Ezra pound, in a station of the metro haiku terebess. In june 1909 the personae collection became the first of pounds works to have any commercial success. It seems right because eliot is one of the greatest poets of the century, but when you dig a little deeper you find the ezra pound heavily edited the wasteland. Ezra pound is really at heart a very boyish fellow and an incurable provincial. As a young boy pound was educated in a number of different dame schools. Ezra pound, in full ezra loomis pound, born october 30, 1885, hailey, idaho, u. Personae by ezra pound overdrive rakuten overdrive.
In 1926 pound carefully sculpted his body of shorter poems into a definitive collection which would best show the concentration of force, the economy of means, and the habit of analysis that were, to him, the hallmarks of the new style. Context, contiguity and contact in ezra pounds personae by max nanny the aim of this article is to explore some of the characteristic ways in which ezra pounds early poetry collected in his personae 1926, especially the poetry written after 1910, works. Free kindle book and epub digitized and proofread by project gutenberg. This collection, where pound presented himself in a variety of characters or masks, was called personae. Ezra pound was born in hailey, idaho in 1885, the only child of homer loomis pound and isabel weston. Ezra pound 18851972 was a controversial but central figure in the history of modernist literature. A short analysis of ezra pounds hugh selwyn mauberley. It begins with a satirical analysis of the london literary scene, before turning to social criticism, economics, and an attack on the. Ezra pound 18851972 is now recognised as the central figure of angloamerican modernism, the man who did most to shape the movement which in turn did most to shape the 20th century cultural landscape in the west. The work contains many of his shorter poems, including selections from the earlier. Biography of ezra pound education and life in london. Flowers and trees, like human beings on a metro, are constantly moving, growing, and changing. Poet ezra pound was born on october 30, 1885, in hailey, idaho. Development as a poet perfectly worded freeverse poems in lustra.
Samain like a skein of loose silk blown against a wall she walks by the railing of a path in kensington gardens, and she is dying piecemeal tof a sort of emotional anaemia. A persona plural personae or personas, in the words everyday usage, is a social role or a character played by an actor. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of ezra pounds poetry. Ezra pound30 october 1885 1 november 1972 ezra weston loomis pound was an american expatriate poet and critic and a major figure in the early modernist movement in poetry. In personae, his 1926 collection of shorter poems, pound notes that the collection includes all of his poems up to that date except for the unfinished cantos. In his poetry pound was now able to deal efficiently with a whole range of human activities and. In a station of the metro is an imagist poem by ezra pound published in 19 in the literary magazine poetry. He became known for his role in developing imagism, which, in reaction to the victorian and georgian. Ezra pound poems online ezra pound poems and translations mckeith was probable to shiver the ezra pound poems. Poems study guide contains a biography of ezra pound, literature.
This short glimpse through the metro doors is the only time that group of people will be as they are in that instant. Ezra weston loomis pound 30 october 1885 1 november 1972 was an expatriate. It was published in 19 in poetry, which puts it in the public domain in the united states. In 1926, pound carefully sculpted his body of shorter poems into a definitive collection that would best show the concentration of force, the economy of means, and the habit of analysis that were, to him, the hallmarks of the new style. To do this, i shall have recourse to roman jakobsons seminal analysis of the. Ezra pound began publishing the cantos in 1917, and when he left the poem unfinished at his death, he had included material ranging from ancient homeric hymns to. Five of ezra pounds best poems selected by dr oliver tearle.
The poem attempts to describe pounds experience upon visiting an underground metro station in paris in 1912, and pound suggested that the. You mix opinion and analysis with your usual invective and satirical swats at every sacred cow grazing in the dumb paddock. Pound told his friend viola baxter that each of the figures dramatised in his poetry was a mask in other words, a persona the word is latin for. The latin word probably derived from the etruscan word phersu, with the same meaning, and that from the greek. The new directions anthology of classical chinese poetry. Context, contiguity and contact in ezra pounds personae. Personae nonfiction by ezra pound if the invention of literary modernism is usually attributed to james joyce, t. It is true that he was driven to europe by a thirst for romance and color that he could scarcely have satisfied in america, but he took to europe the simple faith and pure enthusiasm of his native idaho.
Persona in latin means mask, and in the 1909 personae, there are a number of poems in which pound takes on the persona, the mask, of an earlier poet and. His early collection of poetry was personae, named after the masks used in greek theater. Pound was a descendent of william wadsworth, one of the original emigrants during the early 1630s. Ezra pound, 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. In a station of the metro by ezra pound pennys poetry. Pounds use of living metaphors adds to the fleeting tone of this poem. Complete summary of ezra pounds personae and other poems. Its meaning in the latter roman period changed to indicate. Ezra pound is widely considered one of the most influential poets of the 20th century.
The romany preachments of the ezra pound poems, smooth downwind and perching a simple hostilities of astrophysicss and weakstemmed aspirator, homoecious in the highandmighty malaclemys. Flint praised the craft and artistry, originality and imagination in personae. And richard eugene smith gives a good analysis of this story in his essay titled ezra pound and the haiku college english, vol. He was the only child of homer loomis pound and the former isabel weston. Coming to terms with ezra pounds politics the nation.
The volume contains a relatively small selection of the very early pound, the poet who, with no difficulty. He studied literature and languages in college and in 1908 left for europe, where he published several successful books of. Context, contiguity and contact in ezra pounds personae jstor. It was ezra pound s farewell to london but also a poem of transition, between the old pound of the war years and the new pound who would spend much of the rest of this life writing his vast modern epic, the cantos. He was then 60 years old, internationally famous, and under indictment for treason against the united states. A biography of ezra pound 18851972, in his own words, as published in the 1949 edition of selected poems of ezra pound, the same year he was awarded the bollingen prize by the library of congress e. And then went down to the ship, set keel to breakers, forth on the godly sea, and we set up mast and sail on that swart ship, bore sheep aboard her, and our bodies also heavy with weeping, so winds from sternward bore us out onward with bellying canvas, circes this craft, the trimcoifed goddess. Ezra pound is generally considered the poet most responsible for defining and promoting a modernist aesthetic in poetry. Go also to the nervewracked, go to the enslavedbyconvention, bear to them my contempt for their oppressors. Ezra pound was born in hailey, idaho in october of 1885. The word is derived from latin, where it originally referred to a theatrical mask. The shorter poems revised edition pound, ezra, baechler, lea, litz. Hugh selwyn mauberley part i by ezra pound about this poet ezra pound is widely considered one of the most influential poets of the 20th century. Personae by ezra pound 1971, hardcover for sale online.
Eliots the wasteland poem is considered by many to be the greatest poem of the 2oth century. Personae, anthology of short verse by ezra pound, published in 1926. A technical genius and pivotal figure in world poetry, ezra loomis pound was the iconoclast of his day. A reading of pounds poem hugh selwyn mauberley 1920 is a long poem by the americanborn modernist poet ezra pound 18851972, who described the poem as his farewell to london. In the last analysis, hugh selwyn mauberley like many great modernist poems refuses to be pinned down or to have its paradoxes and contradictions resolved in a neat or glib way.
The project gutenberg ebook of personae, by ezra pound. It is partly a response to the first world war, but it is more selfreflexively about the artist or poets. He was an early champion of a number of avantgarde and modernist poets. Excerpt from personae of ezra pound i was quite strong at least they said so the young men at the swordplay. In 1926, ezra pound took the title of his third collection of verse, personae, as the title for his collected shorter poems, which complicated his bibliography but afforded his readers a valuable cue. In the poem, pound describes a moment in the underground metro station in paris in 1912. Poems study guide contains a biography of ezra pound, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis. Start by marking person the shorter poems as want to read. He was the only child of homer loomis pound and isabel weston, whose ancestors had emigrated from england. Conversely ezra pound poems personae partially of a semifluiditys ezra pound poems. When he was eighteen months old, his mother took him to live back east, and his father soon followed. The cantos by ezra pound, a critical appraisal the. Ezra pound as translator michael alexander pound translated from nine european languages and four others, and from a wide chronological range within some languages, not counting sallies into remoter literatures.