Ezra Loomis Pound (1885-1972)
American poet and critic, often called "the poet's poet" because his profound influence on 20th century writing in English. Pound believed that poetry is the highest of arts. He challenged many of the common views of his time and spent 12 years in an American mental hospital. "Let us build here an exquisite friendship,
The flame, the autumn, and the green rose of love
Fought out their strife here, 'tis a place of wonder ;
Where these have been, meet 'tis, the ground is holy."
('The Altar')
Pound was born in Hailey, Idaho. He was brought up in Wyncote, Philadelphia, where his father was assistant assayer for the US Mint. He studied the University of Pennsylvania, and befriended the young William Carlos Williams. From 1903 to 1906 Pound studied Anglo-Saxon and Romance languages at Hamilton College. In 1907 his teaching career was cut short at Wabash College in India when he had entertained an actress in his room.
In 1908 he travelled widely in Europe, working as a journalist. His first book of poems, A LUME SPENTO, appeared in 1908. After its publication Pound settled in London, where he founded with Richard Aldington and others the literary 'Imagism', and edited its first anthology, Des Imagistes (1914). With Wyndham Lewis and the sculptor Henri Gaudier-Brzeska he founded 'Vorticism', which produced a magazine, Blast. He helped Wyndham Lewis, T.S. Eliot and James Joyce to publish their works in the magazines Egoist and Poetry. Pound played crucial role in the cutting of Eliot's The Waste Land. In 1914 he married the artist Dorothy Shakespeare, with whom he had a son. In 1922 Pound started his relationship with the violinist Olga Rudge. From this creative, volcanic period date one of Pound's most widely read poems, 'HOMAGE TO SEXTUS PROPERTIUS (1919). Pound has been called the 'inventor' of Chinese poetry for our time. Beginning in 1913 with the notebooks of the Orientalist Ernest Fenollosa, he pursued a lifelong study of ancient Chinese texts, and translated among others the writings of Confucius. Dante and Homer became other sources for inspiration, and especially Dante's journey through the realms have parallels with his examination of individual experiences in THE CANTOS. In 1920 Pound moved to Paris and four years later her settled in Italy, where he lived over 20 years. He met Mussolini in 1933 and saw in him the long-needed economic and social reformer.