Talk:Ezra Pound

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[edit] Cantos absent?

The introduction feels unsatisfactory in that it doesn't mention the Cantos and that it features a typically-opaque Kenner squib. It seems to me that long after there is no-one alive who cares what Modernism and Imagism were, there will be people who read and love (or hate) the Cantos. I'm a fairly-serious student of EP, and while I respect Kenner's achievement, he doesn't belong in the introductory paragraph.

Absent some push-back, I will adjust the introduction to include the Cantos and exclude Kenner Tim Bray 09:09, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)


I agree. This article is on my list of things to do once The Cantos is finished, but if you want to do it, great. The Pound article could be 3 times its curent size. Filiocht 08:44, Dec 13, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Scholarship statements NPOV

This portion: It is worth noting he was a shoddy scholar, and was always looking to cut corners. His translations often have laughable errors. His Chinese translations especially are not taken terribly serious. doesn't sound like NPOV. A reputable encyclopedia article would not contain the word "shoddy". I request that someone refine this, and perhaps through in examples of poor quality in his translation. Kricxjo 16:17, 2 Sep 2003 (UTC)

The following sounds like an editorial rather than a set of facts about Pound. Scholarship was not, of course, the point. Literal translations were not his intention; Pound was a poet, not an academic scholar. His concern was to breathe new air into voices of antiquity. Reading Confucius in English is quite different from reading it in the original. The question was how to translate a text so it lives again, almost as a contemporary work, in a new language and new time.- 26 september


Pound's translations were often creative exercises, focused more on making a good poem than cobbling together a crib sheet, ie, a word to word bridge from the original into contemporary English. [cf (Sullivan "Ezra Pound and Sextus Propertius: A Study in Creative Translation" Texas, 1964) and EP on how logopoeia, melopoeia and phanopoeia make a "good poem" (ABC of Reading)] ~Mark Witucke 21 May, 2007

[edit] Filiocht rewrite

If anyone is interested, I am rewriting this article at User:Filiocht/Ezra Pound and intend moving that rewrite to here when completed unless anyone objects? Filiocht 12:01, 25 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Here's the text I am overwriting for handy reference (Filiocht 14:45, 25 Nov 2003 (UTC)):

Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (October 30, 1885 - November 1, 1972) was a poet and critic who, along with T. S. Eliot, was one of the major figures of the modernist movement in early 20th century poetry. He was the driving force behind several modernist movements, notably Imagism and Vorticism.
Hugh Kenner, on meeting Pound: "I suddenly knew that I was in the presence of the center of modernism."
Pound was born in Hailey, Idaho. He was educated at the University of Pennsylvania (where at age 16, he met William Carlos Williams, then a young medical student) and at Hamilton College. He taught at Wabash College for less than a year, and afterward settled in London, after months in Venice. He had thought W. B. Yeats was the greatest living poet, and befriended him in England. His intelligence, confidence and verve found him a place in London's premier artistic circles. He married Dorothy Shakespear in 1914. In 1924, he moved to Italy, settling in Rapallo.
Pound's early books created a sensation in England, and he was considered the cutting edge in the years just prior to World War I. Yeats was moved by Pound's work to modify his own style, abandoning the pre-Raphaelite techniques that characterized his early poetry.
He lived in the Montparnasse Quarter of Paris, France for a time during the gathering of great artists. Frequently, Pound could be seen at the café Le Dome, playing chess on the terrace with Ford Madox Ford.
In the early 30s Pound moved to Rapallo, Italy. Economics became his obsession and Mussolini his great hope. He compared the Fascist to the princes of Renaissance Italy. During World War II he volunteered to speak on cultural subjects on Italian radio. The broadcasts are overtly political, however, and his political sentiments were clear enough: he hated Roosevelt, and the usury of world banking - which he pinned on the Jews. The Allies would lose the war, he thought. And wars were needless--they were started only to create debt--he thought.
After the war he was incarcerated outdoors in an open cage (the infamous "gorilla cage") at Pisa for twenty-five days, then for medical reasons (he considered himself broken by his time in the cage) in a tent. During the six months spent at Pisa living with the American GIs he worked on his translation of Confucius and wrote the Pisan Cantos.
"The enormous tragedy of the dream in the peasant's bent/ shoulders" they begin, written on scraps of paper and using a typewriter in the medical tent after-hours. For books, Pound had the Chinese of Confucius, possibly James Legge's translation too, a Chinese dictionary, all of which he pocketed before the MPs took him away, an anthology of verse he found at the latrine, & a standard military issue Bible. The setting of these Cantos is as much Pound's memory, specifically of London, as the Italian landscape, and the collapse of Fascist Italy.
He was transferred to the US and tried for treason, found insane and subsequently imprisoned in a mental institution in Washington, D.C. (St. Elizabeth's Hospital) for 12 years.
Distinguished and recognized writers, in spite of Pound's politics, awarded him the Bollingen-Library of Congress Award for the Pisan Cantos.
Repeated appeals from writers earned him release from the hospital in 1958, and he returned to Italy, settling in Venice, where he was to complete his life.
In terms of his views on translation, the back cover of Pound's Confucius offers, "Pound never wanted to be a literal translator. What he could do, as no other could, is to identify the essence, pick out 'what matters now,' and phrase it so pungently, so beautifully, that it will stick in the head and start new thinking."
The 800-odd paged Cantos, which Pound described as "a poem including history", was his major work. The two line haiku-like In a Station of the Metro is well known and frequently anthologized.
Allen Ginsberg said, "He was the poet of the age." after the news came that Pound had died.
In addition to his poetry, Pound would be remembered as a great advocate for poets, the classics, the arts; in fact, as he viewed it, he was pushing for a new civilization. He tirelessly promoted artists he thought were creating innovative, good work. Upon seeing Robert Frost's first book and recognizing his talent, he took up Frost in England and quickly became an informal advocate. He was instrumental or absolutely vital in getting James Joyce, William Carlos Williams, and T. S. Eliot published. Eliot's "The Waste Land" was heavily pared by Pound, which led Eliot to dedicate the poem to him, "the better craftsman" (in Italian, which were Dante's words.) Pound wrote extensively on the arts, including a book-length "Guide to Kulchur", and "ABC of Reading". Charles Olson, one of many directly influenced by "Old Ez", expressed at Berkeley in 1965, his thought that Pound had freed the languages of the world.
"The thought of what America would be like/ If the classics had a wide circulation/ Ah, well, it troubles my sleep."
"No man ever knows enough about any art." (Guide to Kulchur)

[edit] Article too reverent

I'm sorry, but this article is far too reverent. Pound's reputation as a poet is very much open to question, and the article should reflect that. There were numerous qualifications in the earlier versions that seem to have been systematically removed. Things I have a problem with:

- why include the Kenner quote at all?

-"he convinced his mentor to adopt a more direct way of writing, helping to bring about Yeats' mature style." This interpretation of Yeat's development has been in question for thirty years now, since Harold Bloom's study.

      • But mss and typescripts of Yeats poems with Pound's (accepted) suggestions exist. Filiocht 12:45, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

-"His translations of Japanese Noh plays influenced Yeats' writing" - Pound didn't translate from Japanese; he didn't know Japanese, and the only influence on Yeats was the idea of Noh drama rather than any actual texts

      • Pounds workings of Noh plays from Felonosa's notes were well known to Yeats. Filiocht 12:45, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

-for that matter, why have the references to Pound's exaggeration of his translation skills been removed? Is there some reason that people looking up information on Pound should not be told that he didn't know Chinese or Japanese?

-"Imagism and Vorticism. These two movements, which helped bring to notice the work of poets and artists like James Joyce" - neither of those movements had anything to do with Joyce

      • Joyce was in the Imigast anthology. Filiocht 12:45, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

-"can be seen as perhaps the central events in the birth of English-language modernism." or perhaps not

        • Hence the perhaps. Filiocht 12:45, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

-"The Cantos, which he began in 1915, pointed his way forward." I don't find this to be a NPOV statement; some of us - a lot of us - think The Cantos were a complete wrong turn that went nowhere.

      • Clearly refers to Pound's way forward. Filiocht 12:45, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

-"Pound was one of the first to successfully employ free verse in extended compositions." somehow it has to be noted that many do not consider his efforts successful

-"He also translated and championed Greek and Latin classics and helped keep these alive for poets at a time when classical education was in decline." Pound did not do that much classical translation, and I don't think he's ever been considered particularly important in keeping classical learning going. User:66.190.242.110 4:12, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Why not create a user account and add what you feel you want added? Filiocht

[edit] Facism and Anti-Semitism

I could not source the statement that Ezra Pound's anti-semitic leanings had their genesis at the University of Idaho. According to the University of Idaho library, though he was a fixture within its library, his tastes in reading ran more to the left and radicalism than towards facism. I removed the statement. Can someone source it correctly?

Most scholars agree that Pound's anti-semitism dates from the 1930s, and almost everybody misses the fact that there is more anti-Christian and anti-Buddhist sentiment in his writings than anti-Jewish. While not at all wishing to deny that Pound was, for a long period of time, clearly anti-semitic, this article seems to be overly concerned with this aspect of his life, to the detriment of any serious discussion of the important role he played in 20th C English-language poetry. Now that I have finished working on The Cantos, I hope to do some work here, meanwhile I absolutely agree that theis statement should be removed until a decent attribution is given. Filiocht 08:57, Feb 25, 2005 (UTC)

No other person researched this aspect of his life? --Duemellon 14:43, 17 August 2006 (UTC)


Additionally, the page contained an allegation that one of Pound's frequent visitors at St. Elizabeth's was the "then-chairman of the States' Rights Democratic Party" and that Pound "used to discuss strategy and tactics on how best to rally public support for the preservation of racial segregation in the American South." This statement was not cited, and a Google search revealed no sources. While this certainly could be true, it is a large enough allegation that it should be properly documented if it is to remain. Josiahseale 19:41, 3 May 2007 (UTC)


It strikes me as somewhat bizarre that the article refers to "the charge of antisemitism" as if there is argument as to whether or not Pound was an antisemite. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.83.31.1 (talk) 16:17, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Someone left a note

User:Hippopotamus left a note at the new user log that relates to this article [1]. I'll put this note here and on Talk:The Cantos. — Trilobite (Talk) 6 July 2005 15:18 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads-up. it doesn't look like a copyvio problem or even too much plagarism, but rather is asking for a reference/credit where his book has been quoted. I'm not sure which sections are in question, but the book is
ISBN 370520405X A Beginner's Guide to The Cantos of Ezra Pound, Roland John
This seems fair enough; and, assuming the book was referenced/quoted, would also be the proper thing to do. -- Solipsist 6 July 2005 15:39 (UTC)
I couldn't see myself where he thought his book was quoted either, but rather than go trawling through I thought it best to just note the message here and leave it for those who've worked on the article to determine if it was an oversight and his book was used or if there is just a coincidental similarity somewhere. — Trilobite (Talk) 6 July 2005 16:09 (UTC)

(Also posted on Talk:The Cantos.) Trilobite, I don't think Hippopotamus is alleging plagiarism, but simply proper use of his book, which he wants to see referenced. I've left a note on Hippopotamus' talk page, telling him that Filiocht is the author of The Cantos and also (I think) the main presence behind Ezra Pound. Filiocht is on holiday, but likely to return quite soon, so I asked if Hippopotamus would like to tell me more about it, so I can take care of referencing his work and anything else that arises, or would rather wait for Filiocht. Bishonen | talk 6 July 2005 16:37 (UTC)

Well I would tend to call the use of a source without citing it plagiarism, particularly where it would involve the use of someone's interpretation of a literary work rather than a simple fact, though you're probably right that Hippopotamus wasn't suggesting dishonesty but an oversight. By the way, in case there was any doubt, I wouldn't dream of accusing Filiocht of plagiarism, and I was pretty sceptical about the suggestion myself, so I was just leaving notification of the message from Hippopotamus, no more than that. — Trilobite (Talk) 6 July 2005 16:57 (UTC)
I have never read this book. Filiocht | Talk 08:42, July 11, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] About Pound's Incarceration

I found this section confusing, & frankly incoherent. Obviously, there are numerous opinions over his involuntary committment to St. Elizabeth's. (From what I remember in college, the usual explanation for it was that 1. if we wasn't clearly insane before, his stay in a military prison had made him now, & 2. better an indefinite stay in a relatively safe mental institution than risk a trial for treason & a possible death sentence.) However, these various opinions are presented in a confusing variety of ways:

  • We are told that "Pound was conceited and flamboyant", which is why he was misdiagnosed. This is an unattributed opinion that could be assumed to be a medical fact.
  • His incarceration is explaned as an abuse of government powers. This evades the fact he was accused of having committed treason, an offense for which other individuals were executed (e.g., William Joyce) at the time.
  • Now we reach an attributed POV -- "E. Fuller Torrey believed that Mussolini's propagandist was coddled by Winfred Overholser, the superintendent of St. Elizabeths." I guess by "coddled" he means that Pound was not treated as badly as the average mental inmate of the time -- which was very bad. Also, the phrase "Mussolini'd propagandist" is quite strong considering how little attention had been given previously to his infamous radio broadcasts.
  • Then we are told that he had a large number of unsavory visitors -- including an unnamed "then-chairman of the States' Rights Democratic Party" -- although we have practically no description of his more savory, intelligensia visitors. (I'm not arguing whether this is a fact: it is clear that being a famous intellectual & anti-Semite, he would attract a number of visitors of that ilk.)
  • Guy Davenport's work to rehabilitate Pound's reputation is intrusive, & IMNSHO wrong: I took a class on Pound in 1979, & even in the late 1970s his influence on 20th century poetry was widely admitted (I can recall only one professor in college who disagreed with this assessment). At the time, Hugh Kenner was the primary academic authority on Pound & his books were quite respected. (FWIW, Eustace Mullins, who claimed to be Pound's "official biographer" -- & whose article led me here -- was entirely ignored, although Pound's antisemitism wasn't.)
  • While the sentence about Pound's release is perfectly fine, the diagnosis is a bit misleading: if he was arguably sane while in St Elizabeth's, then he could stand trial for treason; if he was still insane, then he had to remain committed. (The mentally ill, in those days, were always institutionalized.) The solution was, in effect, a compromise: the government could continue to claim he was nuts -- to defend his committment & why they dropped the case; while his supporters accepted his de facto exile to Italy (a punishment, but still better than prison).

I'd rewrite this section myself, but I'm unfamiliar with the secondary literature. - llywrch 18:12, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Frances Gregg's Gender

A recent addition to this article identified Frances Gregg as a man and stated that both Ezra Pound and H.D. were romantically involved with Frances. I found this puzzling--while H.D.'s bisexuality is well documented, I had never heard of Pound ever becoming sexually involved with a man. A google search and a look at "The Life of Ezra Pound" by Noel Stock soon made it clear that Frances Scott was a woman. I know the male version of Frances is usually spelled FrancIs, but I assumed Gregg was merely going by an unconventional spelling.

This same mistake appeared in the article about H.D. and has since been corrected.

Devil Doll 20:22, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Gay Lobby tried, but evidently failed, this time. I'm sure they'll try again.Lestrade 22:27, 10 October 2007 (UTC)Lestrade

[edit] A SERIOUS REEDIT

Given Pound's centrality, I think this article is in need of a major reedit. I've tried to start this by fixing some errors (grammatical mainly) and by adding a paragraph on Cathay. The treatment of Pound's works seems cursory and uneven. There are also too few references. In my opinion, filling out the entry should precede debates about Pound's politics, etc. Help!!Benzocane 17:24, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cultural depictions of Ezra Pound

I've started an approach that may apply to Wikipedia's Core Biography articles: creating a branching list page based on in popular culture information. I started that last year while I raised Joan of Arc to featured article when I created Cultural depictions of Joan of Arc, which has become a featured list. Recently I also created Cultural depictions of Alexander the Great out of material that had been deleted from the biography article. Since cultural references sometimes get deleted without discussion, I'd like to suggest this as a model for the editors here. Regards, Durova 16:18, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Why does text disappear?

How come the full text of this article doesn't load sometimes? Specifically, the part about Eustace Mullins visiting Pound at St. Elizabeth's? Strange.

This problem appears to be fixed now.

[edit] Neutral presentation

Hi all. I like this article. I made some changes here in order to make the writing more encyclopedically neutral. If any of those - howevers - are part of a particular source's argument then feel free to restore using cites and quote marks. AlanBarnet 04:08, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for the helpful edits. The changes look fine to me. Paul 14:21, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
No problem Paul. Its my habit to make argumentative phrasing more neutral. In this article's case it seems to be inadvertent. In other cases it can be deliberate (in cases of promotional soapboxing. Neutrality is not that easy to maintain on Wikipedia. Luckily in this case it should be fairly easy. AlanBarnet 07:02, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Location of DTC

I believe the camp where Pound was imprisoned was to the north of central Pisa, near the intersection of the Via Aurelia and the Via Giordano Bruno. This is not near Tirrenia, which is southwest of the city center. Deor 03:28, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Poor article

This simply seems to be a poor and cursory biography of Pound. His actual interaction with modernism just seems to be skimmed over and mentioned, but with no mention of HOW he developed modernism and what advice/criticism he gave as a critic of modernists. I'm reading a biography on Pound, and if I can catch some free time, I'll help this article. It focuses far too much on his Antisemitism IMO. I'll make my edits ADD to the article instead of taking out information, and if anyone finds me in the wrong, feel free to revert. 66.65.193.128 03:58, 10 April 2007 (UTC)


I agree with this utterly. The Poetry section focuses way too much on Pound's work in music and far too less on his entire oeuvre, of which his work on music was, albeit important, only a fraction. Someone needs to re-write the poetry section and there should maybe be a literary criticism section as well. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 211.216.75.225 (talk) 11:32, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Minor Scandal

As in this from the article:

Afterward, Pound taught at Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Indiana, for less than a year, and left as the result of a minor scandal. In 1908 he traveled to Europe, settling in London after spending several months in Venice.

Heavens to Betsy, this is like making kids jump for Snickers bars and keeping them just out of their reach ... or like holding out red meat before a wild dog ... whatever. Don't mention a scandal unless you are going to explain it; never, ever, ever, ever.

Wasn't that the thing where they took a dim view of him having a woman in his room?

[edit] Death

Does anyone know how he died? Can't find that information anywhere. 82.163.144.250 10:16, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] References/Sources are there - why tag?

This article seems to list many, many references and sources - they are just not individually and specifically footnoted. They definitely should be (for example, the claim that Mussolini was not an anti-Semite should be footnoted with specific reference to a work and a specific page, etc.), but just because they're not, does that mean that this should have the References/Sources tag? The refs/sources are listed in detail, they just don't have the specific footnotes, which, again, they should, but that doesn't mean that the article is missing references/sources altogether, as the tag would suggest. OR is it a matter of Wikipedia Style Guidelines that articles without specific footnotes, regardless of the quantity and quality of their refs/sources, should get the refs/sources tag(s)? Srajan01 06:30, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

I think the tag makes sense: it states that this article or section doesn't cite sources - those sections indeed don't cite anything. Having a list of books in a references section is meaningless if you don't state what content was pulled from what and where - at best such a list can demonstrate notability, reliable sources, or some such, but definitely not factual accuracy, verifiability, or no original research. Quite honestly, this article is a mess and I've been looking around for some of the books cited in an effort to adequately cite the article and make it respond to some of the criticisms listed in the talk page(s) above. --Meowist 22:17, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
I agree, everything should be referenced.--Gloriamarie 17:35, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Insanity section

This section is quite unbalanced at the moment and seems to give commentary (is Wikipedia to decide that Pound's actions weren't those of an insane man?) I inserted a (printed) reference stating that Pound was declared insane by a federal jury; the paragraph later claimed that Pound was declared insane by "the authorities" which does not exactly denote a jury. If the insanity plea was indeed controversial, let's have a reference for that. And what about this?

"Pound's controversial insanity plea is mirrored by the fate of Norwegian author and collaborator Knut Hamsun, who was dubbed insane by embarrassed authorities despite evidence in the form of subsequent published material to the contrary."

What does that have to do with Ezra Pound? That is equating his actions directly with Hamsun's, finding them both guilty, and saying that a jury and "embarrassed" authorities wrongly found them both insane-- all pretty damning accusations. This stuff needs reliable sources directly equating Pound to Hamsun, reliable sources saying Hamsun and Pound are shown guilty by the evidence, and reliable evidence showing a mistake was made with the insanity pleas or it's just POV commentary that has no place on Wikipedia.--Gloriamarie 17:35, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Link to William Carlos William

The link that exists in the file to William Carlos William, points the wrong writer. If you examine the birth and death date you realize that Mr. Pound could have never met him. However there is another author, with the same name, with whom he was friends. There is no Wikipedia article to that author, so the link should not exist. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.74.123.226 (talk) 17:48, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

The link is correct. Someone or other vandalized the dates in the WCW article ealier today, but they've been reverted. Deor 19:04, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Shortwave broadcasts from Italy were heard in the U.S.

According to William Carlos Williams, he was approached by people who had heard Pound refer to "Old Doc Williams in Rutherford, NJ" during a broadcast. He then listened to Pound's broadcasts himself. Further research should be done to source this, but, in the meantime, the implication that nobody heard the broadcasts in the U.S. should be removed from the article.

I'll try to get a source for the Williams information...

Adam Holland 15:32, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Poems

The link: Ezra Pound Poems was tentatively included in the link section, but apparently an editor removed it. Perhaps it should be emphasized that it was no spam (just not my type of thing): indeed, those poems cannot be found elsewhere online, not even on Gutenberg. Actually, about 80% of them can be found at poemhunter or at American Poems yet not all in one single page. If someone feels like including the link, can certainly do it. In a page about Ezra Pound, it seems to belong; particularly if no links to his poems are present yet, and if other resources do not provide them and/or do not list them in one page. That was the rationale (I think sensible) behind the attempt. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.10.57.118 (talk) 11:56, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

I removed the link because the site linked to appears to be some kind of social network/forum (it bills itself as "an innovative website for personal or professional advertisement profiles"), and linking to it is therefore discouraged by WP:EL. Deor (talk) 12:33, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Well I know that perfection doesn't belong to this world - said without irony, actually. It's a fact. However, since we have no links to Pound's poems and the few sites that provide them are all of a somewhat commercial nature, and all the other pages previously mentioned have the poems (though not in one page) and yet have also all banners and the alike, I thought that, somehow, a link to Ezra Pound's poems was none the less useful and an important feature to have on Pound at wikipedia.

A guideline may discourage this or that practice, but if it doesn't forbid it, the rationale exposed above has still some validity. I leave this entirely to your judgement, but a link to Ezra's poems is badly needed, at that page didn't look unprofessional - actually, I picked it exactly because, compared with the others, appeared the one with less frills and more consistency: once skipped the headers, the middle body is all Pound's stuff without the readers' comments in the way like at American Poems and Poemhunter, and without the glitzy animated banners at Poemhunter. It looked more sober, that is. You judge. Thank you anyway for your time and dedication. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.10.57.118 (talk) 12:59, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] why does Robert Anton Wilson mention Pound?

"Pound was also interested in mysticism and the occult, but biographers have only recently begun to document his work in those fields. Leon Surrette wrote extensively of Pound's involvement in mysticism in The Birth of Modernism." <-- I wonder if that is part of the reason that in RAW's "Schrodinger's Cat" trilogy the poet Ezra Pound is often used as the fake author of the troublemaker Chaney's letters to powerful organizations... Was RAW trying to imply something about this noteable poet of which most people -- at the time of the Cat trilogy -- were not aware? Interesting... 68.149.190.31 (talk) 00:36, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Jewish?

Hi was Ezra Pound Jewish? The reason that I ask is because Ezra is a common Jewish name. —Preceding unsigned comment added by SceneandHeard (talk • contribs) 05:00, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

No, he wasn't. Deor (talk) 05:02, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
With questions like that, no wonder he went crazy! :)

[edit] The Occult?

The article states that Pound was interested in occultism or mysticism. In what forms--Theosophy? Classical Hermetic arts like astrology? Esoteric Christianity? What? --Dawud —Preceding unsigned comment added by 218.167.172.25 (talk) 10:27, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

With questions like that, no wonder he went crazy! :)

[edit] Antisemic

The reason I ask if Ezra Pound is Jewish with his Jewish sounding name is because perhaps his antisemic beliefs was to mask his Jewish background. —Preceding unsigned comment added by SceneandHeard (talk • contribs) 13:31, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

As I said above, he had no Jewish background. Old Testament names were (and are) frequently given to children by U.S. Protestants. Deor (talk) 13:55, 6 June 2008 (UTC)