New Approaches to Ezra Pound


Book Description







New Approaches to Ezra Pound


Book Description

Great advances are currently being made in the understanding of Pound's lifework. Many of the essays in this book--the majority are published her for the first time--disclose hitherto unsuspected aspects of the poet's beliefs, while others are studies in depth of areas of his work which, although frequently discussed, have never before been properly examined. Seldom, in fact, have so many pioneering studies been assembled between the covers of a single volume. The various contributors are eminently qualified to treat the specific ideas and interests of Pound's about which they write, and the book as a co-ordinated whole comprehensively covers his--and our artistic culture. Eminent scholars and critics from five different countries have come together in this attempt to 'unscrew the inscrutable': Richard EllemannLeslie FiedlerForrest ReadN. Christoph de NagyWalter BaumannGuy DavenportJ. P. SullivanJohn EspeyDonal DavieGeorge DekkerBoris de RachewiltzAlbert CookHugh KennerChristine Broke-Rose Eva Hesse--well-known here and in Germany as a critic and translator--establishes the interrelationships between the various fields of study and examines some of Pound's key concepts from the aspect of the history of ideas. New Approaches to Ezra Pound should serve as a valuable source book for all students of literature and may above all be expected to act as a catalyst for future studies. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1969.







Ezra Pound and the Career of Modern Criticism


Book Description

Forty-five years after his death, and more than seventy years after his indictment for treason, Ezra Pound remains a deeply controversial figure. Today it is hard to imagine a poet sparking national debate, but Pound did just that. His receipt in 1949 of the first-ever Bollingen Award for Poetry started a hue and cry that spread to every US periodical that made even a pretense of following "cultural" issues: even Time weighed in. It took two years for things to simmer down, and when they finally did, literary study looked profoundly different. Everyone engaged in the study of poetry today, professors and students alike, works in an environment shaped by that national crisis of conscience. The present book considers this untold story, and investigates not just what critics have had to say about Pound but also why they have asked the questions they have asked. It is routine for reception histories to distinguish between professional studies and more popular responses; this book encourages us to consider why we make that distinction and what the costs of doing so might be. Unprofessional responses to Pound have often been ideologically and politically embarrassing for Pound scholars, who have in response policed the distinction between professional and popular readings with extraordinary vigilance. As a result, the history of Pound's reception unfolds as a kind of drama - perhaps the last ongoing theater for McCarthyite cultural-political anxieties. Michael Coyle is Professor of English at Colgate University and has published widely on Pound. Roxana Preda is Leverhulme Fellow in American Literature at the University of Edinburgh and President of the Ezra Pound Society.




Ezra Pound and Poetic Influence


Book Description

This collection of twenty essays investigates a series of different aspects of poetic influence in relation to the major modernist poet, Ezra Pound. The volume commences with five essays on matters to do with translation and poetic influence, which situate Ezra Pound as an important transitional figure between 19th-century and 20th-century translation strategies. The next five essays consider different influences on Pound’s poetry, and introduce the reader to new research in a variety of areas, including how specific Chinese cultural artefacts inform his poetry. The following five essays explore Pound’s influence on some of his major contemporaries, such as Eugenio Montale and Charles Olson, and also (through the reading he gave her as a girl) on his daughter, Mary de Rachewiltz. The concluding five essays exemplify different approaches to the thorny issue of Pound and politics, and end with two diametrically opposed interpretations of Pound’s political / poetic thought. The collection will be of great interest to scholars of Ezra Pound and of modern to postmodern poetry; but it will also serve as a useful and lively introduction to some of the debates within Pound scholarship to students coming to his work for the first time.




Violence, Narrative and Myth in Joyce and Yeats


Book Description

How can we use art to reconstruct ourselves and the material world? Is every individual an art object? Is the material world an art text? This book answers these questions by examining modernist literature, especially James Joyce and W.B. Yeats, in the context of anarchist intellectual thought and Georges Sorel's theory of social myth.




The Late Cantos of Ezra Pound


Book Description

Drawing extensively on archival research, The Late Cantos of Ezra Pound critically explores the textual history of Pound's late verse, namely Section: Rock-Drill (1955) and Thrones (1959). Examining unpublished letters, draft manuscripts and other prepublication material, this book addresses the composition, revision and dissemination of these difficult texts in order to shed new light on their significance to Pound's wider project, his methods and techniques, and the structures of authority-literary and political-that govern the meaning of his poetry. Illustrated by reproductions of archival documents, The Late Cantos of Ezra Pound is an innovative new study of one of the most important poets of the 20th century.