Lecture 21 Ezra Pound

③ The poem is an observation of the poet of the human faces seen in a Paris subway station. It looks to be a modern adoption of the Japanese haiku. ④ He tries to render exactly his observation of human faces seen in an underground railway station. He sees the faces, turned variously toward light and darkness, like flower petals which are half absorbed by, half resisting, the wet, dark texture of a bough. ⑤ Repeating it, you can have a colorful picture, also you can feel the beauty of music through it’s repetition of different vowels and consonants, such as /p/ and /au/. Especially the repetition of /e/ in the second line emphasize it’s sense of music.
His masterpiece: The Cantos
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intellectual diary since 1915 no single clue divided into many sections and each contributes to a different theme showing author’s point of views on many aspects, such as politics, economy, arts, culture etc In this poem, he traces the rise and fall of eastern and western empires, the destruction caused by greed and materialism. e deplores the corruption of America after the heroic time of Jefferson, The last part, produced from his own suffering, is the most moving.
Literary movement
Modernism Imagism Vorticism
I. His Life
1) Born in Idaho in 1885 and raised in Pennsylvania, Ezra Pound spent most of his life in Europe and became one of the 20th century's most influential -- and controversial -- poets in the English language. Pound was undoubtedly a genius. Before he graduated from university, he had mastered 9 languages as well as English grammar and literature. After college in Pennsylvania and a brief stint as a teacher, in 1908 Pound traveled to Venice and then to London, where he refined his aesthetic sensibilities and edited the anthology Des Imagists (1914). Pound championed the likes of T. S. Eliot, William Carlos Williams and James Joyce and, influenced by Chinese and Japanese poetry, advocated free meter and a more economical use of words and images in poetic expression, leading the Imagist Movement of poetry.
His poetic features
• (1) He was influenced by Greek, Italy and Chinese poets. • (2) He wrote some fresh short poems and also some all-inclusive long poems. • (3) Personal tone; open and spontaneous style • (4) Difficult to read and study; great influence on modern poetry
VI. Chinese Connection with Imagism
A Chinese imagistic poetry: Autumn Evening crows perch on old trees wreathed with withered vine, Water of a stream flows by a family cottage near a tiny bridge. A lean horse walks on an ancient road in western breeze, The sun is setting in the west, The heart-broken one is at the end of the Earth. 《天净沙· 秋思》 马致远 枯藤、老树、昏鸦，小桥、流水、人家， 古道、西风、瘦马，夕阳西下，断肠人在天涯。
Lecture 21 Ezra Pound
Born
October 30, 1885) Hailey, Idaho Territory, United States November 1, 1972 (aged 87) Venice, Italy Poet, critic
Died Occupation
III. Appreciation of In a Station of the Metro ① The “Metro” is the underground railway of Paris. ② The word “apparition”, with its double meaning, binds the two aspects of the observation together: Apparition meaning “appearance”, in the sense of something which appears, or shows up; something which can be clearly observed. Apparition meaning something which seems real but perhaps is not real; something ghostly which cannot be clearly observed.
II. His works
• Famous poems: “In a Station of the Metro”; “A Pact” • Collections: • “Homage to Sextus Propertius” (modern translation of Old Roman poems) • “Hugh Selwyn Mauberley” (condemned the commercialization and depravity of arts and showed his own point of views on poetry and art) • “Cantos”
⑥ In this brief poem, Pound uses the fewest possible words to convey an accurate image, according to the principles of the “Imagists”. Pound wrote an account of its composition, which claims that the poem’s form was determined by the experience that inspired it, evolving organically rather than being chosen arbitrarily. ⑦ Whether truth or myth, the piece has become a famous document in the history of Imagism.
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4) He moved to Paris in 1920 and got acquainted with Gertrude Stein and her circle of friends (which included Ernest Hemingway and Pablo Picasso), then settled in Italy in 1924. 5) Enamored with Benito Mussolini, Pound made antiAmerican radio broadcasts during World War II. He was arrested as a traitor in 1945 and initially confined in Pisa. He was then sent to the U.S., where he was deemed mentally unfit to stand trial for treason. 6) Pound was confined for 12 years in a hospital (actually prison) for the criminally insane in Washington. During this time he translated works of ancient Greek and ancient Chinese literature. While in prison, he was awarded a prestigious poetry prize in 1949 for his last Cantos. 7) In 1958 he returned to Italy, where he continued to write and make translations until he died in 1972.