Ezra Pound: Poet I: The Young Genius 1885-1920

Features

• Cover Type: Hard Cover with 544 pages
• Published by: Oxford University Press, USA November 24, 2007
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 019921557X
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0199215577
• Book Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.9 inches
• Weighs: 2.2 pounds

Product Review

"Moody treats his subject and the facts with great respect and precisionhis extreme proficiency of his subject is impressive, and Pound's life story does not fail to fascinate."--Mary Dixie Carter, Philadelphia Inquirer
"Moody knows more about Pound's poetry than porbably anyone else alive, and supplies careful, detailed readings of all the early books."--Charles McGrath, The New York Times
"Moody does a fine job of setting forth the many complexities embodied by the great contrarians life and work. Moody purposes to create a comprehensive critical biography and succeeds admirably."--Jessie James, Los Angeles Times
"David Moody makes a strong case for Pound's 'generous energy' and the 'disruptive, regenerative force of his genius.'"--The Economist


Product Description
This first volume of what will be a full-scale biography presents Ezra Pound as a very determined and energetic young genius-at 15 he told his father "I want to write before I die the greatest poems that have ever been written"-setting out to make his way both as a poet and as a force for civilization in England and America in the years before, during and just after World War I.
In this lively narrative A. David Moody weaves a story of Pound's early life and loves, his education in America, and his years in London, where he trained himself to become a great poet-learning from W. B.Yeats, Ford Madox Hueffer, and others-and exhorting his contemporaries to abandon Victorian sentimentality and "make it new." Pound was at the center of everything, forming his own Imagiste group, joining with Wyndham Lewis in his Vorticism, championing the work of James Joyce, Robert Frost, William Carlos Williams, and T. S. Eliot, and constantly on the lookout for new talent as International Editor for Harriet Monroe's Poetry magazine. Moody traces Pound's evolution as a poet from the derivative idealism and aestheticism of his precocious youth to his Cathay," based on the transliterations of the Sineologist Ernest Fenollosa, to the stunningly original Homage to Sextus Propertius and Hugh Selwyn Mauberley. By 1920 Pound was established as a force for revolution in poetry and in his critical writing as a brilliant iconoclast who argued against stifling conventions and the economic injustice of the capitalist system.
Ezra Pound: Poet gives us illuminating readings of the major early works and a unforgettable portrait of Pound himself-by turns brilliant, combative, selfless, ambitious-and always fascinating.

Reader Reviews
Ezra Pound: Poet I: The Young Genius 1885-1920 If you want the fullest account of Pound's life to date, start with this volume. It is the first of two volumes and will when complete be more detailed than any biography of the poet so far. If you want to understand why Ezra Pound deserves a biography of this magnitude, read Pound. Almost all his works in poetry and prose are in print, a third of a century after his death. Few writers can claim such longevity. Pound is here to stay, because for all his faults he was a great poet--a highly eccentric and controversial personality, as this biography shows, but a great poet nevertheless.