The Oxford Companion to American Literature

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Pound, Ezra [Weston Loomis]

Pound, Ezra [Weston Loomis]( 1885–1972),
Idaho-born poet and critic, reared in Pennsylvania, attended the University of Pennsylvania and Hamilton College, and taught briefly at Wabash College, until dismissed because of his impatience with academic ways, despite his scholarly ability. He went to Italy (1908), where his first book, A Lume Spento [“a dim light”] (1908), was published. He later lived in London (1908–20), in Paris (1920–24), and until the end of World War II at Rapallo, Italy.

In 1909 he published two volumes of verse, Personae and Exultations (poems from both reprinted as Personae, 1926), whose intensity and disciplined metrical experimentation attracted attention, as did his knowledge of medieval literature, Provençal singers, and troubadour ballads. Provença (1910), Canzoni (1911), and Ripostes (1912) extended the paths he had marked for himself, but also...

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