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Collected Early Poems of Ezra Pound

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Pound's forays into the realm of the past, evinced by his interest in the Provencal trouvéres and the ancient Chinese and Japanese poets (whose works he rendered into English from notes made by the Sinologist Ernest Fenollosa) formed the basis of his early poetic enterprise. In terms of style, these early poems display a rarely paralleled originality, in combination with reserves of hermetic knowledge. This collection, which includes the translations (or paraphrases) of "Cathay", the impersonations of "Personae" and the renovations and improvisations of "Ripostes" and "Lustra" contains the best of Pound's poetry. It is not laden with the overlearnedness and pedantic eccentricity that make "The Cantos", (falsely called Pound's "masterpiece") such a brilliant failure, even by Pound's own admission. Moreover, they are possibly the most refreshing and original of Pound's works, displaying a remarkable novelty and a healthy erudition. Highly recommended.

"The Collected Early Poems of Ezra Pound" is mostly a book for people who had already read Personae - the 1926 edition of Pound's standard collection of his own minor poems - or are interested in the former career of Pound. These will be pleased to find the famous poems (e.g. "Redondillas") which they only knew by name and references, as well as famous books here collected for the first time (especially 1908's "A Lume Spento," "Canzoni" (1911), and the " Miscellaneous Poems," not previously collected). It's a fine edition with useful notes and reproducctions of all the original title pages.