Ezra Pound and the Spanish World

This collection sheds light on Ezra Pound’s Spanish influences and connections, as well as on his own work’s impact on the Spanish-speaking literary tradition. Pound’s séjours in Spain and his ties to Spanish culture have been an unchartered field. While this volume does not exhaust this area of research, it opens new avenues of investigation into a still unknown territory in Pound studies. Without attempting to be comprehensive, these chapters present a clear picture of the extent of Pound’s engagement with Spanish letters and the impact he has had on Spanish-speaking writers. His varied relationship with Spanish literature adds another international touchstone of his oeuvre, as it generates new theoretical contexts in which Pound’s work continues to stir strong reactions. The book divides into two parts: Part One comprises eighteen critical, scholarly, and biographical essays on Pound’s intricate links with the Spanish world, his study of classical Spanish literature, the Spanish dimension in The Cantos, his Spanish connections among his contemporaries, and his impact on and legacy in contemporary Spanish literature. Part Two provides a READER that gathers for the first time in one place Pound’s original writings (postcards, letters, and essays) tied to Spain and Spanish writers, as well as his correspondence with and articles by José Vázquez Amaral, the first Spanish (or for that matter any) translator of The Cantos in its entirety. It also includes three testimonies by Spanish Novísimos poets, Antonio Colinas, Luis Alberto de Cuenca and Jaime Siles, written explicitly for this collection.