Ezra Loomis Pound (1885-1972)

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.

In his anti-Semitic statements Pound agreed with those who believed that the economic system was being exploited by Jewish financiers. During World War II he made in Rome a series of radio broadcasts, that were openly fascist. In 1945 he was arrested by the U.S. forces and pronounced insane in a trial. Pound spent 12 years in Washington, D.C., in a hospital for the criminally insane. During this period he received the 1949 Bollingen Prize for his Pisan Cantos. After he was released, he returned to Italy, where he spent his remaining years. Pound died on November 1, 1972 in Venice. According to Katherine Anne Porter, "Pound was one of the most opinionated and unselfish men who ever lived, and he made friends and enemies everywhere by the simple exercise of the classic American constitutional right of free speech." (The Letters of E.P., 1907-1941, New York Times Book Review, 29 Oct. 1950)
Pound published over 70 books and translated Japanese plays and Chinese poetry. The Cantos, a series of poems which he wrote from 1920s throughout his life, are considered among his best works. Its final volume, LATE CANTOS AND FRAGMENTS, appeared in 1969. In The Cantos Pound recorded the poet's spiritual quest for transcendence, and intellectual search for worldly wisdom. Just as Beatrice guided Dante's pilgrim, so classical goddesses appear in The Cantos. Pound also presents mythical, historical, and contemporary figures, mirroring the poetry and ideas of the past and present. "Great literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree."
As an essayist Pound wrote mostly about poetry. From the mid-1920s he examined in several writings the ways economic systems promote or debase culture. Pound hoped, that fascism could establish the sort of society in which the arts could flourish. He argued that poetry is not 'entertainment', and as an elitist he did not appreciate the common reader. Pound considered American culture isolated from the traditions that make the arts possible, and depicted Walt Whitman as 'exceedingly nauseating pill'. Among his most influential works are ABC OF READING (1934), which is said to have established the modernist poetic technique and THE CHINESE WRITTEN CHARACTER AS A MEDIUM FOR POETRY (pub. 1936), compiled from the notes of Ernest Fenollosa.
For further reading: The Poetry of Ezra Pound by H. Kenner (1951); Ideas into Action by C. Emery (1958); Ezra Pound by Charles Norman (1960, rev. 1969); The Life of Ezra Pound by N. Stock (1970); The Pound Era by Hugh Kenner (1972); Ezra Pound: the Last Rower by C.

David Heyman (1976); Ezra Pound and the Pisan Cantos by A. Woodward (1980); Ezra Pound: the Solitary Volcano by John Tytell (1987); Ezra Pound as Literary Critic by K.K. Ruthven (1991); ABC of Influence: Ezra Pound and the Remaking of American Poetic Traditon by Christopher Beach (1992); The Birth of Modernism by Leon Surette (1993); Ezra Pound as Critic by G. Singh (1994); The Cmbridge Companion to Ezra Pound, ed. by Ira B, Nadel (1999) - See also: Fernando Pessoa, R. Tagore, T.S. Eliot, whom Pound met in 1914 and started to reform poetic diction with him.
Imagism: a movement of American and English poets whose verse was characterized by concrete language and figures of speech, modern subject matter, freedom in the use of meter, and avoidance of mystical themes. Members of the movement included Hilda Doolittle, Richard Aldington, F.S. Flint, T.E. Hulme, John Gould Fletcher, Harriet Monroa, Amy Lowell. Influenced also Conrad Aiken, Marianne Moore, Wallace Stevens, D.H. Lawrence, T.S.

Eliot, Herbert Read
Selected works:
· A LUME SPENTO, 1908
· A QUINZAINE FOR THIS YULE, 1908
· EXULTATIONS, 1909
· PERSONAE, 1909
· PROVENCA, 1910
· THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE
· CANZONI, 1911
· RIPOSTES, 1912
· PERSONAE & EXULTATIONS, 1913
· LUSTRA, 1916
· GAUDIER-BRZESKA, 1916
· PAVANNES AND DIVISIONS, 1918
· HOMMAGE TO SEXTUS PROPERTICUS, 1919
· QUIA PAUPER AMAVI, 1919
· THE FOURTH CANTO, 1919
· UMBRA, 1920
· INSTIGATIONS, 1920
· HUGH SELWYN MAUBERLEY, 1920
· POEMS 1918-1921, 1921
· INDISCRETIONS, 1923
· ANTHEIL AND THE TREATISE OF HARMONY, 1924
· A DRAFT OF XVI CANTOS, 1925
· PERSONAE - THE COLLECTE DPOEMS OF EZRA POUND, 1926
· A DRAFT OF THE CANTOS 17-27, 1928
· SELECTED POEMS, 1928
· TA HIO, 1928
· IMAGINARY LETTERS, 1930
· A DRAFT OF XXX CANTOS, 1930
· HOW TO READ, 1931
· ABC FOR ECONOMICS, 1933
· ABC OF READING, 1934
· MAKE IT NEW, 1934
· ELEVEN NEW CANTOS XXXI-XLI, 1934
· HOMAGE TO SEXTUS PROPERTIUS, 1934
· JEFFERSON AND/OR MUSSOLINI, 1935
· ALFRED VENISON'S POEMS, 1935
· SOCIAL CREDIT, 1935
· POLITE ESSAYS, 1937
· THE FIFTH DECADE OF CANTOS, 1938
· GUIDE TO KULCHUR, 1938
· WHAT IS MONEY FOR?, 1939
· CANTOS LII, LXXI, 1940
· A SELECTION OF POEMS, 1940
· CARTA DA VISTA, 1942
· L'AMERICA, ROOSEVELT E LE CAUSE DELLA GUERRA PRESENTE, 1944
· ORO E LAVORO, 1944
· INTRODUZIONE ALLA NATURA ECONOMICA DEGLI S.U.A., 1944
· ORIENTAMENTI, 1944
· 'IF THIS BE TREASON...', 1948
· THE PISAN CANTOS, 1948
· SEVENTY CANTOS, 1950
· PATRIA MIA, 1950
· CONFUCIAN ANALECTS, 1951
· THE LETTERS OF EZRA POUND, 1907-1941, 1950
· THE CANTOS OF EZRA POUND, 1954
· LITERARY ESSAYS, 1954
· SELECTION: ROCK DRILL, 1955
· DIPTYCH ROME-LONDON, 1958
· PAVANNES AND DIVAGATIONS, 1958
· THRONES, 1959
· VERSI PROSAICI, 1959
· IMPACTS, 1960
· NUOVA ECONIMIA EDITORIALE, 1962
· EP TO LU, 1963
· POUND/JOYCE, 1967
· LATE CANTOS AND FRAGMENTS, 1969
· SELECTED PROSE, 1909-1965, 1973
· SELECTED POEMS, 1975
· COLLECTED EARLY POEMS OF EZRA POUND, 1976
· EZRA POUND AND MUSIC, 1977
· EZRA POUND SPEAKING', 1978
· LETTERS TO IBBOTSON, 1979
· EZRA POUND AND THE VISUAL ARTS, 1980
· COLLECTED EARLY POEMS, 1982
· EZRA POUND AND JOHN RICHMOND THEOBALD, 1983
· EZRA POUND AND DOROTHY SHAKESPEARE, 1984
· POUND/LEWIS, 1985
· THE CANTOS, 1986
· THE CORRESPONDENCE OF EZRA POUND AND WYNDHAM LEWIS, 1987
· POUND/ZUKOFSKY, 1987
· EZRA POUND AND JAPAN, 1987
· POUND: THE LITTLE REVIEW, 1988
· EZRA POUND AND MARGARET CRAVENS, 1988
· EZRA POUND'S POETRY AND PROSE, 1991
· SELECTED LETTERSOF EZRA POUND TO JOHN QUINN, 1991
· EZRA AND DOROTHY POUND, LETTERS IN CAPTIVITY, 1945-1946, 1999
Translation works:
· THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE, 1910
· CATHAY, 1915
· CERTAIN NOBLE PLAYS OF JAPAN, 1916
· 'NOH' OR ACCOMPLISHMENT, 1916
· FONTENELLE. DIALOGUES, 1917
· REMY DE GOURMONT THE NATURAL PHILOSOPHY OF LOVE, 1922
· ÈDOUARD ESTAUNIÉ: THE CALL OF THE ROAD, 1923
· CONFUCIUS: DIGEST OF THE ANALACTS, 1937
· ODON POR: ITALY'S POLICY OF SOCIAL ECONOMICS, 1941
· TESTAMENTO DI CONFUCIO, 1944
· CIUNG LUNG L'ASSE CHE NON VACILLA, 1945
· THE CLASSIC ANTHOLOGY DEFINED BY CONFUCIUS, 1954
· MOSCADINO: ENRICO PEA, 1956
· SOPHOCHLES: WOMEN OF TRACHIS, 1956
· LOVE POEMS OF ANCIENT EGYPT, 1962.