Letter to the Editor

Dear Editor,

I read your exchange on "Ambition and Greatness" with interest. Pound's argument that "the artist is not dependent on his audience" is obviously true for many artists who worked in relative isolation, but the specific context of Pound's remark ("I ask you, had Synge an audience in his lifetime?") pertains to the artist's lifetime, not to future generations. The context of Whitman's remark ("To have great poets, there must be great audiences, too") involves a relationship between the artist and the future. In "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry," and in addressing his "Eleves"â