Ezra Pound: Encyclopedia II - Ezra Pound - Importance

Ezra Pound - Importance

Because of his political views, especially his support of Mussolini and his anti-Semitism, Pound continues to attract much criticism. While many have asserted that it is impossible to ignore the vital role he played in the modernist revolution in 20th century literature in English, Pound's perceived importance has varied over the years. The location of Pound -- as opposed to other writers such as T.S. Eliot -- at the center of the Anglo-American Modernist tradition was most famously asserted in scholarly circles by the critic Hugh Kenner, most fully in his account of the Modernist movement titled The Pound Era. The critic Marjorie Perloff has also strongly asserted the centrality of Pound to numerous traditions of "experimental" poetry in the 20th century.

Critics who assert Pound's importance do so in four areas: poet, critic, promoter, and translator.

As a poet, Pound was one of the first to successfully employ free verse in extended compositions. His Imagist poems influenced, among others, the Objectivists and The Cantos were a touchstone for Ginsberg and other Beat poets. Almost every 'experimental' poet in English since the early 20th century has been considered by some to be in his debt.

As critic, editor and promoter, Pound helped the careers of Yeats, Eliot, Joyce, Wyndham Lewis, Robert Frost, William Carlos Williams, H.D., Marianne Moore, Ernest Hemingway, D. H. Lawrence, Louis Zukofsky, Basil Bunting, George Oppen, Charles Olson and other modernist writers too numerous to mention as well as neglected earlier writers like Walter Savage Landor and Gavin Douglas.

Immediately before the first world war Pound became interested in art when he was associated with the Vorticists (Pound coined the word). Pound did much to publicize the movement and was instrumental in bringing the movement to the wider public (he was particularly important in the artistic careers of Henri Gaudier-Brzeska and Wyndham Lewis).

As translator, although his mastery of languages is open to question, Pound did much to introduce Provençal and Chinese poetry, the Noh, Anglo-Saxon poetry and the Confucian classics to a modern Western audience. He also translated and championed Greek and Latin classics and helped keep these alive for poets at a time when classical education was in decline.

In the early 1920s in Paris, Pound became interested in music, and was probably the first serious writer in the 20th century to praise the work of the long-neglected Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi and to promote early music generally. He also helped the early career of George Antheil, and collaborated with him on various projects.

The secret to Pound's seemingly bizarre theories and political commitments perhaps lie in his occult and mystical interests, which biographers have only recently begun to document. 'The Birth of Modernism' by Leon Surette is perhaps the best introduction to this aspect of Pound's thought.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Importance", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki