The Modern Stylists, edited by Donald Hall (1968), Ezra Pound, Part 2

The Modern Stylists, edited by Donald Hall (1968), Ezra Pound, Part 2

Here are some more quotes from Ezra Pound. By far, his quotes were my favorites in this book:

Ezra Pound: "Roughly then, Good writing is writing that is perfectly controlled, the writer says just what he means. He says it with complete clarity and simplicity. He uses the smallest possible number of words. I do not mean that he skimps paper, or that he screws about like Tacitus to get his thought crowded into the least possible space. But, granting that two sentences are at times easier to understand than one sentence containing the double meaning, the author tries to communicate with the reader with the greatest possible despatch, save where for any one of forty reasons he does not wish to do so."

Ezra Pound: "Great literature is simply language charged with meaning to the ultmost possible degree."

I underlined the words "despatch" and "ultmost" because that is the way they were spelled. They are not typos. The only place I found the use of the word "ultmost" was in discussions about the Bible.

These are terrific quotes. And I love that Pound gives the author a way out when he says "save where for any one of forty reasons he does not wish to do so." No rules are absolute in writing.