Ezra Pound: Propagandist for the New: 1908-1920

 

This course is now fully subscribed. Apologies for the disappointment.

Barry Wood

Ezra Pound was and continues to be a controversial and contradictory figure in twentieth century Anglo-American poetry, now probably remembered as much for his pro-Fascist  politics and often virulent anti-semitism as for his literary achievements.  But throughout a period from 1908 to 1920 he was a prominent figure in English (mainly London-based) literary life although by no means always  popular or even well-regarded amongst the literary establishment.  As GS Fraser put it: “He stirred things up too much”.  In these early years he was an active practitioner in and propagandist for literary experiment and innovation.  He was determined to “Make it new” and he pursued this objective with great vigour in his own work and in his support for and influence on his contemporaries.

The course will focus on Pound’s imagist and Chinese-influenced poetry, his social and literary satires and on a close reading of his major work of this period: “Hugh Selwyn Mauberley”; and it will also examine his relationship with and impact on the Imagist group, WB Yeats, and TS Eliot.

Recommended Reading:

Ezra Pound,  Personae (Collected Early Poems); or:
Selected Poems, with an introduction by TS Eliot.
GS Fraser’s Ezra Pound is a good introductory study.

Copies of poems for detailed discussion will be distributed during the course