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Ezra Pound's Poetic Anthologies and the Architecture of Reading

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

John G. Nichols
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Abstract

Between 1914 and 1933, Ezra Pound edited four anthologies of poetry: Des Imagistes, Catholic Anthology, Profile, and Active Anthology. These compilations arose out of crucial stages of Pound's career in the teens, when he reacted against Victorian poetry, and in the 1930s, when he acted as a spokesperson for the modernist movement. Using the anthology as a vehicle for the presentation of innovative poetry as well as a guidebook on how to read it, Pound experimented with anthology formats to propel readers into the project of modernism through devices such as elliptical prefaces and fragmentary notes. He sought to train readers for the demands of interpreting modernist poetry and to reclaim control over an audience educated by burgeoning university literature departments and the mainstream poetic anthologies they employed. (JGN)

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 121 , Issue 1: Special Topic: The History of the Book and the Idea of Literature , January 2006 , pp. 170 - 185
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 2006

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