This is a collection of essays on The Cantos by Poundian scholars of international standing. Their wide variety of approaches to Pound contain much new material and raise fundamental issues for a more accurate and richer appreciation of Pound's work. This collection brings together many contrasting and stimulating analyses of The Cantos and will be of interest to all who wish to increase their knowledge of Pound's poetry.
Poetic visionary Ezra Pound catalyzed American literature's modernist revolution. This volume, the most comprehensive collection of his poetry and translations ever assembled, gathers all his verse except "The Cantos."
Walt Whitman "is America," according to Ezra Pound. More than a century after his death, Whitman's name regularly appears in political speeches, architectural inscriptions, television programs, and films, and it adorns schools, summer camps, truck stops, corporate centers, and shopping malls. In an analysis of Whitman as a quintessential American icon, Kenneth Price shows how his ubiquity and his extraordinarily malleable identity have contributed to the ongoing process of shaping the character of the United States. Price examines Whitman's own writings as well as those of writers who were influenced by him, paying particular attention to Whitman's legacies for an ethnically and sexually diverse America. He focuses on fictional works by Edith Wharton, D. H. Lawrence, John Dos Passos, Ishmael Reed, and Gloria Naylor, among others. In Price's study, Leaves of Grass emerges as a living document accruing meanings that evolve with time and with new readers, with Whitman and his words regularly pulled into debates over immigration, politics, sexuality, and national identity. As Price demonstrates, Whitman is a recurring starting point, a provocation, and an irresistible, rewritable text for those who reinvent the icon in their efforts to remake America itself.
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.
These fascinating letters capture the most traumatic experience of Ezra Pound's life, when he was incarcerated at the end of World War II and indicted for treason. Omar Pound and Robert Spoo have collected and edited the unpublished correspondence between the poet and his wife, combining itwith military and FBI documents, previously unknown photographs, and an extensive, insightful introduction, to create the definitive work on this period of Pound's life. During his incarceration in a U.S. Army detention camp outside Pisa, Pound was allowed to write only to his wife, so these letters afford a unique look at a painful yet highly productive period, when Pound wrote his acclaimed Pisan Cantos and worked on his translations of Confucius. Readerswill discover many fresh insights into the sources and contexts of the Cantos and the circumstances of their composition. Here, too, are many moving passages testifying to Pound's partnership with Dorothy and her courageous efforts to help him; her experiences no less than his come to life in thisvolume. But perhaps the most moving are the harsh conditions Pound found himself in: at one point, in the Pisan camp, he was confined for three weeks in an open air cage, until the sixty year old poet suffered a breakdown and was moved to a tent in the medical compound. The editors connect theanxious lyricism of the Pisan Cantos to these dramatic experiences, as the poet alternated "between savage indignation and suave serenity." The book also covers Pound's return to the United States and his confinement in a federal mental institution there. With more than 150 previously unpublished letters and documents, all authoritatively annotated, Ezra and Dorothy Pound: Letters in Captivity, 1945 1946, offers a rare glimpse into the life and work of one of our century's greatest literary figures.
Ezra Pound has been called "the inventor of modern poetry in English." The verse and criticism which he produced during the early years of the twentieth century very largely determined the directions of creative writing in our time; virtually every major poet in England and America today has acknowledged his help or influence. Pound's lyric genius, his superb technique, and his fresh insight into literary problems make him one of the small company of men who through the centuries have kept poetry alive—one of the great innovators. This book offers a compact yet representative selection of Ezra Pound's poems and translations. The span covered is Pound's entire writing career, from his early lyrics and the translations of Provençal songs to his English version of Sophocles' Trachiniae. Included are parts of his best known works—the Chinese translations, the sequence called Hugh Selwyn Mauberly, the Homage to Sextus Propertius. The Cantos, Pound's major epic, are presented in generous selections, chosen to emphasize the main themes of the whole poem.
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.
Included here are all of Pound's concert reviews and statements; the biweekly columns written under the pen name William Atheling for The New Age in London; articles from other periodicals; the complete text of the 1924 landmark volume Antheil and the Treatise on Harmony; extracts from books and letters, and the poet's additional writings on the subject of music. The pieces are organized chronologically, with illuminating commentary, thorough footnotes, and an index. Three appendixes complete this comprehensive volume; an analysis of Pound's theories of "absolute rhythm" and "Great Bass;" a glossary of important musical personalities mentioned in the text and the composer George Antheil's 1924 appreciation, "Why a Poet Quit the Muses."
