A PRIMER OF EZRA POUND

by M. L. Rosenthal ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 20, 1960

This is an excellent and fair minded resume of the works of Ezra Pound, the poet, basing its judgments- as it should- on the literary man, rather than on the violence and prejudice of which he was often capable in his personal life. Pound was of enormous influence on other poets in the breakaway from Victorian sentimentality and romanticism. He was partially the founder of the Imagist movement which insisted on the concrete, on the precise, and on the concise. His own early poems are both strong and tender. A scholar, a linguist and an able translator, he extended knowledge of other cultures and fused them. In this respect, he followed a marked trend of the time and set the pace for Yeats, Joyce and Mann- other great ""fusionists"". Not always easy to understand, Pound is always technically expert, and any detached reading of his poetry will show him fervent, a lover of art and crafts, a man, purely- if sometimes mistakenly- dedicated to poetry. Mr. Rosenthal has made all this admirably clear and it should be of real value to devotees of Pound and students of modern poetry.

Pub Date: June 20, 1960

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Macmillan

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1960

Categories: NONFICTION