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Pound/The Little Review
Gathers Pound's letters to the publisher of the Little Review and provides background information on this period in Pound's life.
368 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1988
15 people want to read
About the author
Ezra Pound
517 books1,029 followersEzra Weston Loomis Pound was an American expatriate poet, critic and intellectual who was a major figure of the Modernist movement in early-to-mid 20th century poetry.
Pound's The Cantos contains music and bears a title that could be translated as The Songs—although it never is. Pound's ear was tuned to the motz et sons of troubadour poetry where, as musicologist John Stevens has noted, "melody and poem existed in a state of the closest symbiosis, obeying the same laws and striving in their different media for the same sound-ideal - armonia."
In his essays, Pound wrote of rhythm as "the hardest quality of a man's style to counterfeit." He challenged young poets to train their ear with translation work to learn how the choice of words and the movement of the words combined. But having translated texts from 10 different languages into English, Pound found that translation did not always serve the poetry: "The grand bogies for young men who want really to learn strophe writing are Catullus and François Villon. I personally have been reduced to setting them to music as I cannot translate them." While he habitually wrote out verse rhythms as musical lines, Pound did not set his own poetry to music.
Pound's The Cantos contains music and bears a title that could be translated as The Songs—although it never is. Pound's ear was tuned to the motz et sons of troubadour poetry where, as musicologist John Stevens has noted, "melody and poem existed in a state of the closest symbiosis, obeying the same laws and striving in their different media for the same sound-ideal - armonia."
In his essays, Pound wrote of rhythm as "the hardest quality of a man's style to counterfeit." He challenged young poets to train their ear with translation work to learn how the choice of words and the movement of the words combined. But having translated texts from 10 different languages into English, Pound found that translation did not always serve the poetry: "The grand bogies for young men who want really to learn strophe writing are Catullus and François Villon. I personally have been reduced to setting them to music as I cannot translate them." While he habitually wrote out verse rhythms as musical lines, Pound did not set his own poetry to music.
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August 15, 2021
This is a fascinating chronicle which traces the relationship between Ezra Pound, working as foreign correspondent for the literary 'small magazine' and Margaret Anderson, the co-editor along with Jane Heap.
Pound is arguably not only of the greatest poets and writers of the twentieth century, but also the impresario par excellence who constantly promoted the works of James Joyce, Wyndham Lewis, T. S. Eliot, Hemingway, Robert Frost and countless others. Considering how there have been nearly 20 volumes of Pound's correspondence already published, of this counts as one of the important ones (and a new one is slated for a 2022 publication release), it is easy to tell why Pound was so frustrated by his 'lack of time' for his own writing. This was all of his own choosing though. If you are constantly writing letters, promoting the works of other writers, reading MOST if not ALL of the major books of his times and antiquity, not to mention finding the time to squeeze in 3 meals a day, it's a wonder Pound had any time to work on his own poetry and prose.
In those highly singular, inonoclastic letters between Margaret Anderson and Pound, we see a great mind at work, not giving up trying to get all the great writers he believes in published, defending them when other critics write scathing reviews about them, which were unjustified in Pound's eyes, and a man who was standing on the 'front' of twentieth century letters. Apart from his unfortunate lapse into semitism, there are many things I admire about Pound, above all, his interest in not only American writers, but great French writers such as Jean Cocteau and Jules Laforgue (who also influenced Eliot), some Italian writers, of whom he even translated into English, German writers such as Leo Frobenius and more. He was truly an 'international' writer and thinker, who led the charge from England and Europe for most of his life, where many great ex-pat American writers also lived such as Gertrude Stein, James Joyce and even William Carlos Williams for one year during his sabbatical.
Also, when you read these letters you get a great feeling for the turbulent times in which they lived, the harrowing experiences of WWI, of which some of these writers even fought, some surviving (Ford Madox Ford and Wyndham Lewis), others less fortunate (Gaudier-Brzeska).
If you are not a fan of modernism or only have a slight interest in Pound, I would not necessarily recommend this book as a starting place - start with The Letters of Ezra Pound edited by D. D. Paige, which is by no means an exhaustive account of his correspondence but it is an excellent selection and hors d'oeuvre for his collected correspondence, which is yet to be fully published.
As Pound would often write at the end of his letters - saluti a tutti.
Pound is arguably not only of the greatest poets and writers of the twentieth century, but also the impresario par excellence who constantly promoted the works of James Joyce, Wyndham Lewis, T. S. Eliot, Hemingway, Robert Frost and countless others. Considering how there have been nearly 20 volumes of Pound's correspondence already published, of this counts as one of the important ones (and a new one is slated for a 2022 publication release), it is easy to tell why Pound was so frustrated by his 'lack of time' for his own writing. This was all of his own choosing though. If you are constantly writing letters, promoting the works of other writers, reading MOST if not ALL of the major books of his times and antiquity, not to mention finding the time to squeeze in 3 meals a day, it's a wonder Pound had any time to work on his own poetry and prose.
In those highly singular, inonoclastic letters between Margaret Anderson and Pound, we see a great mind at work, not giving up trying to get all the great writers he believes in published, defending them when other critics write scathing reviews about them, which were unjustified in Pound's eyes, and a man who was standing on the 'front' of twentieth century letters. Apart from his unfortunate lapse into semitism, there are many things I admire about Pound, above all, his interest in not only American writers, but great French writers such as Jean Cocteau and Jules Laforgue (who also influenced Eliot), some Italian writers, of whom he even translated into English, German writers such as Leo Frobenius and more. He was truly an 'international' writer and thinker, who led the charge from England and Europe for most of his life, where many great ex-pat American writers also lived such as Gertrude Stein, James Joyce and even William Carlos Williams for one year during his sabbatical.
Also, when you read these letters you get a great feeling for the turbulent times in which they lived, the harrowing experiences of WWI, of which some of these writers even fought, some surviving (Ford Madox Ford and Wyndham Lewis), others less fortunate (Gaudier-Brzeska).
If you are not a fan of modernism or only have a slight interest in Pound, I would not necessarily recommend this book as a starting place - start with The Letters of Ezra Pound edited by D. D. Paige, which is by no means an exhaustive account of his correspondence but it is an excellent selection and hors d'oeuvre for his collected correspondence, which is yet to be fully published.
As Pound would often write at the end of his letters - saluti a tutti.
Displaying 1 of 1 review