The Selected Letters of Ezra Pound, 1907-1941Ezra Pound would deserve a place in the literary history of the twentieth century if only for bringing to light and to publication the work, among others, of T. S. Eliot, Robert Frost, James Joyce and William Carlos Williams. His tireless activities in behalf of other poets, artists, and literary ventures of every sort were in large part carried on by way of his voluminous correspondence. Eliot himself once commented that Pound's "epistolary style is masterly"--a judgment wholly confirmed by the 384 examples that comprise this selection. Included here are the poet's letters to Margaret Anderson of The Little Review, Harriet Monroe of Poetry, Harriet Shaw Weaver of The Egoist, H. L. Mencken and John Quinn; to such poets and writers as E. E. Cummings, Ernest Hemingway, Amy Lowell, Marianne Moore, Eliot, Joyce and, of course, his old friend Dr. Williams. Of exceptional interest, however, is Pound's massive correspondence with the young unknowns who wrote to him for advice. "The tone of his prose criticism," says D. D. Paige in his Introduction, "with its coruscations, its ellipses, its dogmatisms, its gay carnival air, its unwillingness to enjoy the safety gravity offers, its violence against entrenched stupidity and its championing of fresh writers--all that simply encouraged them to approach him. A tremendous lure!" |
Common terms and phrases
ain't American anthology Anyhow April Dear believe better Binyon bloke bloody bother Canto copy criticism Cummings damn Dante Dear H.M. December Dear E. E. CUMMINGS editor edtn Egoist England English essay February Dear give Greek H. L. MENCKEN HARRIET MONROE HARRIET MONROE London hell hope idea ideogram interest January Dear Joyce KATUE keep Latin LAURENCE BINYON least Lewis literary Little Review magazine March Dear matter mean Mebbe Mencius merely mind never November Dear Paris poem poetry poets possibly prob probably Propertius prose published Rapallo reader seems sort spose stuff suppose SWABEY T. S. ELIOT thing thru translation trying verse W. H. D. ROUSE Waaal whole WILLIAM WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS words write Wyndham Lewis Yeats young
Popular passages
Page 170 - Sage Homme These are the poems of Eliot By the Uranian Muse begot; A Man their Mother was, A Muse their Sire. How did the printed Infancies result From Nuptials thus doubly difficult?
Page 40 - He is the only American I know of who has made what I can call adequate preparation for writing. He has actually trained himself and modernized himself on his own.
Page 40 - I was jolly well right about Eliot. He has sent in the best poem I have yet had or seen from an American.
Page 10 - Any agonizing that tends to hurry what I believe in the end to be inevitable, our American Risorgimento, is dear to me. That awakening will make the Italian Renaissance look like a tempest in a teapot!
Page 107 - official organ' (vile phrase). I mean I want a place where I and TS Eliot can appear once a month (or once an 'issue') and where Joyce can appear when he likes, and where Wyndham Lewis can appear if he comes back from the war.
Page 11 - Objective— no slither; direct— no excessive use of adjectives, no metaphors that won't permit examination. It's straight talk, straight as the Greek!
Page 4 - No art ever yet grew by looking into the eyes of the public, ruthless or otherwise. You can obliterate yourself and mirror God, Nature, or Humanity but if you try to mirror yourself in the eyes of the public...
Page 50 - I dislike the paragraph about Hamlet, but it is an early and cherished bit and TE won't give it up, and as it is the only portion of the poem that most readers will like at first reading, I don't see that it will do much harm.
Page 49 - Poetry must be as well written as prose. Its language must be a fine language, departing in no way from speech save by a heightened intensity (ie simplicity). There must be no book words, no periphrases, no inversions. It must be as simple as De Maupassant's best prose, and as hard as Stendhal's.
Page 49 - There must be no cliches, set phrases, stereotyped journalese. The only escape from such is by precision, a result of concentrated attention to what one is writing.