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The Ezra Pound Encyclopedia
Universiteit Antwerpen
The Ezra Pound Encyclopedia. Edited by Demetres P. Tryphonopoulos and Stephen J. Adams. Greenwood Press, 2005. ISBN 9780313304484. £55; A Companion to James Joyce. Edited by Richard Brown. Blackwell Publishing, 2008. ISBN 9781405110440. £105.
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EZRA POUND is without a doubt a crucial figure in literary modernism. But also a rather impossible one. His bouts of anti-Semitic ranting, his pro-fascist radio speeches during the Second World War, and his adoration of Mussolini have made it difficult to read his poetry in an unprejudiced way. Nonetheless, by presenting a wide range of perspectives, written by a hundred contributors The Ezra Pound Encyclopedia manages to paint a nuanced portrait of the poet. Some entries are written by the closest concerned – for instance, the entry on Omar Pound by Omar Pound. Since two of the most important Pound scholars – Hugh Kenner and Carroll Terrell – died in 2003, the encyclopaedia is dedicated to them.
The editors' aim was ‘to provide materials to help orient new readers of Pound and Modernism but also to refresh even experienced readers’ (p. xvi). An excellent entry in this