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Loading... The Cantos of Ezra Pound (New Directions Paperbook) (original 1948; edition 1996)by Ezra Pound
Work InformationThe Cantos of Ezra Pound by Ezra Pound (1948)
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. Hmmm.... ( ) Is it worth reading, or is it a load of horseshit? Yes. In my opinion there was a strong strain of horseshit in old Ez, and this is not just because he was at certain points of his life a lousy anti-Semite. When he bothered to leave his ear ON, he had one of the more exquisite ears of any poet; however, he often chose (at least to me it "feels like" he chose) to turn his ear OFF, and leave whatever poetry was coming out of him slathered with blubs and slubs of undigested ... stuff. And the stuff chokes out whatever music there might have been (no, I don't think all poetry has to strive for a quality of music, but ...). In The Cantos, this gets really bad in the "Adams" sections of the work. More to come -- I'm going to start through this again soon. Phew. This is something. I feel like I've run a marathon. This is a wholly absorbing set of poetry. Approximately 120 cantos which start off reminiscing about the Renaissance, going through all eras and ages of history, citing letters, missives, pamphlets, rages. History as poetry, a grand tour. Chinese characters, intricate, representing ideas and names and figures. The chant, USURA, elicits rage and greed and war, and the titanic struggles against corruption and ideology which have consumed this past century and which still rage in this one. As much I find Pound the man abhorrent and mad, but as for Pound the poet, he is a force. I will reread this. no reviews | add a review
ContainsHas as a reference guide/companionHas as a student's study guide
For this edition of one of the great landmarks in twentieth-century poetry two previously uncollected cantos have been added, and some passages from other cantos, omitted from earlier printings, restored to the text. The additional cantos, numbered LXXII and LXXIII, were written by Ezra Pound in Italian, during the collapse of Italy at the end of the war. They belong in the sequence between the John Adams and the Pisan cantos. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)811.52Literature English (North America) American poetry 20th Century 1900-1945LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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