People

Ezra Weston Loomis Pound 1885–1972  - United States, London, Paris, Italy

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Questions of 

modernist movement

Because of his political views, especially his support of Mussolini and his anti-Semitism, Pound continues to attract much criticism. Nevertheless, it is impossible to ignore the vital role he played in the modernist revolution in 20th century literature in English. This importance may be considered under four headings: poet, critic, promoter, and translator.

As a poet, Pound was one of the first to successfully employ free verse in extended compositions. His Imagist poems influenced, among others, the Objectivists and The Cantos were a touchstone for Ginsberg and other Beat poets. Almost every 'experimental' poet in English since the early 20th century is in his debt.

As critic, editor and promoter, Pound helped the careers of Yeats, Eliot, Joyce, Williams, H.D., Moore, Ernest Hemingway, D. H. Lawrence, Louis Zukofsky, Basil Bunting, George Oppen, Charles Olson and other modernist writers too numerous to mention as well as neglected earlier writers like Walter Savage Landor and Gavin Douglas.

As translator, although his mastery of languages is open to question, Pound did much to introduce Provençal and Chinese poetry, the Noh, and the Confucian classics to a modern western audience. He also translated and championed Greek and Latin classics and helped keep these alive for poets at a time when classical education was in decline.

The secret to Pound's seemingly bizarre theories and political commitments perhaps lie in his occult and mystical interests, which biographers have only recently begun to document. 'The Birth of Modernism' by Leon Surette is perhaps the best introduction to this aspect of Pound's thought. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

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Reading

Poetry

 

• A Lume Spento (also see below), privately printed (Venice) by A. Antonini, 1908.
• A Quinzaine for This Yule, Pollock (London), 1908.
• Personae, Elkin Mathews (London), 1909.
• Exultations, Elkin Mathews, 1909.
• Provenca, Small, Maynard (Boston), 1910.
• Canzoni, Elkin Mathews, 1911.
• Ripostes of Ezra Pound, S. Swift (London), 1912, Small, Maynard, 1913.
• Personae and Exultations of Ezra Pound, [London], 1913.
• Canzoni and Ripostes of Ezra Pound, Elkin Mathews, 1913.
• Lustra of Ezra Pound, Elkin Mathews, 1916, Knopf (New York), 1917.
• Quia Pauper Amavi, Egoist Press (London), 1918.
• The Fourth Canto, Ovid Press (London), 1919.
• Umbra, Elkin Mathews, 1920. (Including translations)
• Hugh Selwyn Mauberley, Ovid Press, 1920.
• Poems, 1918-1921, Boni & Liveright (New York), 1921.
• A Draft of XVI Cantos, Three Mountains Press, 1925.
• Personae: The Collected Poems of Ezra Pound, Boni & Liveright, 1926.
• Selected Poems, edited and with an introduction by T. S. Eliot, Faber & Gwyer, 1928, Laughlin, 1957.
• A Draft of the Cantos 17-27, John Rodker (London), 1928.
• A Draft of XXX Cantos, Hours Press (Paris), 1930, Farrar & Rinehart, 1933.
• Homage to Sextus Propertius, Faber, 1934.
• Eleven New Cantos: XXXI-XLI, Farrar & Rinehart, 1934, published in England as A Draft of Cantos XXXI-XLI, Faber, 1935.
• (Under pseudonym The Poet of Titchfield Street) Alfred Venison's Poems: Social Credit Themes, Nott (London), 1935.
• The Fifth Decade of Cantos, Farrar & Rinehart, 1937.
• Cantos LII-LXXI, New Directions (New York), 1940.
• A Selection of Poems, Faber, 1940.
• The Pisan Cantos (also see below), New Directions, 1948.
• The Cantos of Ezra Pound (includes The Pisan Cantos), New Directions, 1948, revised edition, Faber, 1954.
• Selected Poems, New Directions, 1949.
• Personnae: The Collected Poems of Ezra Pound, New Directions, 1950, published in England as Personnae: Collected Shorter Poems, Faber, 1952, new edition published as Collected Shorter Poems, Faber, 1968.
• Seventy Cantos, Faber, 1950.
• Section Rock-Drill, 85-95 de los Cantares, All'Insegna del Pesce d'Oro (Milan), 1955, New Directions, 1956.
• Thrones: 96-109 de los Cantares, New Directions, 1959.
• The Cantos (1-109), new edition, Faber, 1964.
• The Cantos (1-95), New Directions, 1965.
• A Lume Spento, and Other Early Poems, New Directions, 1965.
• Selected Cantos, Faber, 1967.
• Drafts and Fragments: Cantos CX-CXVII, New Directions, 1968.
• From Syria: The Worksheets, Proofs, and Text, edited by Robin Skelton, Copper Canyon Press, 1981.
• The Collected Early Poems of Ezra Pound, New Directions, 1982.
• Diptych Rome-London (includes Hugh Selwyn Mauberley), New Directions, 1994.
• Early Poems, Dover, 1996.

PROSE

 

• The Spirit of Romance, Dent, 1910, New Directions, 1952, revised edition, P. Owen, 1953.
• Gaudier-Brzeska: A Memoir Including the Published Writings of the Sculptor and a Selection from His Letters, John Lane, 1916, New Directions, 1961.
• (With Ernest Fenollosa)Noh; or, Accomplishment: A Study of the Classical Stage of Japan, Macmillan (London), 1916, Knopf, 1917, published as The Classic Noh Theatre of Japan, New Directions, 1960.
• Pavannes and Divisions, Knopf, 1918.
• Instigations of Ezra Pound, Together with an Essay on the Chinese Written Character by Ernest Fenollosa, Boni & Liveright, 1920.
• Indiscretions, Three Mountains Press (Paris), 1923.
• Antheil and the Treatise on Harmony, Three Mountains Press, 1924 (Under pseudonym William Atheling; published under his own name, P. Covici, 1927, 2nd edition, Da Capo, 1968.
• Imaginary Letters, Black Sun Press (Paris), 1930.
• How to Read, Harmsworth, 1931.
• ABC of Economics, Faber, 1933, New Directions, 1940, 2nd edition, Russell, 1953.
• ABC of Reading, Yale University Press, 1934, new edition, Faber, 1951.
• Make It New, Faber, 1934, Yale University Press, 1935.
• Social Credit: An Impact (pamphlet), Nott, 1935.
• Jefferson and/or Mussolini, Nott, 1935, Liveright, 1936.
• Polite Essays, Faber, 1937, New Directions, 1940.
• Culture, New Directions, 1938, new edition published as Guide to Kulchur, New Directions, 1952.
• What Is Money For?, Greater Britain Publications, 1939, published as What Is Money For?: A Sane Man's Guide to Economics, Revisionist Press, 1982.
• Carla da Visita, Edizioni di Lettere d'Oggi (Rome), 1942, translation by John Drummond published as A Visiting Card, Russell, 1952, published as A Visiting Card: Ancient and Modern History of Script and Money, Revisionist Press, 1983.
• L'America, Roosevelt e le Cause della Guerra Presente, Edizioni Popolari (Venice), 1944, translation by Drummond published as America, Roosevelt and the Causes of the Present War, Russell, 1951.
• Introduzione alla Natura Economica degli S.U.A., Edizioni Popolari, 1944, English translation by Carmine Amore published as An Introduction to the Economic Nature of the United States, Russell, 1958.
• Oro e Lavoro, Tip. Moderna (Rapallo, Italy), 1944, translation by Drummond published as Gold and Work, Russell, 1952.
• Orientamenti, Edizioni Popolari, 1944.
• "If This Be Treason..." (four original drafts of Rome radio broadcasts), privately printed for Olga Rudge, 1948.
• The Letters of Ezra Pound, 1907-1941, edited by D. D. Paige, Harcourt, 1950.
• Patria Mia, R. F. Seymour (Chicago), 1950, published in England as Patria Mia and The Treatise on Harmony, Owen, 1962.
• Literary Essays of Ezra Pound, edited and with an introduction by T. S. Eliot, New Directions, 1954.
• Lavoro ed Usura, All'Insegna del Pesce d'Oro, 1954.
• Brancusi, [Milan], 1957.
• Pavannes and Divagations, New Directions, 1958.
• Impact: Essays on Ignorance and the Decline of American Civilization, edited and with an introduction by Noel Stock, Regnery, 1960.
• EP to LU: Nine Letters Written to Louis Untermeyer, edited by J. A. Robbins, Indiana University Press, 1963.
• Pound/Joyce: The Letters of Ezra Pound to James Joyce, edited by Forrest Read, New Directions, 1967.
• Selected Prose, 1909-1965, edited by William Cookson, New Directions, 1973.
• Ezra Pound and Music: The Complete Criticism, edited by R. Murray Schafer, New Directions, 1977.
• "Ezra Pound Speaking": Radio Speeches of World War II, edited by Leonard W. Doob, Greenwood Press, 1978.
• Letters to Ibbotsom, 1935-1952, National Poetry Foundation, 1979.
• Ezra Pound and the Visual Arts, edited by Harriet Zinnes, New Directions, 1980.
• Letters to John Theobald, Black Swan Books, 1981.
• Pound-Ford, the Story of a Literary Friendship: The Correspondence between Ezra Pound and Ford Madox Ford and Their Writings about Each Other, New Directions, 1982.
• Ezra Pound and Dorothy Shakespear: Their Letters, 1909-1914, New Directions, 1984.
• Pound-Lewis: The Letters of Ezra Pound and Wyndham Lewis, New Directions, 1985.
• Selected Letters of Ezra Pound and Louis Zukofsky, New Directions, 1987.
• Pound the Little Review: The Letters of Ezra Pound to Margaret Anderson, New Directions, 1988.
• A Walking Tour in Southern France: Ezra Pound among the Troubadors, edited with an introduction by Richard Sieburth, New Directions, 1992.
• The Letters of Ezra Pound to Alice Corbin Henderson, edited by Ira B. Nadel, University of Texas Press (Austin), 1993.
• Ezra Pound and James Laughlin: Selected Letters, edited by David Gordon, Norton, 1994.
• Ezra Pound and Senator Bronson Cutting: A Political Correspondence, 1930-1935, University of New Mexico Press, 1995.
• Pound/Cummings: The Correspondence of Ezra Pound and E. E. Cummings, edited by Betty Ahearn, University of Michigan Press, 1996.
• Pound/Williams: Selected Letters of Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams, edited by Hugh Witemeyer, New Directions, 1996.
• Machine Art and Other Writings: The Lost Thought of the Italian Years (essays), edited by Maria Luisa Ardizzone, Duke University Press, 1996.

TRANSLATIONS

 

• The Sonnets and Ballate of Guido Cavalcanti, Small, Maynard (Boston), 1912, published as Ezra Pound's Cavalcanti Poems (includes Mediaevalism and The Other Dimension, by Pound), New Directions, 1966.
• Selections from Collection Yvette Guilbert, [London], 1912 (Contributor of translations).
• Cathay, Elkin Mathews, 1915.
• Certain Noh Plays of Japan, Cuala Press (Churchtown), 1916.
• Twelve Dialogues of Fontenelle, 1917.
• The Troubadour Sings, 1920. (With Agnes Bedford)
• Remy de Gourmount, The Natural Philosophy of Love, Boni & Liveright 1922.
• Confucius, To Hio: The Great Learning, University of Washington Bookstore, 1928.
• Confucius: Digest of the Analects, edited and published by Giovanni Scheiwiller, 1937.
• Odon Por, Italy's Policy of Social Economics, 1930-1940, Istituto Italiano D'Arti Grafiche (Bergamo, Milan and Rome), 1941.
• Ta S'eu Dai Gaku Studio Integrale, [Rapallo], 1942.(Translator into Italian, with Alberto Luchini)
• Confucius, The Great Digest [and] The Unwobbling Pivot, New Directions, 1951.
• Confucius, Analects, Kasper & Horton (New York), 1951, published as The Confucian Analects, P. Owen, 1956, Square $ Series, 1957.
• The Translations of Ezra Pound, edited by Hugh Kenner, New Directions, 1953, enlarged edition published as Translations, New Directions, 1963.
• The Classic Anthology, Defined by Confucius, Harvard University Press, 1954.
• Richard of St. Victor, Pensieri sull'amore, [Milan], 1956.
• Enrico Pea, Moscardino, All' lnsegna del Pesce d'Oro (Milan), 1956.
• Sophocles, Women of Tiachis (play; produced in New York at Living Theatre, June 22, 1960), Spearman, 1956, New Directions, 1957.
• Rimbaud, All' Insegna del Pesce d'Oro, 1957.
• Love Poems of Ancient Egypt, New Directions, 1962. (With Noel Stock)

EDITED WORKS

• Des Imagistes (anthology; published anonymously), A. & C. Boni, 1914. (With contributions from Pound)
• Catholic Anthology, 1914-1915, Elkin Mathews, 1915. (With contributions from Pound)
• Passages from the Letters of John Butler Yeats, Cuala Press, 1917.
• Ernest Hemingway, In Our Time, Three Mountains Press, 1924.
• The Collected Poems of Harry Crosby, Volume Four, Torchbearer, [Paris], 1931.
• Guido Cavalcanti, Rime, Marsano (Genoa), 1932.
• Profiles (anthology), [Milan], 1932.
• Active Anthology, Faber, 1933. (With contributions from Pound)
• Ernest Fenollosa, The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry, Square $ Series, 1935.
• Confucius to Cummings: An Anthology of Poetry, New Directions, 1964. (With Marcella Spann)

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Writing available on the net

Hypervortext of Canto LXXXI

 

Academy of American Poets Page -- Canto I Audio, Various Links

Beinecke Page (connect)

Beinecke Collection: Modernist Exhibition (connect)

Pound & Fenollosa

Indiana Site (connect)

Manuscript Collections

 

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Commentaries

Pound at Modern American Poetry (http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/m_r/pound/pound.htm)

Pound at EPC (http://wings.buffalo.edu/epc/authors/pound/)

Pound and the Occult (http://www.cwru.edu/artsci/engl/VSALM/mod/ballentine/)

Hugh Kenner: 'The Pound Era'.

James Longenbach: 'Stone Cottage: Pound, Yeats and Modernism'.

Kevin Oderman: 'Ezra Pound and the Erotic Medium'.

Humphrey Carpenter: 'A Serious Character: A life of Ezra Pound'.

Modern American Poetry Page
Kobe U. Page (connect): Life Time Table; Bibliography of Criticism on Pound; Other Links.

Hypervortext of Canto LXXXI
PAL Pound page -- Excellent bibliography including selected critical works.

 

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Quotations