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Confucius to Cummings: Poetry Anthology
Third Printing...
- GenresPoetryAnthologies
376 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1964
About the author
Ezra Pound
554 books1,051 followersEzra Weston Loomis Pound was an American expatriate poet, critic and intellectual who was a major figure of the Modernist movement in early-to-mid 20th century poetry.
Pound's The Cantos contains music and bears a title that could be translated as The Songs—although it never is. Pound's ear was tuned to the motz et sons of troubadour poetry where, as musicologist John Stevens has noted, "melody and poem existed in a state of the closest symbiosis, obeying the same laws and striving in their different media for the same sound-ideal - armonia."
In his essays, Pound wrote of rhythm as "the hardest quality of a man's style to counterfeit." He challenged young poets to train their ear with translation work to learn how the choice of words and the movement of the words combined. But having translated texts from 10 different languages into English, Pound found that translation did not always serve the poetry: "The grand bogies for young men who want really to learn strophe writing are Catullus and François Villon. I personally have been reduced to setting them to music as I cannot translate them." While he habitually wrote out verse rhythms as musical lines, Pound did not set his own poetry to music.
Pound's The Cantos contains music and bears a title that could be translated as The Songs—although it never is. Pound's ear was tuned to the motz et sons of troubadour poetry where, as musicologist John Stevens has noted, "melody and poem existed in a state of the closest symbiosis, obeying the same laws and striving in their different media for the same sound-ideal - armonia."
In his essays, Pound wrote of rhythm as "the hardest quality of a man's style to counterfeit." He challenged young poets to train their ear with translation work to learn how the choice of words and the movement of the words combined. But having translated texts from 10 different languages into English, Pound found that translation did not always serve the poetry: "The grand bogies for young men who want really to learn strophe writing are Catullus and François Villon. I personally have been reduced to setting them to music as I cannot translate them." While he habitually wrote out verse rhythms as musical lines, Pound did not set his own poetry to music.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
August 11, 2023
"{Pound) spends one-quarter of his time on his own poetry and three-quarters raising money for other poets".---Ernest Hemingway
Poet, polemicist, and philosopher, Ezra Pound organized this anthology while staying at the "bughouse" of St. Elizabeth asylum for the insane in Washington, D.C. Forcibly cut off from the rest of America, "I am an exile in my country", he aimed to reach his fellow citizens by means of poetry. Pound always insisted that great poetry, in the words of Cicero, had to "enlighten, delight and teach". I recommend this anthology of world poetry, collected by Pound and his visiting lover at St. Elizabeth, Marcella Spann, with verses from ancient China to modern and modernist America, for self-education. These poems illustrate Pound's political, pedagogical, and aesthetic views, which to him were the same. The purpose of poetry is to revive the language and teach the highest morals. His mission, ever since his starving poet days in Italy, England, and France, was to "preserve from the air a live tradition" of the finest things ever thought and written, and rescue a dry and decaying American civilization from submitting to the power of money.
If you are a poetry fanatic, as I am, you will find treasure in Ez's eccentric (to us, not to him) choices of great poets and their poetry. If you have no taste for poetry, CONFUCIUS TO CUMMINGS will show you why some things can only be said through poetry. Pound hated what he called "the starters of crazes", and you will find only the classics here. He begins with Confucius, whom Pound correctly always called Kung; his editors must have vetoed the original name as too foreign-sounding to sell, for Pound insisted that "The Odes of Confucius" not only made for great poetry but laid out the basis for a just society: "For if a man have not order within him, he cannot spread order about him". THE ODES were once required reading for becoming a Mandarin in imperial China. This was, and it should be, in any civilization. A political class should be literate and knowledgeable in poetry and philosophy. The Chinese poems address economic inequality, the philosophical comforts of nature and, surprisingly, coming from Pound, the low status of women. The Greeks are represented by Pound's own delightful translation of Euripides into Black American slang and his controversial rendering of Sophocles' "The Women of Trachis". In ancient Rome we find Lucretius, "Why hath that old bugbear death that men should fear?" A move to the Middle Ages finds poetry steeped deep in religion, natural beauty, and the formalities of love. THE CANTOS OF EZRA POUND are modeled on Dante's DIVINE COMEDY, yet Ezra, a stubborn old cuss, devotes the middle section of this collection to Dante's contemporary, Guido Cavalcanti, featuring the motif of "dove sta memoria" (where the memory liveth); a pitch I once threw an an Italian-American beauty but did not receive my reward, unlike Guido. Shakespeare is here, of course; the "Sonnets" get one selection, and the poetic outtakes from the plays is idiosyncratic; no Hamlet soliloquy or "full-fathom five thy father lies" from THE TEMPEST. Pound understood The Bard was a poet first and a playwright second. What matters is Shakespeare the songwriter; how he could make audiences sing, "hey, nonny, nonny". Another irresistible touch: Martin Luther, St. Francis of Assisi, Queen Elizabeth I and Henry VIII are all quoted in a reminder of the times when religious reformers and statesmen and women were expected to write poetry. Henry muses on the importance of friendship above all other forms of kindness, and his daughter prefigures her defense of the realm against the Armada. Byron pops up in one selection, but only to bitch about fellow poets envious of him: "The fame you envy, and the skill you need". Pound drank from the fountains of Browning and Whitman, both amply represented. They made colloquial speech poetic, or assumed it had always been thus. Browning and Whitman gave Pound an important tip---to assume the voice of a poetic character as his own: the painter, monk, and grumpy failed artist for Browning and the centenarian veteran of the American Revolution for Walt. No Tennyson here, though. Uncle Ezra believed poetry was something "anyone might say in a single moment" and Lord Alfred was all affectation. Among the moderns he finds space for his great friends: Ford Madox Ford delights with a long poem on finding "a working heaven" in Provence, where "God stopped by" with a visiting English mistress, T.S. Eliot and his Latin allusions and modern melancholy, and E.E. Cummings, "the only name in American poetry today", running amok with American English. CONFUCIUS TO CUMMINGS is both a college semester class taught by the greatest of all twentieth-century worshipers of poetry and a classical education in history, politics, religion, and how "a civilization rises and falls by its use of language".
Poet, polemicist, and philosopher, Ezra Pound organized this anthology while staying at the "bughouse" of St. Elizabeth asylum for the insane in Washington, D.C. Forcibly cut off from the rest of America, "I am an exile in my country", he aimed to reach his fellow citizens by means of poetry. Pound always insisted that great poetry, in the words of Cicero, had to "enlighten, delight and teach". I recommend this anthology of world poetry, collected by Pound and his visiting lover at St. Elizabeth, Marcella Spann, with verses from ancient China to modern and modernist America, for self-education. These poems illustrate Pound's political, pedagogical, and aesthetic views, which to him were the same. The purpose of poetry is to revive the language and teach the highest morals. His mission, ever since his starving poet days in Italy, England, and France, was to "preserve from the air a live tradition" of the finest things ever thought and written, and rescue a dry and decaying American civilization from submitting to the power of money.
If you are a poetry fanatic, as I am, you will find treasure in Ez's eccentric (to us, not to him) choices of great poets and their poetry. If you have no taste for poetry, CONFUCIUS TO CUMMINGS will show you why some things can only be said through poetry. Pound hated what he called "the starters of crazes", and you will find only the classics here. He begins with Confucius, whom Pound correctly always called Kung; his editors must have vetoed the original name as too foreign-sounding to sell, for Pound insisted that "The Odes of Confucius" not only made for great poetry but laid out the basis for a just society: "For if a man have not order within him, he cannot spread order about him". THE ODES were once required reading for becoming a Mandarin in imperial China. This was, and it should be, in any civilization. A political class should be literate and knowledgeable in poetry and philosophy. The Chinese poems address economic inequality, the philosophical comforts of nature and, surprisingly, coming from Pound, the low status of women. The Greeks are represented by Pound's own delightful translation of Euripides into Black American slang and his controversial rendering of Sophocles' "The Women of Trachis". In ancient Rome we find Lucretius, "Why hath that old bugbear death that men should fear?" A move to the Middle Ages finds poetry steeped deep in religion, natural beauty, and the formalities of love. THE CANTOS OF EZRA POUND are modeled on Dante's DIVINE COMEDY, yet Ezra, a stubborn old cuss, devotes the middle section of this collection to Dante's contemporary, Guido Cavalcanti, featuring the motif of "dove sta memoria" (where the memory liveth); a pitch I once threw an an Italian-American beauty but did not receive my reward, unlike Guido. Shakespeare is here, of course; the "Sonnets" get one selection, and the poetic outtakes from the plays is idiosyncratic; no Hamlet soliloquy or "full-fathom five thy father lies" from THE TEMPEST. Pound understood The Bard was a poet first and a playwright second. What matters is Shakespeare the songwriter; how he could make audiences sing, "hey, nonny, nonny". Another irresistible touch: Martin Luther, St. Francis of Assisi, Queen Elizabeth I and Henry VIII are all quoted in a reminder of the times when religious reformers and statesmen and women were expected to write poetry. Henry muses on the importance of friendship above all other forms of kindness, and his daughter prefigures her defense of the realm against the Armada. Byron pops up in one selection, but only to bitch about fellow poets envious of him: "The fame you envy, and the skill you need". Pound drank from the fountains of Browning and Whitman, both amply represented. They made colloquial speech poetic, or assumed it had always been thus. Browning and Whitman gave Pound an important tip---to assume the voice of a poetic character as his own: the painter, monk, and grumpy failed artist for Browning and the centenarian veteran of the American Revolution for Walt. No Tennyson here, though. Uncle Ezra believed poetry was something "anyone might say in a single moment" and Lord Alfred was all affectation. Among the moderns he finds space for his great friends: Ford Madox Ford delights with a long poem on finding "a working heaven" in Provence, where "God stopped by" with a visiting English mistress, T.S. Eliot and his Latin allusions and modern melancholy, and E.E. Cummings, "the only name in American poetry today", running amok with American English. CONFUCIUS TO CUMMINGS is both a college semester class taught by the greatest of all twentieth-century worshipers of poetry and a classical education in history, politics, religion, and how "a civilization rises and falls by its use of language".
September 16, 2013
The most interesting thing about this anthology was the incredible and idiosyncratic breadth of Pound's selections. While I didn't love the anthology by any means, it was my first time being exposed to many of these poets, especially those whom Pound elects to include in translation. Our knowledge of world literature (like our knowledge of most other art forms beyond our own borders, or with slightly more liberality, our own language) is sadly lacking. Pounds apparent familiarity with so much of the western tradition and a good number of writers from well outside of it and his determination to value what he's found is something not often seen. For all his personal issues, I've found reading his work or thoughts on literature for themselves always interesting, often challenging, and at times quite enlightening.
February 18, 2021
Great anthology from "il miglior fabbro". Panoramic scope mingled with sparse commentary to the history of poetry from the master.
Did Not Finish
June 3, 2021~pg 126
Read
March 23, 2014Ezra Pound’s idea of the creme de la creme of poetry. Although there is little about Pound, his own work and his judgements that I don’t dislike and disagree with, there are gems here that aren’t in the orthodox canon: George Chapman, Villon, Michelangelo’s poetry, Christopher Smart, Arthur Golding. It’s worth looking through if you can find it.
November 16, 2014
I read passages from this text to the love of my life. If you don't like it, go fuck thyself. Where else are we getting Li Po, Ben Jonson, and Gautier on the same platform on earth? Certainly some long-forgotten mad fucking ecstatic subway. The Mad Houdini Professorial Bum Poet. Where ye be. Enough-Enoch. Night.
May 11, 2016
Come away, come away, death,
And in sad cypress let me be laid.
Fly away, fly away, breath;
I am slain by a fair cruel maid.
My shroud of white, stuck all with yew,
O, prepare it!
My part of death, no one so true
Did share it.
And in sad cypress let me be laid.
Fly away, fly away, breath;
I am slain by a fair cruel maid.
My shroud of white, stuck all with yew,
O, prepare it!
My part of death, no one so true
Did share it.
January 3, 2010
exercises in attention
January 3, 2016
I've read many an anthology of best poetry and there's always a layer of "really? You included that?". Not so in Confucius to Cummings. It's lengthened my to-read poetry list immeasurably.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews