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Exultations
HardPress Classic Books Series
42 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1909
20 people are currently reading
48 people want to read
About the author
Ezra Pound
507 books1,018 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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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
February 6, 2021
Very enjoyable! I found this a good bit easier to read than Personae; several poems stood out to me—Sestina for Ysolt, The Goodly Fere, Planh for the Young English King...there are more.
Pound references the divine quite frequently in this book, which puzzles me a bit given that he doesn't appear to have been devoutly religious; nevertheless, as in The Goodly Fere, there's a tone of belief frequently attached. Perhaps he used Biblical language and imagery in the same way that he appears to have used mythological material—to establish emotional context for what he wanted to say; but I found it interesting for all that.
Numerous motifs and images are repeated throughout, as are the themes of exploration, love, and sorrow. At times I personally found the repetition a bit heavy handed and not so striking as I had hoped, but all the same I will certainly be revisiting this collection.
(Content caution: some profane language.)
Pound references the divine quite frequently in this book, which puzzles me a bit given that he doesn't appear to have been devoutly religious; nevertheless, as in The Goodly Fere, there's a tone of belief frequently attached. Perhaps he used Biblical language and imagery in the same way that he appears to have used mythological material—to establish emotional context for what he wanted to say; but I found it interesting for all that.
Numerous motifs and images are repeated throughout, as are the themes of exploration, love, and sorrow. At times I personally found the repetition a bit heavy handed and not so striking as I had hoped, but all the same I will certainly be revisiting this collection.
(Content caution: some profane language.)
August 27, 2020
This collection has my favorite poem of all time, “Francesca,” and introduced me to some new beautiful poetry, as well! But a lot of these poems I just didn’t understand, and the lyricism wasn’t enough to satisfy me.
“Red leaf that art blown upward and out and over The green sheaf of the world,
And through the dim forest and under
The shadowed arches and the aisles,
We, who are older than thou art,
Met and remembered when his eyes beheld her In the garden of the peach-trees,
In the day of the blossoming.”
“Red leaf that art blown upward and out and over The green sheaf of the world,
And through the dim forest and under
The shadowed arches and the aisles,
We, who are older than thou art,
Met and remembered when his eyes beheld her In the garden of the peach-trees,
In the day of the blossoming.”
June 17, 2020
Not my cuppa
January 3, 2023
The glamour of the soul hath come upon me,
And as the twilight comes upon the roses,
Walking silently among them,
So have the thoughts of my heart
Gone out slowly in the twilight
Toward my beloved,
Toward the crimson rose, the fairest.
As a fragile and lovely flower unfolds its gleaming
foliage on the breast of the fostering earth, if
the dew and the rain draw it forth;
So doth my tender mind flourish, if it be fed with the
sweet dew of the fostering spirit,
Lacking this, it beginneth straightway to languish,
even as a floweret born upon dry earth, if the
dew and the rain tend it not.
O ye I love, who hold this loveliness
Near to your hearts, may never any greyness
Enshroud your hearts when ye would gather flowers,
Or bind your eyes when ye would see the stars;
But alway do I give ye flowers by day,
And when day's plucked I give ye stars for praise.
But most, thou Flower, whose eyes are like the stars,
With whom my dreams bide all the live-long day,
Within thy hands would I rest all my praise.
And as the twilight comes upon the roses,
Walking silently among them,
So have the thoughts of my heart
Gone out slowly in the twilight
Toward my beloved,
Toward the crimson rose, the fairest.
As a fragile and lovely flower unfolds its gleaming
foliage on the breast of the fostering earth, if
the dew and the rain draw it forth;
So doth my tender mind flourish, if it be fed with the
sweet dew of the fostering spirit,
Lacking this, it beginneth straightway to languish,
even as a floweret born upon dry earth, if the
dew and the rain tend it not.
O ye I love, who hold this loveliness
Near to your hearts, may never any greyness
Enshroud your hearts when ye would gather flowers,
Or bind your eyes when ye would see the stars;
But alway do I give ye flowers by day,
And when day's plucked I give ye stars for praise.
But most, thou Flower, whose eyes are like the stars,
With whom my dreams bide all the live-long day,
Within thy hands would I rest all my praise.
December 26, 2025
Ezra Pound is my favorite poet. Last year, I decided to read all his poetry collections in a chronological order and this, Exultations, is his fourth.
The poems in this book can be classed as his minor works but they carry the power that made Pound such a joy to read. The poems desire more than show but any great poet will tell you, any great artist will tell you, that wanting to be great is the first step to greatness.
The poems in this book can be classed as his minor works but they carry the power that made Pound such a joy to read. The poems desire more than show but any great poet will tell you, any great artist will tell you, that wanting to be great is the first step to greatness.
October 30, 2014
Ler estes poemas no original - vários com expressões do Inglês arcaico - foi uma tarefa hercúlea. Embora alguma coisa tenha se perdido, o que consegui captar compensou e me propiciou um raro deleite.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews