Personae The Shorter Poems

by Pound, Ezra; Baechler, Lea; Litz, A. Walton

• ISBN13: 9780811211383
• ISBN10: 081121138X
• Edition: Revised
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1990-09-17
• Publisher: New Directions

Summary

If the invention of literary modernism is usually attributed to James Joyce, T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound, it was Pound alone who provided (in Hugh Kenner's words) "the synergetic presence") to convert iondividual experiment into an international movement. In 1926 Pound carefully sculpted his body of shorter poems into a definitive collection which would best show the concentration of force, the economy of means, and the habit of analysis that were, to him, the hallmarks of the new style.This collection, where Pound presented himself in a variety of characters or "masks," was called Personae . In 1926, Personae 's publication gave solidity to a movement today the work stands as one of the classic texts of the twentieth century. Pound scholars Lea Baechler (of Columbia) and A. Walton Litz (Holmes Professor of English literature at Princeton) have prepared a corrected text and supplied an informative "Note on the Text" explaining both Pound's original criteria for his selection and the volume's subsequent history.

Table of Contents

POEMS OF 1908--1911
The Tree	3	(1)
Threnos	3	(1)
La Fraisne	4	(2)
Cino	6	(2)
Na Audiart	8	(2)
Villonaud for This Yule	10	(1)
A Villonaud: Ballad of the Gibbet	11	(2)
Mesmerism	13	(1)
Famam Librosque Cano	14	(1)
Praise of Ysolt	15	(2)
De Ægypto	17	(1)
For E. McC.	18	(1)
In Durance	19	(2)
Marvoil	21	(2)
And Thus in Nineveh	23	(1)
The White Stag	24	(1)
Guido Invites You Thus	24	(1)
Night Litany	24	(2)
Sestina: Altaforte	26	(2)
Piere Vidal Old	28	(2)
Paracelsus in Excelsis	30	(1)
Ballad of the Goodly Fere	31	(2)
On His Own Face in a Glass	33	(1)
The Eyes	33	(1)
Francesca	34	(1)
Planh for the Young English King	35	(1)
Ballatetta	36	(1)
Prayer for His Lady's Life	37	(1)
Speech for Psyche in the Golden Book of Apuleius	37	(1)
``Blandula, Tenulla, Vagula''	38	(1)
Erat Hora	38	(1)
Rome	39	(1)
Her Monument, The Image Cut Thereon	39	(2)
Satiemus	41	(1)
Mr. Housman's Message	42	(1)
Translations and Adaptations from Heine	43	(4)
The House of Splendour	47	(1)
The Flame	48	(1)
Horæ Beatæ Inscriptio	49	(1)
The Altar	50	(1)
Au Salon	50	(1)
Au Jardin	51	(4)
POEMS FROM RIPOSTES 1912
Silet	55	(1)
In Exitum Cuiusdam	55	(1)
The Tomb at Akr Çaar	56	(1)
Portrait d'une Femme	57	(1)
N. Y.	58	(1)
A Girl	58	(1)
``Phasellus Ille''	59	(1)
An Object	60	(1)
Quies	60	(1)
The Seafarer	60	(3)
The Cloak	63	(1)
δωpiα	64	(1)
Apparuit	64	(1)
The Needle	65	(1)
Sub Mare	66	(1)
The Plunge	66	(1)
A Virginal	67	(1)
Pan Is Dead	67	(1)
Dieu! Qu'il la fait	68	(1)
The Picture	69	(1)
Of Jacopo del Sellaio	69	(1)
The Return	69	(1)
The Alchemist	70	(5)
POEMS FROM BLAST 1914
Salutation the Third	75	(1)
Monumentum Aere, Etc.	76	(1)
Come My Cantilations	76	(1)
Before Sleep	77	(1)
Post Mortem Conspectu	78	(1)
Fratres Minores	78	(5)
POEMS OF LUSTRA 1913--1915
Tenzone	83	(1)
The Condolence	83	(1)
The Garret	84	(1)
The Garden	85	(1)
Ortus	85	(1)
Salutation	86	(1)
Salutation the Second	86	(2)
The Spring	88	(1)
Albatre	88	(1)
Causa	89	(1)
Commission	89	(1)
A Pact	90	(1)
Surgit Fama	91	(1)
Dance Figure	91	(1)
April	92	(1)
Gentildonna	93	(1)
The Rest	93	(1)
Les Millwin	94	(1)
Further Instructions	95	(1)
A Song of the Degrees	95	(1)
Ite	96	(1)
Dum Capitolium Scandet	96	(1)
To Kαλov	97	(1)
The Study in Æsthetics	97	(1)
The Bellaires	98	(2)
The New Cake of Soap	100	(1)
Salvationists	100	(1)
Epitaph	101	(1)
Arides	101	(1)
The Bath Tub	101	(1)
The Temperaments	102	(1)
Amities	102	(1)
Meditatio	103	(1)
To Dives	104	(1)
Ladies	104	(1)
Phyllidula	105	(1)
The Patterns	105	(1)
Coda	106	(1)
The Seeing Eye	106	(1)
Ancora	106	(1)
``Dompna Pois de me No'us Cal''	107	(2)
The Coming of War: Actæeon	109	(1)
After Ch'u Yuan	110	(1)
Liu Ch'e	110	(1)
Fan-Piece, For Her Imperial Lord	111	(1)
Ts'ai Chi'h	111	(1)
In a Station of the Metro	111	(1)
Alba	112	(1)
Heather	112	(1)
The Faun	112	(1)
Coitus	113	(1)
The Encounter	113	(1)
Tempora	113	(1)
Black Slippers: Bellotti	114	(1)
Society	114	(1)
Image from D'Orleans	115	(1)
Papyrus	115	(1)
``Ione, Dead the Long Year''	115	(1)
Iu∈ppω	116	(1)
Shop Girl	116	(1)
To Formianus' Young Lady Friend	117	(1)
Tame Cat	117	(1)
L'Art, 1910	118	(1)
Simulacra	118	(1)
Women Before a Shop	118	(1)
Epilogue	119	(1)
The Social Order	119	(1)
The Tea Shop	120	(1)
Ancient Music	120	(1)
The Lake Isle	121	(1)
Epitaphs	122	(1)
Our Contemporaries	122	(1)
Ancient Wisdom, Rather Cosmic	123	(1)
The Three Poets	123	(1)
The Gypsy	123	(1)
The Game of Chess	124	(1)
Provincia Deserta	125	(6)
CATHAY 1915
Song of the Bowmen of Shu	131	(1)
The Beautiful Toilet	132	(1)
The River Song	132	(2)
The River-Merchant's Wife: A Letter	134	(1)
Poem by the Bridge at Ten-Shin	135	(1)
The Jewel Stairs' Grievance	136	(1)
Lament of the Frontier Guard	136	(1)
Exile's Letter	137	(3)
Four poems of Departure	140	(3)
Separation on the River Kiang	140	(1)
Taking Leave of a Friend	141	(1)
Leave-Taking Near Shoku	141	(1)
The City of Choan	142	(1)
South-Folk in Cold Country	143	(1)
Sennin Poem by Kakuhaku	143	(1)
A Ballad of the Mulberry Road	144	(1)
Old Idea of Choan by Rosoriu	145	(1)
To-Em-Mei's ``The Unmoving Cloud''	146	(3)
POEMS OF LUSTRA 1915--1916
Near Perigord	149	(6)
Villanelle: The Psychological Hour	155	(1)
Dans un Omnibus de Londres	156	(1)
Pagani's, November 8	157	(1)
To a Friend Writing on Cabaret Dancers	158	(3)
Homage to Quintus Septimius Florentis Christianus	161	(1)
Fish and the Shadow	162	(1)
Impressions of Françcois-Marie Arouet (de Voltaire)	163	(4)
POEMS OF 1917--1920
Phanopoeia	167	(2)
Langue d'Oc	169	(7)
Moœurs Contemporaines	176	(6)
Cantico del Sole	182	(1)
Hugh Selwyn Mauberley	183	(20)
[Part I]
E. P. Ode Pour L'Election De Son Sepulchre	185	(1)
II [The age demanded an image]	186	(1)
III [The tea-rose tea-gown, etc.]	186	(1)
IV [These fought in any case]	187	(1)
V [There died a myriad]	188	(1)
Yeux Glauques	189	(1)
``Siena Mi Fe'; Disfecemi Maremma''	190	(1)
Brennbaum	191	(1)
Mr. Nixon	191	(1)
X [Beneath the sagging roof]	192	(1)
XI [``Conservatrix of Milesien'']	193	(1)
XII [``Daphne with her thighs in bark...'']	193	(2)
Envoi (1919)	195	(1)
[Part II] Mauberley (1920)
I [Turned from the ``eau-forte/Par Jacquemart'']	196	(1)
II [For three years, diabolus in the scale]	197	(1)
``The Age Demanded''	198	(3)
IV [Scattered Moluccas]	201	(1)
Medallion	202	(1)
Homage to Sextus Propertius (1917)	203	(22)
Cantus Planus	225	(40)
APPENDIX I: THREE CANTOS 1917
I [Hang it all, there can be but one Sordello!]	229	(5)
II [Leave Casella]	234	(7)
III [Another's a half-cracked fellow-John Heydon]	241	(8)
APPENDIX II: UNCOLLECTED POEMS 1912--1917
To Whistler, American	249	(1)
Middle-Aged, A Study in an Emotion	250	(1)
In a Station of the Metro [first version]	251	(1)
Ikon	251	(1)
Abu Salammamm--A Song of Empire	252	(1)
War Verse (1914)	253	(1)
1915: February	253	(2)
Preference	255	(1)
L'Homme Moyen Sensuel	256	(9)
APPENDIX III: THE COMPLETE POETICAL WORKS OF T. E. HULME	265	(4)
APPENDIX IV: A NOTE ON THE TEXT	269	(8)
Index of Titles and First Lines	277