Pound’s Ibn Rushd (Averroes)

Chapter 2 covers Ezra Pound’s interests in the Spanish Arab philosopher Averroes, the early Spanish troubadours, and the playwright Lope de Vega, as well as his critique of the Spanish Baroque period. Maria Luisa Ardizzone traces the thought in Pound’s work of Ibn Rushd, or Averroes (1126–98). She argues that Pound’s reading of Cavalcanti’s Donna me prega resulted from years of study, including of Arabic authors such as Avicenna. His knowledge of Averroes, however, appears mediated, given that it is based on the French text, Averroes et l’averroisme: essai historique (1925), by Ernest Renan, a pioneering study of Averroism crucial not only to Pound’s understanding of Cavalcanti but to his perspective on a medieval tradition different from that of Thomas Aquinas. Pound’s reading of Renan’s Averroes, concludes Ardizzone, aligns with the “logic weaving” he develops in the language of The Cantos, specifically in Rock-Drill.