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Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an expatriate American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a collaborator in Fascist Italy and the Salò Republic during World War II.
- Overview
- Early life and career
- Success abroad
- A shaper of modern literature
Ezra Pound (born October 30, 1885, Hailey, Idaho, U.S.—died November 1, 1972, Venice, Italy) American poet and critic, a supremely discerning and energetic entrepreneur of the arts who did more than any other single figure to advance a “modern” movement in English and American literature. Pound promoted, and also occasionally helped to shape, the w...
Pound was born in a small mining town in Idaho, the only child of a Federal Land Office official, Homer Loomis Pound of Wisconsin, and Isabel Weston of New York City. About 1887 the family moved to the eastern states, and in June 1889, following Homer Pound’s appointment to the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia, they settled in nearby Wyncote, where Pound lived a typical middle-class childhood.
After two years at Cheltenham Military Academy, which he left without graduating, he attended a local high school. From there he went for two years (1901–03) to the University of Pennsylvania, where he met his lifelong friend, the poet William Carlos Williams. He took a Ph.B. (bachelor of philosophy) degree at Hamilton College, Clinton, New York, in 1905 and returned to the University of Pennsylvania for graduate work. He received an M.A. in June 1906 but withdrew from the university after working one more year toward his doctorate. He left with a knowledge of Latin, Greek, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Provençal, and Anglo-Saxon, as well as of English literature and grammar.
In the autumn of 1907, Pound became professor of Romance languages at Wabash Presbyterian College, Crawfordsville, Indiana. Although his general behaviour fairly reflected his Presbyterian upbringing, he was already writing poetry and was affecting a bohemian manner. His career came quickly to an end, and in February 1908, with light luggage and the manuscript of a book of poems that had been rejected by at least one American publisher, he set sail for Europe.
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He had been to Europe three times before, the third time alone in the summer of 1906, when he had gathered the material for his first three published articles: “Raphaelite Latin,” concerning the Latin poets of the Renaissance, and “Interesting French Publications,” concerning the troubadours (both published in the Book News Monthly, Philadelphia, September 1906), and “Burgos, a Dream City of Old Castile” (October issue).
In England, success came quickly to Pound. A book of poems, Personae, was published in April 1909; a second book, Exultations, followed in October; and a third book, The Spirit of Romance, based on lectures delivered in London (1909–10), was published in 1910.
After a trip home—a last desperate and unsuccessful attempt to make a literary life for himself in Philadelphia or New York City—he returned to Europe in February 1911, visiting Italy, Germany, and France. Toward the end of 1911 he met an English journalist, Alfred R. Orage, editor of the socialist weekly New Age, who opened its pages to him and provided him with a small but regular income during the next nine years.
Though his friend Yeats had already become famous, Pound succeeded in persuading him to adopt a new, leaner style of poetic composition. In 1914, the year of his marriage to Dorothy Shakespear, daughter of Yeats’s friend Olivia Shakespear, he began a collaboration with the then-unknown James Joyce. As unofficial editor of The Egoist (London) and later as London editor of The Little Review (New York City), he saw to the publication of Joyce’s novels Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Ulysses, thus spreading Joyce’s name and securing financial assistance for him. In that same year he gave T.S. Eliot a similar start in his career as poet and critic.
Pound continued to publish his own poetry (Ripostes, 1912; Lustra, 1916) and prose criticism (Pavannes and Divisions, 1918). From the literary remains of the great Orientalist Ernest Fenollosa, which had been presented to Pound in 1913, he succeeded in publishing highly acclaimed English versions of early Chinese poetry, Cathay (1915), and two volumes of Japanese Noh plays (1916–17) as well.
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Oct 12, 2022 · Back to Previous. Ezra Pound. 1885–1972. https://www.ndbooks.com/author/ezra-pound/ Photo by Archivio Cameraphoto Epoche/Getty Images. Ezra Pound is widely considered one of the most influential and most difficult poets of the 20th century; his contributions to Modernist poetry are enormous.
Apr 2, 2014 · Poet Ezra Pound authored more than 70 books and promoted many other now-famous writers, including James Joyce and T.S. Eliot. Updated: Apr 13, 2021. Photo: Walter Mori/Mondadori via Getty...
2 Interesting Facts. 3 Famous Poems. 4 Early Life. 5 Literary Career. 6 Later Life and Death. 7 Influence from other Poets. 8 FAQs. Life Facts. Ezra Pound was born in Hailey, Idaho, in October of 1885. In 1909 he married Dorothy Shakespear. He is considered to be the leader of the Imagist movement.
Ezra Pound. 1885 –. 1972. Read poems by this poet. Ezra Pound was born in Hailey, Idaho, on October 30, 1885. He completed two years of college at the University of Pennsylvania and earned a degree from Hamilton College in 1905.
Dec 14, 2017 · Ezra Pound - Library of America. 1885–1972. Ezra Pound photographed in 1913 by Alvin Langdon Coburn. (National Portrait Gallery, London; public domain via Wikimedia Commons) Interviews. From Edward Hirsch, an “intensely personal” attempt to define the American experience through poetry. July 6, 2022. Influences.
