Pound, Ezra

Drafts and Fragments of Cantos CX-CXVII

ISBN: 0571090818
London, England, UK: Faber and Faber Limited, 1970. First Edition. Hardcover. “The scientists are in terror / and the European mind stops / Wyndham Lewis chose blindness / rather than have his mind stop. / Night under wind mid garofani, / the petals are almost still / Mozart, Linnaeus, Sulmona, / When one’s friends hate each other / how can there be peace in the world? / Their asperities diverted me in my green time. / A blown husk that is finished / but the light sings eternal / a pale flare over marshes / where the salt hay whispers to tide’s change / Time, space, / neither life nor death is the answer. / And of man seeking good, / doing evil. / In meiner Heimat / where the dead walked / and the living were made of cardboard.”--Ezra Pound, “From Canto CXV,” pg. 24. Ezra Pound (1885-1972) was an American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and widely considered one of the finest poets of the last century. In his efforts to develop new directions in the arts during what is now considered the Modernist period, Ezra Pound promoted and supported such acclaimed writers as James Joyce, T.S. Eliot, Robert Frost, W.B. Yeats, William Carlos Williams, Marianne Moore, H.D., and Ernest Hemingway. Pound’s published books include A lume spento (1908), Exultations (1909), Personae (1909), Provenca (1910), Canzoni (1911), Lustra and Other Poems (1917), Hugh Selwyn Mauberley (1920), Umbra: Collected Poems (1920), Cantos I–XVI (1925), A Draft of XXX Cantos (1930), Homage to Sextus Propertius (1934), The Fifth Decade of Cantos (1937), Cantos LII-LXXI (1940), The Pisan Cantos (1948), Patria Mia (1950), and The Cantos (1972). Offered today is the 1970 collection, Drafts and Fragments of CANTOS CX-CXVII. Fragments and drafts of the later-period cantos, CANTOS CX-CXVII is an interesting look at Pound’s process as a seasoned poet as he drafted some of the last of the CANTOS. From inside font flap of dust jacket: “Ezra Pound has now released for publication in book form those parts of CANTOS CX to CXVII on which he has been working in recent years . Some of these fragments have been published elsewhere separately but they appear now for the first time in book form. Also included are some fragments for insertion in earlier Cantos.” From the collection of Albert Glover (1942-2026), the great American scholar, bibliographer, author & publisher who was the foremost living authority on literary giant Charles Olson (1910-1970) (our favorite Maximus Obscurantist), with whom we're honored to be acquainted. a hand-transcribed "Canto" in thin blue ink at last blank endpaper, presumably by Glover (see photos). Hardcover in unclipped dust jacket. First UK edition/first edition thus, as stated at copyright page, presumed first printing though not explicated thereon. Book in very fine condition with only minimal wear to fine edges. Dust jacket in relatively very fine condition with minor wear to fine edges, and slight discoloration due to age-toning to front and back covers. Very Fine / Very Fine. [Item #9147]

Price: $50.00 save 10% $45.00