Editing Allen Upward (section)

==Reputation==
Upward's reputation as an obscure genius, the hidden mastermind behind some of the most obscure thoughts of Ezra Pound and his fellow Imagists was made by two essays Pound wrote in 1913-14 and various mentions of Upward in his Cantos. In 1975 there was a brief flurry of interest in this view of Upward typified by Donald Davie's piece on Upward in his attempt to revive sympathetic interest in Pound. In 1978 Mick Sheldon published an essay which demonstrated alongside his relationship with Pound Upward had a reputation as a popular novelist, lawyer, politician and local celebrity. Even more interesting were the discoveries Upward had influenced Edward Upward, to whom he was related, W. H. Auden whose poem the Orators refers to Allen's suicide and Robert Duncan who wrote a lengthy introduction to The Divine Mystery.
Sheldon also revealed before Pound had begun championing the cause of Allen Upward's genius, a woman philosopher called Victoria Welby had expressed the view Upward's New Word was a significant contribution to modernist philosophy.