Lecture 21 Ezra Pound.pptVIP

Lecture 21 Ezra Pound I. His Life Born in Idaho in 1885 and raised in Pennsylvania, Ezra Pound spent most of his life in Europe and became one of the 20th centurys most influential -- and controversial -- poets in the English language. Pound was undoubtedly a genius. Before he graduated from university, he had mastered 9 languages as well as English grammar and literature. After college in Pennsylvania and a brief stint as a teacher, in 1908 Pound traveled to Venice and then to London, where he refined his aesthetic sensibilities and edited the anthology Des Imagists (1914). Pound championed the likes of T. S. Eliot, William Carlos Williams and James Joyce and, influenced by Chinese and Japanese poetry, advocated free meter and a more economical use of words and images in poetic expression, leading the Imagist Movement of poetry. He moved to Paris in 1920 and got acquainted with Gertrude Stein and her circle of friends (which included Ernest Hemingway and Pablo Picasso), then settled in Italy in 1924. Enamored with Benito Mussolini, Pound made anti-American radio broadcasts during World War II. He was arrested as a traitor in 1945 and initially confined in Pisa. He was then sent to the U.S., where he was deemed mentally unfit to stand trial for treason. Pound was confined for 12 years in a hospital (actually prison) for the criminally insane in Washington. During this time he translated works of ancient Greek and ancient Chinese literature. While in prison, he was awarded a prestigious poetry prize in 1949 for his last Cantos. In 1958 he returned to Italy, where he continued to write and make translations until he died in 1972. II. His works Famous poems: “In a Station of the Metro”; “A Pact” Collections: “Homage to Sextus Propertius” (modern translation of Old Roman poems) “Hugh Selwyn Mauberley” (condemned the commercialization and depravity of arts and showed his own point of views on poetry and art) “Cantos” His masterpiece: The Cantos intellectual