Ezra Pound: Poems and Translations (Library of America) [Hardcover]

Ezra Pound (Author)

Book Description

Series: Library of America | Publication Date: October 9, 2003

Poetic visionary Ezra Pound catalyzed American literature's modernist revolution. From the swirling center of poetic change he excited the powerful energies of Eliot, Joyce, and William Carlos Williams and championed the Imagism and Vorticism movements. This volume, the most comprehensive collection of his poetry and translations ever assembled, gathers all his verse except The Cantos. In addition to the famous poems that transformed modern literature, it features dozens of rare and out-of-print pieces, such as the handmade first collection Hilda's Book (1905-1907), late translations of Horace, rare sheet music translations, and works from a 1917 "lost" manuscript.

Pound's influential Cathay (1915), Lustra (1917), and Hugh Selwyn Mauberley (1920)-as surely as his later masterly Confucian odes and Sophoclean dramas-followed the poet's own directive to "make it new," opening fresh formal pathways into ancient traditions. Through these works and others representing more than 30 different volumes and dozens of pieces that Pound never collected, Poems and Translations reveals the breadth of his daring invention and resonant music: lyrics echoing the Troubadors and Browning, chiseled 1920s free verse, and dazzling translations that led Eliot to call Pound "the inventor of Chinese poetry for our time."

An extensive chronology offers guidance to Pound's tumultuous life. Detailed endnotes of unprecedented range and depth clarify Pound's fascinatingly recondite allusions.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

For decades, readers have patched together the portions of Pound's oeuvre that interested them via the myriad New Directions editions, some of which are now out of print. Sieburth, best known as critic and superb translator of German and French poetry, has done a fantastic job of finding and logically arranging nearly everything that Pound wrote that could be called a poem or translation, including the juvenilia of "Hilda's Book" (written for fellow University of Pennsylvania student Hilda Doolittle, later H.D.) and the late, moving elegy, first published in 1971, that he wrote for the brother of one of his St. Elizabeth's acolytes. Pound as an anti-Semite, as a supporter of Mussolini and as a treasonous or insane U.S. citizen, are present in the rich chronology and footnotes that Sieburth provides (there is no introduction), but little of this social context makes itself known in the poems themselves, which center on precise, stress-timed meters; the near absence of personal revelation of any kind; and a Puritan impatience with "Symbolist" ambiguities. That Pound famously considered his life-work, the 800-page Cantos, a "botch," makes the verve, optimism and confidence evident in such an undertaking seem like an Icarian flight. Add to the Cantos reversionings of Guido Cavalcanti and Arnaut Daniel; the robust, still fresh "Cathay" sequence; the metrical displays of "Tenzone," "Dance Figure" and "Hugh Selwyn Mauberley"; the innovative "Homage to Sextius Propertius"; and passionate translations of Sophocles and Confucius's Classic Anthology, and one can't help but think that the appearance of this volume will give readers of American poetry a sense of renewed energy in sorting through the horrific details of a long, ideologically wounded century and (in the eclectic translations) the myriad luminous details of millennia of European and Asian literature.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

Richard Sieburth, editor, is professor of French and Comparative Literature at New York University, author of Instigations: Ezra Pound and Remy de Gourmont, and editor of Pound's Walking Tour in Southern France and Pisan Cantos.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 1300 pages
• Publisher: Library of America; First Edition edition (October 9, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1931082413
• ISBN-13: 978-1931082419
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.2 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #477,681 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

61 of 68 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars my how the mighty have fallen, but to what benefit?, December 6, 2006

By 

Michael D. Jones "Reader" (Pasadena, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Ezra Pound: Poems and Translations (Library of America) (Hardcover)

Not long ago English Departments were busy with dissertation after dissertation on Ezra Pound. At the time, many complained of a Pound Factory or Pound Industry. Yet today, there is not one Amazon review of this important collection of modern poetry. We all know the charges against Pound, anti-American, Anti-Semite, etc... and there can and should be no justification for any of the truly ugly things that he said and believed. If I am not mistaken, though, Richard Wagner is once again being played without challenge. I suspect that it has to do with the unfortunate fact that he produced works of amazing genius. Though I am no fan of Wagner or his music and despise his and Pound's racism, I do feel it necessary to acknowlege his place within the realm of modern/romantic music and/or the history of opera. Pound was, though we may not like the fact, a poet of genius who mentored Joyce, Eliot, Hemingway, Frost, Lowell, and yes even Yeats. He is an important bridge from modernism back to the Edwardian and Victorian poets. We ignore him and his works of genius at our own loss.
The Library of America edition has brought together many individual works of Pound from the Personna to his verse translations from the Chinese (in a manner of speaking). They have provided a significant service to Arts and Letters in this country by filling in this gape in their catalogue. This work contains all of Pound's poetry excluding the Cantos. Dig in deep, open this work anywhere and discover Pound afresh. You will see why A.S. Byatt considered using Pound's verse for her masterful, Possessions. As he said of Eliot, "Read him."

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Comprehensive" is an apt description, November 27, 2009

By 

Daniel G. Tuten - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Ezra Pound: Poems and Translations (Library of America) (Hardcover)

With the complete exception of any and all of Pound's Cantos this collection is simply exhaustive. I cannot imagine that there exists very much more than is contained herein. This volume along with The Complete Cantos I would consider to be sufficient as, more or less, the completion of any poetry enthusiasts Pound collection and I certainly recommend it (especially to aspiring poets). If you already enjoy Pound's work this is definitely for you.

9 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great collection, June 13, 2008

By 

Homie G (Planet 9) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ezra Pound: Poems and Translations (Library of America) (Hardcover)

Great collection in a wonderful long lasting binding from a non profit group that want's to preserve American Liturature. How can you go wrong.

If you are a Pound fan or just curious, this will be an important well read book in your library.