A Study Of Ezra Pounds Section

Essays on recent developments in Pound scholarship and research, including newly available primary sources and methodological advances in cognate fields.

Genius, Confucian, fascist, traitor, peace activist—Ezra Pound—love him or hate him, he is impossible to ignore as one of the most influential modernists and controversial poets of the twentieth century. His life, as Alec Marsh makes clear in this biography, raises vital questions for anyone interested in politics, art, and poetry. No writer of his stature promoted so many acquaintances who would go on to become such distinguished names in their own right—James Joyce, T. S. Eliot, and Ford Madox Ford were among the many who benefited from Pound’s enthusiasm and editorial suggestions. And without Pound’s generosity to his fellow writers, literary modernism might not have happened, or have been the significant, influential movement that it became. Yet by 1925, Pound himself was living in obscurity in Italy, having trouble publishing his own work. There he became a Mussolini enthusiast and was eventually indicted for treason by the United States before being judged mentally incompetent to stand trial. Marsh takes us inside these years in an attempt to uncover what happened. How did such a great modern artist succomb to such views? Was he a traitor? And was he, in fact, insane? Analyzing Pound’s prose and poetry as well as his magnum opus, The Cantos, Marsh provides clear insights into Pound’s work as well as a coherent account of his troubled life that will be essential reading for students and fans of modernist literature.

Ezra Pound spent most of his life in Italy and wrote about it incessantly in his poetry. Only by following his footsteps, acquaintances and composition processes can we make sense of and enjoy his forbidding Cantos. This study provides for the first time an account of Pound’s Italian wanderings and of what they became in his work. After this study we will be able to read Pound as a guide to the places, people and books he loved, and we will share his the poet traveler’s joys and discoveries.

Despite the painstaking work of Pound scholars, the mythos of The Cantos has yet to be properly understood — primarily because until now its occult sources have not been examined sufficiently. Drawing upon archival as well as recently published material, this study traces Pound’s intimate engagement with specific occultists (W.B. Yeats, Allen Upward, Alfred Orage, and G.R.S. Mead) and their ideas. The author argues that speculative occultism was a major factor in the evolution of Pound’s extraordinary aesthetic and religious sensibility, much noticed in Pound criticism. The discussion falls into two sections. The first section details Pound’s interest in particular occult movements. It describes the tradition of Hellenistic occultism from Eleusis to the present, and establishes that Pound’s contact with the occult began at least as early as his undergraduate years and that he came to London already primed on the occult. Many of his London acquaintances were unquestionably occultists. The second section outlines a tripartite schema for The Cantos (katabasis/dromena/epopteia) which, in turn, is applied to the poem. It is argued here that The Cantos is structured on the model of a initiation rather than a journey, and that the poem does not so much describe an initiation rite as enact one for the reader. In exploring and attempting to understand Pounds’ occultism and its implications to his [Pounds’] oeuvre, Tryphonopoulos sheds new light upon one of the great works of modern Western literature.

"Be influenced by as many great writers as you can," said Ezra Pound. Pound was an "assimilative poet" par excellence, as George Bornstein calls him, a writer who more often "adhered to a . . . classical conception of influence as benign and strengthening" than to an anxiety model of influence. To study Pound means to study also his precursors—Homer, Ovid, Li Po, Dante, Whitman, Browning—as well as his contemporaries—Yeats, Williams, and Eliot. These poets, discussed here by ten distinguished critics, stimulated Pound's most important poetic encounters with the literature of Greece, Rome, China, Tuscany, England, and the United States. Fully half of these essays draw on previously unpublished manuscripts.

Ezra Pound forever changed the course of poetry. The author of a vast body of literature, his enormous range of references and use of multiple languages make him one of the most obscure authors and—because of his Fascism, anti-Semitism, and questionable sanity—one of the most controversial. This encyclopedia is a concise yet comprehensive guide to his life and writings. Included are more than 250 alphabetically arranged entries on such topics as Arabic history, Chinese translation, dance, Hilda Doolittle, Egyptian literature, Robert Frost, and Pound's publications. The entries are written by roughly 100 expert contributors and cite works for further reading. Ezra Pound forever changed the course of poetry. His vast body of poetry and critical works make him one of the 20th century's most prolific writers, and his influence has shaped later poets, great and small. His enormous range of references, deliberate obscurity, and use of multiple languages make him one of the most difficult authors and— because of his Fascism, anti-Semitism, and questionable sanity—one of the most controversial figures in American literary history. This encyclopedia is a concise yet comprehensive guide to his life and writings.

An international team of scholars provides an invaluable introduction to Pound's work and life.