Ezra Pound

Ezra Pound was born on October 30, 1885 in Hailey, Idaho Territory to Homer Loomis Pound and Isabel Weston. He was the only child of his parents. The ancestors of his parents were immigrants from England in the 17^th century. Pound’s father initially worked for Thaddeus, grandfather of Pound. Later Thaddeus reserved Homer an appointment as Register of the Government Land Office in Hailey. As Pound’s mother was not happy residing in Hailey, she left taking her 18 months old son to move back to East, followed by Homer. In 1889, Homer got a job as an assayer at the Philadelphia Mint. In July 1893, the family purchased a six-bedroom house at 166 Fernbrook Avenue in the town of Wyncote, Pennsylvania.        

Initially Pound was educated in a series ofso-called dame schools namely Miss Elliott's school in Jenkintown in 1892; the Misses Heacock's Chelten Hills school in Wyncote in 1893; and the Florence Ridpath school from 1894, which was renamed as Wyncote Public School after a year. From 1898-1900, Pound attended the Cheltenham Military Academy. In this Academy, the uniform of boys was of Civil War-style and they were taught military drilling, how to shoot, and the importance of submitting to authority. Pound was bright, independent-minded, arrogant and unpopular. He was very clear with his goal of becoming a poet at an early age only. On November 7, 1896, the first work of Pound got published in the Jenkintown Times-Chronicle. It was a limerick about William Jennings Bryan, an American politician. When Pound was 13 years old, he went on a three- month tour to Europe with his mother and Aunt Frances; they also took him to England, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy. He took admission in the University of Pennsylvania's College of Liberal Arts in 1901.

 

In 1902, Pound went on another European tour for three months with his parents and aunt Frances. After the tour completed, he was shifted to Hamilton College in Clinton, New York, mainly due to poor grades. He studied the Provençal dialect and Old English there. Pound graduated in 1905 with a B Phil. Later, he also studied Romance languages at the University of Pennsylvania and obtained a degree of MA in 1906. Pound joined as a PhD student to write a thesis on the jesters in “Lope de Vega's” plays. He was awarded a Harrison fellowship and a travel allowance of $500 using which he journeyed again to Europe. He stayed in Madrid for three weeks visiting numerous libraries. He then moved to Paris and attended lectures at the Sorbonne for two weeks, moving to London for a week. In July, he came back to U.S. Pound’s first essay titled “Raphaelite Latin” was published in Book News Monthly. Being at the University, he used to regularly annoy the head of English, Felix Schelling with his silly comments during lectures. As a result, by the end of the year, the fellowship of Pound was not renewed.     

In 1907, Pound obtained a job as a teacher of Romance languages at Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Indiana. However, his modern ways did not go too well with the orthodox town and the college. While he was dismissed from the college after deliberately provoking the college authorities, Pound had to hop from one home to the other for entertaining friends, including women. An incidence, when Pound offered a stranded chorus girl a cup of tea and his bed when she was caught in a snowstorm was the high point, after which he was free from both the college and the city. Pound moved back to Europe in February 1908, reaching Gibraltar through cattle boat in April with only $80 money with him. He sent his poems to Harper's Magazine and started working on a fiction that he wished he could sell. He self-published his first book of poetry “A Lume Spento” in July. The book was priced at six cents and 100 copies of the same got sold. The London Evening Standard called the work as “wild and haunting stuff, absolutely poetic, original, imaginative”.

 

In August, Pound shifted to London and resided there for long 12 years. On his arrival in the city, he had just ₤3 and rented a room initially at 8 Duchess Street in the West End and later at 48 Langham Street, near Great Titchfield Street. Pound convinced the bookseller Elkin Mathews to showcase “A Lume Spento”. He received a good publicity with the same. In December 1908, he published his second collection called “A Quinzaine for This Yule”. Pound became a lecturer at the Regent Street Polytechnic after the death of the then lecturer. He used to impart lectures on “The Development of Literature in Southern Europe” in the evenings from January to February 1909. In the mornings, he used to spent time in the British Museum Reading Room and had lunch at the Vienna Café on Oxford Street.

In February 1909, Pound acquainted with novelist Olivia Shakespear at a literary salon, who in turn introduced Pound to the London's literary circle. Another admirer of Pound was the American heiress Margaret Lanier Cravens who offered him a huge amount of money per year to let him focus on his work. In June 1909, another work of Pound “Personae” got published by Mathews. It was his very first publication to gain any commercial success and invited mixed reviews. In September, his 27 poems appeared as “Exultations” and were dedicated to Carlos Tracey Chester. During this period, he moved into new rooms at Church Walk, off Kensington High Street. He stayed here for most of his time until 1914. In 1910, his first book of literary criticism “The Spirit of Romance” was published, followed by “Instigations” (1920), “Indiscretions” (1923), “How to Read” (1931), “The ABC of Reading” (1934), “Make It New” (1934), “Polite Essays” (1937), and “Guide to Kulchur” (1938). He moved back to U.S in June 1910 for eight months in order to persuade the New York Public Library. Pound’s essays on America were created during this time only which were compiled as “Patria Mia” and got published in 1950.

 

On February 22, 1911, Pound sailed from New York and reached Southampton after six days. After spending few days in London, he went to Paris. In Paris, he worked on his new collection of poetry “Canzoni”. This collection was highly panned by the Westminster Gazette as a “medley of pretension”. He came back to London in August 1911 where the editor of the The New Age, A.R. Orage appointed him to write a weekly column offering a fixed pay. Pound was hired by Harriet Monroe as a regular contributor in August 1912 and commenced submitting poems by himself, James Joyce, Robert Frost, D. H. Lawrence, Yeats, H.D., and Aldington, also collecting material for a 64-page anthology “Des Imagistes”. The imagist movement started snatching eye balls of critics. In November 1913, Yeats took Pound to reside with him and act as his secretary as the eyesight of Yeats was declining. Meanwhile, Pound started working for Wyndham Lewis's literary magazine “BLAST“.

In 1915 after the publication of “Cathay”, Pound commenced talking about his long poem to his friends. After one year, Pound had the form of the initial three attempts at “Canto I” which was published in January 1917 in “Poetry’. By this time he became a regular contributor to three literary magazines. Also, he began writing music reviews for the “The New Age” under the pen name William Atheling from 1917, simultaneously with weekly pieces for “The Little Review” and “The Egoist”. In 1919, Pound gathered a collection of his essays and published it in the “The Little Review” into a volume named Instigations. Also his work "Homage to Sextus Propertius" also got published in Poetry.

In January 1921, Pound moved to Paris and got settled in a cheap apartment at 70 bis, rue Notre Dame des Champs. There he became friends with many such as Marcel Duchamp and Tristan Tzara, Fernand Léger. Pound used to build furniture for his apartment and bookshelves for the bookstore Shakespeare and Company. In 1921, his “Poems 1918–1921” was published. In 1924, Pound was able to secure capital for Ford Madox Ford's “transatlantic review” from American attorney John Quinn. In the same, Pound’s works were published in the same. He also wrote music reviews for it which afterwards was collected into “Antheil” and “the Treatise on Harmony.” Hemingway contacted Pound to blue-ink his short stories. The two became very good friends and traveled to Italy together in 1923.  Pound also worked with George Antheil to put the concepts of Vorticism to music, and managed to write two operas, including Le Testament de Villon. He also wrote some pieces for solo violin on which Olga performed.  

Pound gave a series of lectures on economics and built contacts with the politicians in the United States about education, interstate commerce and international affairs. On January 30, 1933, he met Mussolini, a politician and Pound earlier had sent him a copy of Cantos XXX. In 1930s, several books of Pound got published like ABC of Economics (1933), ABC of Reading (1934), Social Credit: An Impact (1935), Jefferson and/or Mussolini (1936), and A Guide to Kulchur (1938). In 1936, James Laughlin established “New Directions Publishing” and served as Pound’s agent. Pound sailed to New York in April 1936 realizing that he could stop the involvement of America in the Second World War. And he received no encouragement, left irritated and disappointed. After returning to Italy, he started writing antisemitic material for Italian newspapers. He also wrote for another newspaper, “Action” which was owned by the British fascist, Sir Oswald Mosley. In 1939 after the beginning of war, Pound commenced a furious letter-writing campaign to the politicians he had appealed six months ago.        

Pound continued to write on the danger of Jewry wherever possible. He even forced to be permitted to broadcast over Rome Radio. Pound recorded a large number of broadcasts in which he highly criticized the United States, Roosevelt, and Roosevelt's family, and talking about his poetry, economics, and Chinese philosophy. The first came out in January 1935 on “the economic triumph of fascism”. By 1940, Pound broadcasted regularly. He used to go to Rome for at least a week in a month to pre-record the ten minutes broadcasts. For the same he was given a pay of about $17. The accounts he wrote to broadcasts were first approved by the Italian government. On April 27 1943, Pound announced "60 kikes" had commenced the war inspired by the Talmud. The Broadcasts were examined by the United States Foreign Broadcast Monitoring Service listening station in Princeton University and he was accused in absentia for treason on July 26, 1943. Even after the same, he continued broadcasting or writing under pseudonyms but finally got arrested in April 1945.    

Pound came back to Rapallo on May 2, 1945 when armed partisans arrived at the house when he was alone. He kept a copy of Confucius and a Chinese dictionary in his pocket. Pound was taken to the HQ in Chiavari and was released soon. Pound and Olga surrendered to an American military post in the Lavagna. According to the decision, Pound was supposed to be transported to U.S. Counter Intelligence Corps headquarters in Genoa, where he was interrogated under Frank L. Amprin, the FBI agent assigned by J. Edgar Hoover in order to collect evidences following the 1943 indictment. Pound demanded the permit to send a cable to President Truman to propose to help negotiate peace with Japan. He also requested to deliver a last broadcast from a script called "Ashes of Europe Calling". Both of his requests were disapproved and the script was forwarded to Hoover.   

 

On May 24, Pound was transferred to the United States Army Disciplinary Training Center north of Pisa. He was put in one of the camp’s “death cells” by the temporary commander. Pound was kept in isolation for three weeks in the heat denied exercise, eyes inflamed by dust, no bed, no belt, no shoelaces, and completely no communication with the guards apart with the chaplain.  After 2 ½ weeks, Pound started to break down under the high strain. The following week, he was brought out of the cell by the medical staff. On June 14 and 15, psychiatrists examined him and discovered symptoms of a mental breakdown. Pound was then transferred to his own officer’s tent and permitted reading material. He started writing and drafted “The Pisan Cantos”.   

On 15 November 1945, Pound was transferred to U.S. On 25 November, he was accused in Washington D.C. on charges of treason. The charges against him consisted of broadcasting for the enemy, attempting to persuade American citizens to undermine government support of the war, and strengthening morale in Italy against the United States. Pound was admitted to St. Elizabeths Hospital. In June 1946, Dorothy was announced as his legal guardian. Pound was placed in the hospital’s prison ward, Howard's Hall called as the “hell-hole”. It was a windowless building with a thick steel door and nine peepholes through which psychiatrists observed pound. Only 15 minutes at a time were allowed for the visitors to see him. The lawyer of Pound, Julien Cornell proved Pound as insane which eventually saved him from the imprisonment for life.  Cornell requested his release in January 1947 at a bail hearing. The superintendent of hospital, Winfred Overholser moved him to the more pleasant surroundings of Chestnut Ward, Pound stayed here for the following 12 years. During this time, he started working on his translation of Sophocles's Women of Trachis and Electra. Also he continued to work on “The Cantos”. Pound was released on 18^th April, 1958.

In July, Pound arrived in Naples. Afterwards Dorothy and he began living with Mary at Castle Brunnenburg near Merano in the Province of Bolzano-Bozen, the Italian part of Tyrol, Alto Adige. They returned to Rapallo where Olga joined them. A teacher he had met in the hospital named Marcella Spann also accompanied them and became secretary of Pound. By December of 1959, Pound was trapped by depression believing his work was worthless and “The Cantos” were a blunder. His relatives thought that Pound was suffering from dementia and therefore in summer 1960, Mary transferred him in a clinic near Merano when his weight began to drop. In spring, 1961 he contracted urinary infection. Although Pound attended a neo-Fascist May Day parade in 1962, his health was continuously declining. In 1965, Pound also participated in the funeral of Eliot. Pound traveled to New York two year later for the inauguration of an exhibition that featured his blue-inked version of Eliot's “The Waste Land” and received a standing ovation at Hamilton College where he came with Laughlin who was there to receive an honorary doctorate.

 

He first fell in love withHilda Doolittle and dedicated several poems to her but when Pound asked her to marry him, she refused. Pound married Dorothy Shakespear in April 1914. The couple had a son, Omar who was born on 10 September 1926. Immediately after his birth, Dorothy handed Omar to her mother in order to raise him in London. Pound first met Olga Rudge in November 1920 and their love affair continued until his death in 1972. His affair with Olga also produced a daughter, Mary who was born on July 9, 1925 in Bressanone. As Olga had no interest in raising the child, she handed over Mary to a German-speaking peasant woman to raise her for 200 lire a month.

 

Pound became too weak on his 87^th birthday to move out of the bed and the following night, was admitted to the Civil Hospital of Venice. He died in his sleep due to an intestinal blockage on 1^st November, 1972 with Olga along his side. Dorothy did not attend his funeral as she was unable to travel. Four gondoliers dressed in black took his body to the island cemetery, Isola di San Michele where he was interred near Diaghilev and Stravinsky.  

1885: Ezra Weston Loomis Pound, born October 30.

1889: Family moved to 166 Fernbrook Avenue, Wyncote, Philadelphia.

1896: His first work got published in the Jenkintown Times:Chronicle.

1901: Got admitted in the University of Pennsylvania's College of Liberal Arts. 

1902: Went on another European tour.

1906: Obtained a degree of MA.

1907: He got a job as a teacher of Romance languages at Wabash College. 

1908: He moved back to Europe. 

1909: Imparted lectures on "The Development of Literature in Southern Europe".

1909: “Personae” got published by Mathews.

1910: His first book of literary criticism “The Spirit of Romance” was published.

1911: He moved to London where he was appointed by the New age.

1914: Married Dorothy Shakespear.

1917: “Canto I” was published in “Poetry’.

1921: Pound moved to Paris.

1921: His “Poems 1918–1921” was published.

1925: His daughter Mary was born.

1926: His son, Omar was born.

1927: He established “The Exile”. 

1939: Pound began a furious letter-writing campaign to the politicians.

1943: He was accused in absentia for treason.

1945: Got arrested in April.

1958: Pound was released.

1972: Pound died of intestinal blockage, aged 87.