Ezra Pound in His Time and Beyond: The Influence of Ezra Pound on Twentieth Century Poetry June 13, 2006

Feb 14 - Jun 16th, 2006

It is a pleasure to announce "Ezra Pound in His Time and Beyond: The Influence of Ezra Pound on Twentieth Century Poetry," an exhibition currently on view at the University of Delaware Library, Department of Special Collections. The exhibition focuses on Pound's role as mentor, editor, translator, critic, and indefatigable supporter of other writers and artists. As the key figure of literary modernism, Pound, as his bibliographer Donald Gallup has said, "attempted to give the 'movement' more of a focus, perhaps, than it ever actually had, but by sheer force of personality and conviction he effected a revolution which still, a half century later, seems miraculous." It is the purpose of this exhibition to show the role Pound played in the development of "the movement," as Gallup termed it, of literary modernism, and in doing so shine a light on a thread that wends its way through sixty years of literature in a century in which literature changed dramatically.

In A Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemingway said of Pound: "Ezra was the most generous writer I have ever known and the most disinterested. He helped poets, painters, sculptors and prose writers that he believed in and he would help anyone whether he believed in them or not if they were in trouble." Hemingway was but one of many writers supported by Pound; the long list includes James Joyce, T.S. Eliot, William Butler Yeats, Marianne Moore, E.E. Cummings, Robert Frost, William Carlos Williams, and many others. Beginning with Pound's own forebears (such as Robert Browning and Algernon Charles Swinburne) and ranging to those writers who followed in Pound's wake (such as Allen Ginsberg and Charles Olson), the exhibition draws on the extensive holdings of twentieth century literature housed in the University of Delaware Library Department of Special Collections. Featured are such highlights as Joyce's Ulysses, several editions of The Waste Land, Hemingway's first three books, Pound's rare first book A Lume Spento, and many other fine and rare editions, along with manuscript material and ephemera. A printed catalog accompanying the exhibition is available upon request.

A lecture is scheduled in conjunction with the exhibition on Wednesday, March 8th, 2006 at 4:30 p.m. at the University of Delaware Library. Robert A. Wilson (whose Pound collection forms the backbone of the materials on display) will give a talk entitled "In the City of Aldus," where he will discuss his visit with Olga Rudge in Venice. RSVP to the Library at 302-831-2231 or libraryrsvp@winsor.lib.udel.edu.

The exhibition is on view from February 14 to June 16, 2006, in the second floor exhibition gallery at Morris Library, on the University of Delaware campus in Newark, Delaware. Newark is conveniently located midway between Baltimore and Philadelphia and is approximately three hours from New York City. For more information please contact the Exhibition Curator, Jesse Rossa, Assistant Librarian in the Department of Special Collections, at 302-831-2293 or jrossa@udel.edu.