Post by Elle Rush on Mar 18, 2003 8:24:02 GMT -5
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. Pound major work was the Cantos, which was published in ten sections between 1925 and 1969, and then as a one-volume collected edition, THE CANTOS OF EZRA POUND I-CXVII (1970).
Nancy where art thou?
Whither go all the vair and the cisclations
and the wave pattern runs in the stone
on the high parapet (Excideuil)
Mt Segur and the city of Dioce
Que tous les mois avons nouvelle lune
What the deuce has Herbiet (Christian)
---done with his painting?
(from Canto LXXX, 1948)
Ezra 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 languages at the University of Pennsylvania, and befriended there the young William Carlos Williams (1883-1963), who gained later fame as a poet in New York's avant-garde circles. 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 Crawfordsville, Indiana, 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 (1892-1962) and others the literary 'Imagism', and edited its first anthology, Des Imagistes (1914). The movement was influenced by thoughts of Rémy de Gourmont whose book, The Natural Philosophy of Love (1904), Pound translated later, and T.E. Hulme (1883-1917), who stressed the importance of fresh language and true perception on nature. In his cautions, published in Poetry in 1913, Pound wrote: "Don't use such an expression as 'dim lands of peace'. It dulls the image. It mixes an abstraction with the concrete. It comes from the writer's not realizing that the natural object is always the adequate symbol."
In their manifesto the Imagists promised: "1. Direct treatment of the 'thing' whether subject or objective. 2. To use absolutely no word that does not contribute to the presentation. 3. As regarding rhythm: to compose in the sequence of musical phrase, not in sequence of a metronome." Pound's short "one-image poem" 'In a Station of the Metro' is among the most celebrated Imagist works: "The apparition of these faces in the crowd; / Petals on a wet, black bough." Pound had seen a succession of beautiful faces one day on the Paris Metro, and in the evening he found suddenly the expression for his sudden emotion.
Pound soon lost interest in Imagism, and after disputing with the poet Amy Lowell, Pound called the movement "Amygism." 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. When he worked as W.B. Yeats's secretary, he started a correspondece with Joyce. Pound wrote on Joyce on various magazines, collected money for him, and even sent spare clothes for him. Pound also played crucial role in the cutting of Eliot's The Waste Land. Eliot dedicated to work to him, as il miglior fabbro (the better maker). In 1914 Pound 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. Pound's translations based on Fenollosa's notes, collected in CATHAY (1915), are considered among the most beautiful of Pound's writings. 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.
And round about there is a rabble
Of the filthy, study, unkillable infants of the very poor.
They shall inherit the earth.
(from 'The Garden', 1913, 1916)
In 1920 Pound moved to Paris - Britain had become him "an old bitch, gone in the teeth." 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 one of his radio talks he suggested that "if some man had a stroke of genius, and could start a pogrom against Jews... there might de something to say for it." In 1945 he was arrested by the U.S. forces - he was still and American citizen - 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, which concerned his imprisonment at the camp near Pisa. 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, review in 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 last volume was DRAFTS AND FRAGMENTS OF CANTOS CX-CXVII (1968). In the Cantos Pound recorded the poet's spiritual quest for transcendence, and intellectual search for worldly wisdom. However, he did not try to imitate classical epic, but had several heroes insted of one, and projected his own self into his characters. His models were Dante's La divina commedia (c. 1320) and Robert Browning's confessional poem Sordello (1840). Just as Beatrice guided Dante's pilgrim, so also classical goddesses appear in the Cantos. Pound also presents mythical, historical, and contemporary figures, mirroring the poetry and ideas of the past and present. Canto LXXII and Canto LXXIII were not published in the early collections due to their controversial - fascist - thoughts.
"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.
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. Pound major work was the Cantos, which was published in ten sections between 1925 and 1969, and then as a one-volume collected edition, THE CANTOS OF EZRA POUND I-CXVII (1970).
Nancy where art thou?
Whither go all the vair and the cisclations
and the wave pattern runs in the stone
on the high parapet (Excideuil)
Mt Segur and the city of Dioce
Que tous les mois avons nouvelle lune
What the deuce has Herbiet (Christian)
---done with his painting?
(from Canto LXXX, 1948)
Ezra 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 languages at the University of Pennsylvania, and befriended there the young William Carlos Williams (1883-1963), who gained later fame as a poet in New York's avant-garde circles. 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 Crawfordsville, Indiana, 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 (1892-1962) and others the literary 'Imagism', and edited its first anthology, Des Imagistes (1914). The movement was influenced by thoughts of Rémy de Gourmont whose book, The Natural Philosophy of Love (1904), Pound translated later, and T.E. Hulme (1883-1917), who stressed the importance of fresh language and true perception on nature. In his cautions, published in Poetry in 1913, Pound wrote: "Don't use such an expression as 'dim lands of peace'. It dulls the image. It mixes an abstraction with the concrete. It comes from the writer's not realizing that the natural object is always the adequate symbol."
In their manifesto the Imagists promised: "1. Direct treatment of the 'thing' whether subject or objective. 2. To use absolutely no word that does not contribute to the presentation. 3. As regarding rhythm: to compose in the sequence of musical phrase, not in sequence of a metronome." Pound's short "one-image poem" 'In a Station of the Metro' is among the most celebrated Imagist works: "The apparition of these faces in the crowd; / Petals on a wet, black bough." Pound had seen a succession of beautiful faces one day on the Paris Metro, and in the evening he found suddenly the expression for his sudden emotion.
Pound soon lost interest in Imagism, and after disputing with the poet Amy Lowell, Pound called the movement "Amygism." 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. When he worked as W.B. Yeats's secretary, he started a correspondece with Joyce. Pound wrote on Joyce on various magazines, collected money for him, and even sent spare clothes for him. Pound also played crucial role in the cutting of Eliot's The Waste Land. Eliot dedicated to work to him, as il miglior fabbro (the better maker). In 1914 Pound 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. Pound's translations based on Fenollosa's notes, collected in CATHAY (1915), are considered among the most beautiful of Pound's writings. 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.
And round about there is a rabble
Of the filthy, study, unkillable infants of the very poor.
They shall inherit the earth.
(from 'The Garden', 1913, 1916)
In 1920 Pound moved to Paris - Britain had become him "an old bitch, gone in the teeth." 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 one of his radio talks he suggested that "if some man had a stroke of genius, and could start a pogrom against Jews... there might de something to say for it." In 1945 he was arrested by the U.S. forces - he was still and American citizen - 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, which concerned his imprisonment at the camp near Pisa. 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, review in 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 last volume was DRAFTS AND FRAGMENTS OF CANTOS CX-CXVII (1968). In the Cantos Pound recorded the poet's spiritual quest for transcendence, and intellectual search for worldly wisdom. However, he did not try to imitate classical epic, but had several heroes insted of one, and projected his own self into his characters. His models were Dante's La divina commedia (c. 1320) and Robert Browning's confessional poem Sordello (1840). Just as Beatrice guided Dante's pilgrim, so also classical goddesses appear in the Cantos. Pound also presents mythical, historical, and contemporary figures, mirroring the poetry and ideas of the past and present. Canto LXXII and Canto LXXIII were not published in the early collections due to their controversial - fascist - thoughts.
"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.
