Ezra Pound: Poet: Volume III: The Tragic Years 1939-1972

This third and final volume of A. David Moody's critical life of Ezra Pound presents Pound's personal tragedy in a tragic time. In this volume, we experience the 1939-1945 World War, and Pound's hubristic involvement in Fascist Italy's part in it; we encounter the grave moral and intellectual error of Pound holding the Jewish race responsible for the war; and his consequent downfall, being charged with treason, condemned as an anti-Semite, and shut up for twelve years in an institution for the insane. Further, we see Pound stripped for life, by his own counsel and wife, of his civil and human rights. Pound endured what was inflicted upon him, justly and unjustly, without complaint; and continued his lifetime's effort to promote, in and through his Cantos and his translations, a consciousness of a possible humane and just social order. The contradictions run deep and compel, as tragedy does, a steady and unprejudiced contemplation and an answering depth of comprehension.

Biographies & Memoirs

Moody, A. David

Arts & Literature

Oxford University Press

Ezra Pound: Poet: Volume II: The Epic Years

Review\n"... makes the reader long for the prompt publication of the final volume of what is already an impressive biographical achievement." -- Ruud van den Beuken (Radboud University Nijmegen) The Journal\nThe long-awaited second volume of A. David Moody's critically acclaimed three-part biography of Ezra Pound weaves together the illuminating story of his life, his achievements as a poet and a composer, and his one-man crusade for economic justice. The years 1921-1939 were the most productive of Pound's career. In 1920s Paris, he was among the leading figures of the avant-garde and, in that ambience, he composed an opera, made original contributions to the theory of harmony, and wrote the first thirty cantos of his great epic. Moody explores this creativity in fascinating detail, examining the environment that allowed for some of Pound's greatest work. This period also brought Pound's politics firmly into view and Moody is able to shed new light on his sympathy for Mussolini's Fascism, his invoking Confucian China as a model of responsible government, and his abiding commitment to the democratic values of the American Constitution.\nPound is revealed as a great poet and a flawed idealist caught up in the turmoil of his darkening time and struggling, sometimes blindly and in error and self-contradiction, to be a force for enlightenment.

Review\n"Moody explains and elucidates Poundâs massive poetic output at length... subtitled The Tragic Years 1939-1972. It gives a detailed and moving account of the second half his life, which was indeed tragic." -- A. Banerjee (Kobe Jogakuin University), The Journal\nThis third and final volume of A. David Moody's critical life of Ezra Pound presents Pound's personal tragedy in a tragic time. In this volume, we experience the 1939-1945 World War, and Pound's hubristic involvement in Fascist Italy's part in it; we encounter the grave moral and intellectual error of Pound holding the Jewish race responsible for the war; and his consequent downfall, being charged with treason, condemned as an anti-Semite, and shut up for twelve years in an institution for the insane. Further, we see Pound stripped for life, by his own counsel and wife, of his civil and human rights.\nPound endured what was inflicted upon him, justly and unjustly, without complaint; and continued his lifetime's effort to promote, in and through his Cantos and his translations, a consciousness of a possible humane and just social order. The contradictions run deep and compel, as tragedy does, a steady and unprejudiced contemplation and an answering depth of comprehension.

This first volume of what will be a full-scale biography presents Ezra Pound as a very determined and energetic young genius--at 15 he told his father "I want to write before I die the greatest poems that have ever been written"--setting out to make his way both as a poet and as a force for civilization in England and America in the years before, during and just after World War I. In this lively narrative A. David Moody weaves a story of Pound's early life and loves, his education in America, and his years in London, where he trained himself to become a great poet-learning from W. B.Yeats, Ford Madox Hueffer, and others-and exhorting his contemporaries to abandon Victorian sentimentality and "make it new." Pound was at the center of everything, forming his own Imagiste group, joining with Wyndham Lewis in his Vorticism, championing the work of James Joyce, Robert Frost, William Carlos Williams, and T. S. Eliot, and constantly on the lookout for new talent as International Editor for Harriet Monroe's Poetry magazine. Moody traces Pound's evolution as a poet from the derivative idealism and aestheticism of his precocious youth to his Cathay," based on the transliterations of the Sineologist Ernest Fenollosa, to the stunningly original Homage to Sextus Propertius and Hugh Selwyn Mauberley. By 1920 Pound was established as a force for revolution in poetry and in his critical writing as a brilliant iconoclast who argued against stifling conventions and the economic injustice of the capitalist system. Ezra Pound: Poet gives us illuminating readings of the major early works and a unforgettable portrait of Pound himself-by turns brilliant, combative, selfless, ambitious-and always fascinating.

Ezra Pound: Poet - A Portrait of the Man and His Work, Vol. 1: The Young Genius 1885-1920

The long-awaited second volume of A. David Moody's critically acclaimed three-part biography of Ezra Pound weaves together the illuminating story of his life, his achievements as a poet and a composer, and his one-man crusade for economic justice. The years 1921-1939 were the most productive of Pound's career. In 1920s Paris, he was among the leading figures of the avant-garde and, in that ambience, he composed an opera, made original contributions to the theory of harmony, and wrote the first thirty cantos of his great epic. Moody explores this creativity in fascinating detail, examining the environment that allowed for some of Pound's greatest work. This period also brought Pound's politics firmly into view and Moody is able to shed new light on his sympathy for Mussolini's Fascism, his invoking Confucian China as a model of responsible government, and his abiding commitment to the democratic values of the American Constitution. Pound is revealed as a great poet and a flawed idealist caught up in the turmoil of his darkening time and struggling, sometimes blindly and in error and self-contradiction, to be a force for enlightenment.

This first volume of what will be a full-scale biography presents Ezra Pound as a very determined and energetic young genius-at 15 he told his father "I want to write before I die the greatest poems that have ever been written"-setting out to make his way both as a poet and as a force for civilization in England and America in the years before, during and just after World War I. In this lively narrative A. David Moody weaves a story of Pound's early life and loves, his education in America, and his years in London, where he trained himself to become a great poet-learning from W. B.Yeats, Ford Madox Hueffer, and others-and exhorting his contemporaries to abandon Victorian sentimentality and "make it new." Pound was at the center of everything, forming his own Imagiste group, joining with Wyndham Lewis in his Vorticism, championing the work of James Joyce, Robert Frost, William Carlos Williams, and T. S. Eliot, and constantly on the lookout for new talent as International Editor for Harriet Monroe's Poetry magazine. Moody traces Pound's evolution as a poet from the derivative idealism and aestheticism of his precocious youth to his Cathay," based on the transliterations of the Sineologist Ernest Fenollosa, to the stunningly original Homage to Sextus Propertius and Hugh Selwyn Mauberley. By 1920 Pound was established as a force for revolution in poetry and in his critical writing as a brilliant iconoclast who argued against stifling conventions and the economic injustice of the capitalist system. Ezra Pound: Poet gives us illuminating readings of the major early works and a unforgettable portrait of Pound himself-by turns brilliant, combative, selfless, ambitious-and always fascinating.

Ezra Pound: Poet: Volume I: The Young Genius 1885-1920

The poet Ezra Pound (1885-1972) was the only child of Homer Loomis Pound (1885-1942) and Isabel Weston Pound (1860-1948). He grew up in Philadelphia, where his father was an assayer in the U.S. Mint; was educated at the University of Pennsylvania, and at Hamilton College in upstate New York; taught briefly at Wabash College, Crawfordsville, Indiana; then left America for London, where he lived from 1908 to the end of 1920, after which he lived in Paris until 1924, and then in Rapallo, Italy. His letters home reveal not only the warm affection, openness, and playfulness of the young man to his devoted parents, from schooldays through college and on into his life as teacher, poet, and critic, but also the ways in which he shared with them the ideas, influences, and experiences that went into the development of his exceptional poetic genius. He kept them in touch with his progress in realising his ambition to become a good and powerful poet, with what he was writing and doing, who he was meeting, his dealings with publishers, editors, and magazines, and his bold plans for reforms and revolutions. The letters are a rich mine of information about Pound himself and about the literary and social worlds in which he moved and had his being. They also display his epistolary idiosyncrasies and his inventive and witty way with words. Altogether they are of great human as well as literary and historical interest, and give an intimate insight into this revolutionary and influential poet's life and work. This is an essential volume for anyone interested in Pound, and an irresistible book for the general reader with an interest in literary life in the twentieth century. All the extant letters to his parents up to 1929, the year they moved to be near him in Rapallo, are included here in full. Ezra Pound's daughter Mary de Rachewiltz directed the edition, and contributes a memoir of Isabel and Homer Pound. There is a comprehensive Glossary of persons named in the letters, and the letters are accompanied by explanatory notes and commentary.

Ezra Pound to His Parents: Letters 1895-1929

Literature & Fiction

Moody, Joanna

De Rachewiltz, Mary

Essays & Correspondence

A. David Moody examines T. S. Eliot's "peregrinations"--his quest for the world of the spirit. In a series of essays Moody offers new insights into Eliot's engagement with the religions and cultures of America, India and Europe; and he shows how Eliot's major poems give form to "the deeper, unnamed feelings which form the substratum of our being." This book offers the richly informed reflections of a leading Eliot scholar; it will stimulate and enlighten students and scholars of Eliot, and any reader with an interest in the life of poetry.

Tracing T. S. Eliot's Spirit: Essays on his Poetry and Thought

History & Criticism

Cambridge University Press

Thomas Stearns Eliot: Poet

A. David Moody's Thomas Stearns Eliot: Poet was published to acclaim in 1979, with a successful paperback following in 1980. This carefully revised and corrected second edition, with a specially written preface and a new appendix, meets the demand for one of the classic studies of the twentieth century's best-known poet.

British & Irish

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Moody, A. David. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Moody, A. David

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Moody, A. David. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Ezra Pound: Poet: Volume III: The Tragic Years 1939-1972

Ezra Pound: Poet: Volume II: The Epic Years

Ezra Pound: Poet: Volume III: The Tragic Years 1939-1972

Ezra Pound: Poet - A Portrait of the Man and His Work, Vol. 1: The Young Genius 1885-1920

Ezra Pound: Poet: Volume II: The Epic Years

Ezra Pound: Poet: Volume I: The Young Genius 1885-1920

Ezra Pound to His Parents: Letters 1895-1929

Tracing T. S. Eliot's Spirit: Essays on his Poetry and Thought

Thomas Stearns Eliot: Poet

Thomas Stearns Eliot: Poet