions does increase necessitous poor. It has two great mischiefs in it. 1st, The journeymen are miserable in winter for want of work, the mercers and master-weavers not daring to lay out their stocks to keep the journeymen employed before the spring comes, and they know what the fashion will then be; 2ndly, In the spring the journeymen are not sufficient, but the master-weavers must draw in many prentices, that they may supply the trade of the kingdom in a quarter or half a year, which robs the plough of hands, drains the country of labourers, and in a great part stocks the city with beggars, and starves some in winter that are ashamed to beg.”

228       Unter den Linden …: major boulevard in the center of Berlin (Ger. Under the Linden (trees), after the title of a famous song by Walther von der Vogelweide). The torchlight parade here presumably refers to a Nazi demonstration demanding the revocation of the Treaty of Versailles that ended WWI and imposed on Germany heavy indemnities and restraints on military development. The Nazi Party effectively seized control of Germany in early 1933. Bunting was in Berlin for a few months in late 1928-early 1929, and he recorded his negative impressions in the savage “Aus dem Zweiten Reich” (Complete Poems 36-38).

228       latest Caesar hazarding a policy of conquest in Africa: Mussolini invaded Ethiopia in Oct. 1935.

229       The Englishman wrote from Singapore when Japan launched its attack on China…: Japan, after occupying Manchuria in 1931, attacked China in July 1937, while the Munich Pact (Sept. 1938) allowed Hitler to annex part of Czechoslovakia, seen as a major act of appeasement toward Hitler. Although he never went to Singapore, Bunting did spend a short while in Los Angeles 1938-1939 with the idea of looking for work in films (see EP/LZ 196), and he did promptly enlist in the military as soon as Britain declared war on Germany in Sept. 1939.

230            Everyone knew the enemy was arming…: the main events alluded to in this paragraph leading into the early years of WWII are the invasion of Poland by Germany in Sept. 1939, which finally forced England and France to declare war after an extended policy of appeasement toward Hitler. However, since the Allies in fact took no action against Germany’s aggression, the period immediately following is often referred to as the “phony war,” until May 1940, when Germany invaded Belgium, the Netherlands and then quickly overran France, making a mockery of the latter’s Maginot Line, which it was claimed could stop tanks. Paris fell 14 June, and Marshal Pétain, a hero of WWI, signed an armistice with Germany and headed the puppet regime at Vichy, France. Most of these events are also referred to in “A”-10, the work most contemporaneous with the writing of Ferdinand.

231       where the idea of people revolting for their right had an older heritage: referring to the French Revolution of 1789.

231       free army some thousands of his fellow nationals had mustered in England…: the Free French Forces comprised of those who escaped to England at Dunkirk in 1940 and other remnants of the French army, who reorganized under General Charles De Gaulle.

233       our general on England’s side is a patriot: General Charles De Gaulle (1890-1970); see previous note. 

235       port of arrival, the greatest city in the world, still extant: LZ’s hometown, New York City; Ferdinand is driving north from Washington, D.C.

238            Linnaeus: see 199. As Ferdinand’s uncle remarks, Linnaeus inspired many students who traveled to all parts of the world and continued his work; the most famous who went to America was Pehr Kalm (see next note).

239       Like the farmer from our country…: the naturalists described in this paragraph appear to be based largely on John Bartram (1699-1777) and his son William (1739-1823), author of Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia East and West Florida… (1791), although a number of the details do not fit: e.g. John Bartram was native-born in the American colonies and his famous gardens were located near Philadelphia, not in New Jersey. It is possible LZ is conflating details from other early American naturalists, such as Petr Kalm (1715-1779), author of Travels into North America (1770).

239            “gamblers that although playing for nothing…: this and following quotations on this page from John Audubon (1785-1851), Delineations of American Scenery and Character (1926), which is a compilation of Audubon’s journal observations on his travels that were originally published interspersed with more technical information in the companion volumes to his illustrations in Birds of America (1827-1838). A couple of these quotations appear in Bottom 238. It is possible that these quotations were supplied to LZ by Lorine Niedecker, who was much interested in Audubon and often sent LZ notes and quotations from her reading.

240            Commelina Virginica: see note at 221.

243            Kalendas Mayas: troubador song by Raimbaut de Vaqueyras (d. 1207). The title words mean “Calends of May” or the first of May, which was a traditional holiday long before it became a worker’s holiday. As LZ notes every line rhymes with aya, as do numerous internal rhymes.

243            estampeda: or estampida, Provencal courtly dance of the 12th-14th centuries mentioned in troubadour poetry. Among the earliest surviving examples of written instrumental music, the “Kalenda maya” (see above) was set to an existing estampida.

243            shagbark: a type of hickory tree, native to North America.

243       Don Giovanni: opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart; see CSP 123 and “A”-23.563.10.

244       The Miller of the Dee: traditional English folk song; the first stanza as follows:
There was a jolly miller once
Liv'd on the river Dee,
He work'd and sang from morn till night,
No lark more blithe than he,
And this the burden of his song
Forever us'd to be,
"I care for nobody, no not I,
If nobody cares for me."

246       words of Jefferson among his notes…: it seems likely LZ found this quotation, actually a paraphrase, in Donald Culross Peattie, Green Laurels: The Lives and Achievements of the Great Naturalists (1936), which would also have provided information on other naturalists mentioned in the Ferdinand: “[Jefferson] wrote to Alexander Wilson telling him that there was still one bird, absolutely unknown to science, which he had heard and some hunters knew, that sang divinely from the tops of the highest trees. But so adroitly did this chorister keep himself concealed aloft that through he, Jefferson, had outstanding a reward offered for a specimen, not the best shot had ever been able to bring down even one. Nor was it, Jefferson said, to be found in Buffon or Linnaeus.”

249       the enemy […] had broken another pact and turned on Russia…: Hitler invaded the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, breaking the Stalin-Hitler (Molotov-Rippentrop) Pact of August 1939, which was a non-aggression agreement between the two powers, as well as secretly agreeing to carve up Eastern Europe into spheres of influence. The Hitler-Stalin Pact effectively marked the official beginning of WWII, as both Germany and the Soviet Union promptly invaded Poland, setting off the Allied response. See “A”-10.121.7 and 12.203.18.

252       slim statue of an Etruscan warrior…: probably one of three terra-cotta statues bought during WWI and prominently displayed by the Metropolitan Museum in NYC, although eventually proven to be fakes around 1960. One depicts a thin, white-bearded warrior.

252       forty-eighth state…: Arizona became the 48th state in 1912.

253       extinct tribes of Indians…: the Anasazi inhabited what is now northern Arizona, leaving behind their rock cliff villages and believed to be the ancestors of other village oriented tribes: the Hopi, Zuni and Pueblos. The Mayan civilization dominated much of northern South American up into what is now southern Mexico over many centuries, but they were in long gradual decline by the time of the Spanish arrival in the early 16th century. The Aztec civilization ruled central Mexico from the 14th century until the Spanish conquest. The Toltecs dominated much of what is now central Mexico from the 10th to 12th centuries.

254       a young girl…: the incident of seeing the native girl is at least minimally based on or suggested by an experience LZ had while traveling through Arizona in April 1932 on his way to San Francisco (see WCW/LZ 287; also the two Arizona poems CSP 45).

257       came back home from Greece…: Mussolini attacked Greece in Oct. 1940 from Albania, but was disastrously repulsed, and eventually the Germans had to come in to subdue Greece.

259       Père Noé, qui plantastes la vigne…: first line of a ballade by François Villon (1431-1474) from his Le Testament, a poetic last farewell; immediately translated by LZ.

260            Antigone: in Sophocles’ tragedy, Antigone defies King Creon’s decree and buries her brother, Polyneices.

262       a Walt Disney in which a baby elephant was the principal character: presumably Dumbo, an animated film released by Walt Disney studios in 1941.

262       Art’s long…life is too short to miss these: attributed to Hippocrates: Art is long, life is short; see 13.297.10.

263       La Niña: the smallest of Christopher Columbus’ three ships on his first voyage to “discover” America.

263       Palos: town in Spain from which Columbus set sail for America on his first voyage, not where he returned.

264       the Capitol—not much more than a hundred years old: although the U.S. seat of government moved to Washington, D.C. in 1800, the present Capitol building—having been partially burned down by the British in 1814—was completed by 1830.