Volume 55, Number 7 · May 1, 2008
Ezra Conquers London
By Frank Kermode
Ezra Pound: Poet: A Portrait of the Man and His Work, Volume 1: The Young Genius, 1885–1920
by A. David Moody
Oxford University Press, 507 pp., $47.95
The history of literature is punctuated by differences of opinion sometimes too strong to be regarded as mere literary quarrels. The most important and probably the most painful American example was the row over the award, in February 1949, of the first Bollingen Poetry Prize to Ezra Pound for his book The Pisan Cantos, a work that expressed certain opinions almost universally execrated in the United States and elsewhere. The jury explained that in honoring Pound they had foreseen, but found reasons to discount, objections to their choice, arguing that
Review, 4426 words
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