Pound Lopista v. E.P.

This chapter explores Ezra Pound’s dissociation from the Spanish Baroque as part of reconsidering the broader scope of his poetic form. As a student, Pound immersed himself in Spanish literature, becoming “Lopista” long before his renown as a poet. While the impact of Romance literature is evident throughout his work, in modernist writing, the validity of old forms is as much contested as it is reinforced. Paula Barba Guerrero argues that Pound’s break with a baroque aesthetic is even more conspicuous in his prose, as in his 1921 essay, “Notes on Francisco de Quevedo Villegas.” Although, as Barba notes, Pound misreads Quevedo’s work, his reading reflects his own modern aesthetic, which values concision and concrete language over the sonority and ornamentation of Baroque poetics. Barba contends that only in recognizing the dual influence of the Spanish Baroque on Pound can his formal innovations in The Cantos be fully understood.