Ezra Pound

Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (October 30 1885 – November 1 1972) was an American expatriate, poet, musician and critic who, along with T. S. Eliot, was a major figure of the modernist movement in early 20th century poetry. He was the driving force behind several modernist movements, notably Imagism and Vorticism. The critic Hugh Kenner said on meeting Pound: "I suddenly knew that I was in the presence of the center of modernism."

The London Revolution

Pound's early poetry was inspired by his reading of the pre-Raphaelites and other 19th century poets and medieval Romance literature, as well as much neo-Romantic and occult/mystical philosophy. When he moved to London, under the influence of Ford Madox Ford and T. E. Hulme, he began to cast off overtly archaic poetic language and forms in an attempt to remake himself as a poet. He believed W. B. Yeats was the greatest living poet, and befriended him in England, eventually being employed as the Irish poet's secretary. He was also interested in Yeats's occult beliefs. Yeats and Pound were instrumental in helping each other modernise their poetry. During the war, Pound and Yeats lived together at Stone Cottage in Sussex, England, studying Japanese, especially Noh plays. They paid particular attention to the works of Ernest Fenollosa, an American professor in Japan. In 1914, he married Dorothy Shakespear, an artist.

Related Topics:
Pre-Raphaelite - Romance - Ford Madox Ford - T. E. Hulme - W. B. Yeats - Irish - Occult - Sussex - Japanese - Noh - Ernest Fenollosa - 1914 - Dorothy Shakespear

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In the years before the First World War, Pound was largely responsible for the appearance of Imagism and Vorticism. These two movements, which helped bring to notice the work of poets and artists like James Joyce, Wyndham Lewis, William Carlos Williams, H.D., Richard Aldington, Marianne Moore, Rebecca West and Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, can be seen as perhaps the central events in the birth of English-language modernism. Pound also edited his friend Eliot's The Waste Land, the poem that was to force the new poetic sensibility into public attention.

Related Topics:
First World War - Imagism - Vorticism - James Joyce - Wyndham Lewis - William Carlos Williams - H.D. - Richard Aldington - Marianne Moore - Rebecca West - Henri Gaudier-Brzeska - The Waste Land

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However, the war shattered Pound's belief in modern western civilisation and he abandoned London soon after, but not before he published Homage to Sextus Propertius (1919) and Hugh Selwyn Mauberley (1920). If these poems together form a farewell to Pound's London career, The Cantos, which he began in 1915, pointed his way forward.

Related Topics:
The Cantos - 1915

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