Literary Essays of Ezra Pound was published by New Directions in 1954, edited and introduced by T.S. Eliot — a fitting arrangement, since Pound had edited Eliot’s most famous poem (The Waste Land) and Eliot had always acknowledged Pound as “il miglior fabbro.” The volume collects Pound’s most important critical essays from 1913 to 1938, constituting the single most influential body of literary criticism produced by any modernist poet.
The Essays
“A Retrospect” (1918) — Pound’s most famous critical statement, incorporating the three principles of Imagism: “Direct treatment of the ‘thing’ whether subjective or objective”; “To use absolutely no word that does not contribute to the presentation”; “As regarding rhythm: to compose in the sequence of the musical phrase, not in sequence of a metronome.”
“How to Read” (1929) — the essay that became the basis for ABC of Reading: Pound’s classification of literature into melopoeia, phanopoeia, and logopoeia, and his argument for a “minimum curriculum” of essential texts.
“The Serious Artist” (1913) — on the moral responsibility of the artist to tell the truth precisely: “Bad art is inaccurate art. It is art that makes false reports.”
“Cavalcanti” (1934) — Pound’s most sustained piece of scholarly criticism: an edition of Guido Cavalcanti’s poetry with extensive commentary that doubles as a meditation on medieval philosophy and the relationship between intellect and passion.
“Notes on Elizabethan Classicists” (1917-18) — Pound’s raids on the English Renaissance, identifying what was alive and what was dead in the Elizabethan tradition.
“The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry” (Ernest Fenollosa, edited by Pound) — not strictly Pound’s essay, but his edition and advocacy of Fenollosa’s argument that Chinese ideograms present ideas through concrete images rather than abstract concepts. This essay (however linguistically naive) provided theoretical underpinning for the ideogrammic method of The Cantos.
Significance
Eliot’s introduction acknowledges what literary history has confirmed: that Pound’s criticism was the most practically useful body of critical writing produced in the twentieth century. Where Eliot’s own criticism is descriptive and evaluative, Pound’s is prescriptive and technical — it tells you how to write, what to read, and how to discriminate between the genuine and the fraudulent.
Collecting Literary Essays
First edition (New Directions, Norfolk, Connecticut, 1954): Cloth binding with dust jacket. Introduction by T.S. Eliot.
Identification points:
- New Directions imprint
- “First edition” stated
- Introduction by T.S. Eliot
- 464 pages
Market values: Fine copies in dust jacket bring $100–$300. The Eliot introduction and New Directions’ modest printings support values.
Signed copies: Rare (Pound was confined at St. Elizabeths in 1954) — $1,000+.
The Eliot connection makes this a crossover item for Eliot collectors. As the definitive Pound criticism collection, it is essential for any serious library of modernist literature.