ABC of Reading - Softcover

Pound, Ezra

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0811201511 ISBN 13: 9780811201513

Publisher: New Directions, 1960

Synopsis

Ezra Pound’s classic book about the meaning of literature.

This important work, first published in 1934, is a concise statement of Pound’s aesthetic theory. It is a primer for the reader who wants to maintain an active, critical mind and become increasingly sensitive to the beauty and inspiration of the world’s best literature. With characteristic vigor and iconoclasm, Pound illustrates his precepts with exhibits meticulously chosen from the classics, and the concluding “Treatise on Meter” provides an illuminating essay for anyone aspiring to read and write poetry. ABC of Reading displays Pound’s great ability to open new avenues in literature for our time.

About this title

About the Author:

New Directions has been the primary publisher of Ezra Pound in the U.S. since the founding of the press when James Laughlin published New Directions in Prose and Poetry 1936. That year Pound was fifty-one. In Laughlin’s first letter to Pound, he wrote: “Expect, please, no fireworks. I am bourgeois-born (Pittsburgh); have never missed a meal. . . . But full of ‘noble caring’ for something as inconceivable as the future of decent letters in the US.” Little did Pound know that into the twenty-first century the fireworks would keep exploding as readers continue to find his books relevant and meaningful.

Review:

“Incredibly alive and intelligent and first-rate.” — The New York Times

“Full of original and suggestive ideas on the meaning and operation of the poetic art. The comments ring with Pound’s early wit and vigor.” — The New Yorker

About this edition

• Publisher: New Directions
• Publication date: 1960
• ISBN 10: 0811201511
• ISBN 13: 9780811201513
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 208