Ezra Pound as Critic1994

As early as 1925 Pound had started wondering if he hadn't outlined 'a new criticism or critical system'. Eliot, who, in the early stages of his own criticism, was influenced by Pound, considered his criticism to be 'the most important contemporary criticism of its kind', 'the least dispensable body of critical writing in our time'. It was a criticism that gave 'new life' to Yeats, helping him 'get back to the definite and the concrete away from modern abstractions'. Professor Singh, who knew Pound personally, examines Pound's criticism in all its entirety, analyses his critical tenets, concepts and criteria with a view to showing their relevance to Pound's own poetry as well as to modern poetry and modern criticism in general, and examines his evaluations of Dante, Villon, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Thomas Hardy, Henry James, Joyce, Yeats, T. S. Eliot and Wyndham Lewis. Chapters are devoted to Pound's letters on criticism, his views on poetic translation and on modern French poetry and prose. The book concludes with a rich selection of Pound's critical maxims and aphorisms.