Size: 0.25 linear feet

Provenance: Received from St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, Washington D.C., 1957

Access: Open

Related Collections:

Processing Note:  None

Copyright: The literary rights to this collection are assumed to rest with the person(s) responsible for the production of the particular items within the collection, or with their heirs or assigns.  Researchers bear full legal responsibility for the acquisition to publish from any part of said collection per Title 17, United States Code.  The Ward M. Canaday Center for Special Collections may reserve the right to intervene as intermediary at its own discretion.

Completed by: Brenna Dugan, March 11, 2007

 

Biographical/Historical Sketch

 

            Ezra Pound (1885-1972) was an American poet who was a prominent figure in the 20^th century. He was part of the modernist movement which included James Joyce, T.S. Eliot, Robert Frost, H.D., William Carlos Williams and numerous others. The modernists were interested in experimental literary forms that differed from the previous generation of poets. Pound was also an essayist, editor, critic and translator.

            The Cantos is a series of 120 poems which are considered to be Pound’s epic masterpiece. These poems combine ancient and modern history with Pound’s own experience. They touch on themes like culture and economics. The Chinese language and several European languages are used in parts of The Cantos. The multiple languages, along with a wide number of themes and cultural references make this poem extremely wide in scope.

            This collection comes from St. Elizabeth’s Hospital for the Criminally Insane, where Pound stayed from 1946-1958

 

Scope and Content Note

The Ezra Pound Papers, The Cantos contains two books, letters and manuscripts which are typescripts, photocopies and/or carbon copies. Additionally, there is a fragment of a typed outline of Cantos LII-LXXI.

 

 

Folder List

 

Box	Folder	Contents
1	1	Copies of notes on Works of John Adams, uncatalogued copies of a late Pound manuscript and a draft of a letter to T.S. Eliot
1	2	Copies of The Cantos manuscript
1	3	Two letters from 1957. They are both to Seymour Lawrence, the editor/director of Atlantic Monthly from 1952-1964. In one letter he is addressed by Pound as “S.L.” and in the other, he is called “Mr. Lawrence
1	4	Fragment of outline of Cantos LII-LXXI
1	5	Carbon typescripts of Cantos LXXIX-LXXXI
1	6	Carbon typescript of Canto 98
1		Ezra Pound’s Pennsylvania by Noel Stock
1		Pound Lecture by Marshall McLuhan