1 The libretto, in the original Old French, consists of extracts, principally ballades, taken from Villon’s Le Testament, composed in 1462, plus the concluding Ballade des pendus composed in 1463 while Villon was under sentence to be hanged and strangled for his part in a brawl. (Sentence annulled on appeal, but Villon banned from Paris for ten years as a bad character—‘eu regard à la mauvaise vie dudit Villon’.) Most of the extracts were noticed in the chapter on Villon in SR. Inserted among the poems by Villon is a hymn to the Virgin by the thirteenth-century trouvère Williaume li Viniers, a setting of which had been included as ‘Mère au Sauveour’, with Pound’s English adaptation of the words, in Walter Rummel’s Hesternae Rosae (1912). There are fourteen numbers as Hughes and Fisher now count them: Villon’s ‘Item, m’amour’ (three lines) is no longer counted as a separate number. The hymn ‘Vergine pucele roiauz’ is now restored to its original and correct position, following ‘Dame du ciel’, and assigned as Pound intended to a voice within the church. It is followed by the Priest’s singing just four to six bars of ‘Suivez beauté’. (See EPRO 121 and 262 n. 116; CPMEP vii; Testament II 213–65.)
2 The libretto consists of 13 numbers, with an overture drawn from Sonate Ghuidonis.
Act 1
1. Poi che di doglia (Ballata I) : Guido
2. Sol per pietà (Ballata XIII) : Betto
3. Gianni quel Guido (not by G. C.) : Guido’s friends
4. Guarda ben dico (not by G.C.) : The Cobbler
5. Era in pensier (Ballata VII) : Guido
Act 2
1. Se m’hai del tutto (Ballata III) : Guido
2. In un boschetto (Ballata IX): Guido’s friends
3. Donna mi prega (Canzone) : Guido4. Tos temps serai (Sordello) : Cunizza’s old servan
Act 3
1. Ailas (Sordello) : A French soldier
2. Quando di morte (Ballata XII) : Guido
3. Perch’io non spero (Ballata X) : Ricco & Guido
4. Io son la donna (? G.C.,? N. Machiavelli): Seneschal & Fortuna
ABBREVIATIONS
The Principal Writings of Ezra Pound (1885–1972)
Arranged by date of publication, thus providing an outline of Pound’s writing career. Place of publication is London unless otherwise indicated. Where editions differ the date of the one referred to in the notes is given in bold type.
ALS A Lume Spento (Venice: privately printed, 1908). Included in A Lume Spento and Other Early Poems (New York: New Directions, 1965; reprinted Faber & Faber, 1965). Also in CEP.
QY A Quinzaine for this Yule (privately printed, 1908; repr. for Elkin Mathews, 1908)
Personae Personae of Ezra Pound (Elkin Mathews, 1909)
Exultations Exultations of Ezra Pound (Elkin Mathews, 1909)
Provença Provença (Boston: Small Maynard, 1910)
SR The Spirit of Romance (London and New York: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1910; new edn., London: Peter Owen, 1952, New York: New Directions, 1953)
Canzoni Canzoni of Ezra Pound (Elkin Mathews, 1911)
Ripostes Ripostes of Ezra Pound (Stephen Swift, 1912—sheets then taken over by Elkin Mathews; Boston: Small Maynard, 1913)
Cathay Cathay (Elkin Mathews, 1915)
Cathol Ant Catholic Anthology: 1914–1915 (Elkin Mathews, 1915)
PM Patria Mia [1912–13] (Chicago: Ralph Fletcher Seymour, 1950; new edn., with ‘The Treatise on Harmony’, Peter Owen, 1962)
GB Gaudier-Brzeska: A Memoir (London and New York: John Lane, 1916; new edn. Hessle: Marvell Press, 1960 and New York: New Directions, 1961)
Lustra (1916) Lustra of Ezra Pound (privately printed, 1916; abridged edn., Elkin Mathews, 1916)
Lustra (1917) Lustra of Ezra Pound with Earlier Poems [and ‘Three Cantos’] (New York: privately printed, 1917; ordinary edn. [without ‘The Temperaments’], Alfred A. Knopf, 1917)
Noh ‘Noh’ or Accomplishment: A Study of the Classical Stage of Japan by Ernest Fenollosa and Ezra Pound (Macmillan & Co. Ltd, 1916; New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1917; included in T 1953; new edn., New York: New Directions, 1959)
PD (1918) Pavannes and Divisions (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1918) [See PD (1958)]
QPA Quia Pauper Amavi (The Egoist Ltd, 1919). Includes Homage to Sextus Propertius
HSP Homage to Sextus Propertius. Repr. from QPA, with some alterations, in P 1918–21, P (1926), and in all later editions of the collected shorter poems; published as a book in 1934 by Faber & Faber; published with HSM as Diptych Rome–London (New York: New Directions, 1958).
Instigations Instigations of Ezra Pound together with An Essay on the Chinese Written Character by Ernest Fenollosa (New York: Boni and Liveright, 1920)
HSM Hugh Selwyn Mauberley by E.P. (Ovid Press, 1920)
Umbra Umbra: The Early Poems of Ezra Pound (Elkin Mathews, 1920)
P 1918–21 Poems 1918–21 Including Three Portraits and Four Cantos (New York: Boni and Liveright, 1921)
NPL The Natural Philosophy of Love by Remy de Gourmont, Translated with a Postscript by Ezra Pound (New York: Boni and Liveright, 1922; new edn., London: Casanova Society, 1926)
Antheil Antheil and The Treatise on Harmony (Paris: Three Mountains Press, 1924; new edn., Chicago: Pascal Covici, 1927)
XVI Cantos A Draft of XVI Cantos of Ezra Pound for the Beginning of a Poem of some Length, with Initials by Henry Strater (Paris: Three Mountains Press, 1925)
P (1926) Personae: The Collected Poems of Ezra Pound (New York: Boni and Liveright, 1926)
Ta Hio Ta Hio, The Great Learning [later version in Confucius as ‘The Great Digest’] (Seattle: University of Washington Bookstore, 1928; new edn., Stanley Nott, 1936; repr. New York: New Directions, 1939)
Cantos 17–27 A Draft of the Cantos 17–27 of Ezra Pound, with Initials by Gladys Hynes (John Rodker, 1928)
XXX Cantos A Draft of XXX Cantos (Paris: Hours Press, 1930)
Rime Guido Cavalcanti Rime (Genova: Edizione Marsano S.A., 1932)
Profile Profile: An Anthology Collected in MCMXXXI, ed. EP (Milan: Giovanni Scheiwiller, 1932)
Active Anth Active Anthology, ed. EP (Faber & Faber, 1933)
ABCE ABC of Economics (Faber & Faber, 1933)
ABCR ABC of Reading (George Routledge & Sons Ltd, 1934; New Haven: Yale University Press, 1934; new edn., Faber & Faber, 1951; repr. New Directions, 1951)
MIN Make It New: Essays by Ezra Pound (Faber & Faber, 1934; repr. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1935)
XXXI–XLI Eleven New Cantos XXXI–XLI (New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1934; Faber & Faber, 1935)
J/M Jefferson and/or Mussolini: L’Idea Statale—Fascism as I have seen it…Volitionist Economics (Stanley Nott, 1935; New York: Liveright Publishing Corp., 1936)
CWC The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry (Stanley Nott, 1936; new edn., San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1964)
PE Polite Essays (Faber & Faber, 1937)
XLII–LI The Fifth Decad of Cantos (Faber & Faber, 1937; New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1937)
GK Guide to Kulchur (Faber & Faber, 1938; new edn., Norfolk, Conn.: New Directions, 1952; repr. Peter Owen Ltd, 1952)
LII–LXXI Cantos LII–LXXI (Faber & Faber, 1940; Norfolk, Conn.: New Directions, 1940)
Por Italy’s Policy of Social Economics 1930/1940 by Odon Por, trans. Ezra Pound (Bergamo: Istituto Italiano d’Arte Graifiche, 1941)
Confucio Confucio, Ta S’eu, Dai Gaku. Studio Integrale, Versione italiana di Ezra Pound e di Alberto Luchini (Rapallo: Scuola Tipografica Orfanotrofio Emiliani, 1942)
Carta Carta da visita ([Roma]: Edizione di lettere d’oggi, 1942); translated with some amendments by John Drummond, and published as A Visiting Card (Peter Russell, 1952), repr. S Pr
America L’America, Roosevelt e le cause della guerra presente (Venezia: Casa Editrice della Edizione Popolari, 1944); English translation by John Drummond, America, Roosevelt, and the Causes of the Present War (Peter Russell, 1951)
Oro Oro e lavoro (Rapallo: Tipografica Moderna, 1944); English translation by John Drummond, G
old and Work (Peter Russell, 1951), repr. S Pr
Introduzione Introduzione alla natura economica degli S.U.A. (Venezia: Casa Editrice della Edizione Popolari, 1944); English translation by Carmine Armore ([Peter Russell, 1950]), repr., revised by John Drummond, S Pr
Testamento Testamento di Confucio, Versione italiana di Ezra Pound e di Alberto Luchini (Venezia: Casa Editrice della Edizione Popolari, 1944)
Orientamenti Orientamenti (Venezia: Casa Editrice della Edizione Popolari, 1944)
J e M Jefferson e Mussolini (Venezia: Casa Editrice della Edizione Popolari, 1944)—Pound’s Italian version of J/M
Chiung Iung Chiung Iung, L’Asse che non vacilla, Versione italiana di Ezra Pound (Venezia: Casa Editrice della Edizione Popolari, 1945)
Treason ‘If This Be Treason……’ | e. e. cummings/examind | James Joyce: to his memory | A french accent | ‘Canto 45’ | Blast (Siena: Printed for Olga Rudge, [1948])
Pisan The Pisan Cantos (New York: New Directions, 1948; Faber & Faber, 1949)
Confucius (1949) Confucius: The Unwobbling Pivot & The Great Digest, trans. Ezra Pound, with notes and commentary on the text and the ideograms (Bombay, Calcutta, Madras: Orient Longmans Ltd for Kavitabhavan, 1949)
L (1950) The Letters of Ezra Pound 1907–1941, ed. D. D. Paige (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1950; reissued as The Selected Letters of Ezra Pound 1907–1941 by Faber & Faber, 1971)
L (1951) The Letters of Ezra Pound 1907–1941, ed. D. D. Paige (Faber & Faber, 1951). This differs in both contents and pagination from L (1950), but letters can be identified in either edition by date and recipient
Analects Confucian Analects (New York: Square $ Series, 1951; Peter Owen, 1956)
Confucius (1951) Confucius: The Great Digest & Unwobbling Pivot, trans. E.P. (New York: New Directions, 1951; repr. Peter Owen, 1952)
T The Translations of Ezra Pound (Faber & Faber, 1953; repr. New York: New Directions, 1953; enlarged edn., 1964)
CA The Classic Anthology Defined by Confucius, trans. E.P. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1954; repr. Faber & Faber, 1955)
LE Literary Essays of Ezra Pound, ed. T. S. Eliot (Faber & Faber, 1954; repr. Norfolk, Conn.: New Directions, 1954)
Rock-Drill Section: Rock Drill, 85–95 de los cantares (Milano: All’Insegna del Pesce d’Oro, 1955; repr. New York: New Directions, 1956; also Faber & Faber, 1957)
Trax Sophokles: Women of Trachis, A version by Ezra Pound (Neville Spearman, 1956; repr. New York: New Directions, 1957)
PD (1958) Pavannes and Divagations (Norfolk, Conn.: New Directions, 1958; repr. Peter Owen, 1960)
Thrones Thrones: 96–109 de los cantares (Milano: All’Insegna del Pesce d’Oro, 1959; repr. New York: New Directions, 1959; also Faber & Faber, 1960)
Impact Impact: Essays on Ignorance and the Decline of American Civilization, ed. Noel Stock (Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1960)
LPAE Love Poems of Ancient Egypt, trans. Ezra Pound and Noel Stock (New York: New Directions, 1962)—previously published as ‘Conversations in Courtship’
CC Confucius to Cummings: An Anthology of Poetry, ed. EP and Marcella Spann (New York: New Directions, 1964)
EP/JJ Pound/Joyce: The Letters of Ezra Pound to James Joyce, with Pound’s Essays on Joyce, ed. Forrest Read (New York: New Directions, 1967; repr. Faber & Faber, 1967)
D&F Drafts & Fragments of Cantos CX–CXVII (New York: New Directions, 1969; Faber & Faber, 1970)
Opera Scelte Opera Scelte, a cura di Mary de Rachewiltz ([Milano]: Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, 1970)
Cantos The Cantos of Ezra Pound. References, in the form of canto number/page number (as 20/89), are to the New Directions collected edition of 1970 as reprinted in the Faber ‘Revised Collected Edition (Cantos 1–117)’ published in 1975. The two volumes of A Companion to the Cantos of Ezra Pound, ed. Carroll F. Terrell (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980, 1984) are keyed to this text. [For later printings of the Cantos add, for those which include Cantos 72 and 73, 14 to the page number from Pisan Cantos on; and to those which include in addition EP’s English version of canto 72 add 20.]
S Pr Selected Prose 1909–1965, ed. William Cookson (Faber & Faber, 1973)
S Pr (US) Selected Prose 1909–1965, ed. William Cookson (New York: New Directions, 1973) [Differs from S Pr in pagination, and by omitting ‘Statues of Gods’ (1939) and ‘The Treatise on Harmony’ (1924), and adding ‘Patria Mia’ (1912)]
EP/Dk Dk/Some Letters of Ezra Pound, ed. with notes by Louis Dudek (Montreal: DC Books, 1974)
CEP Collected Early Poems of Ezra Pound, ed. Michael John King (New York: New Directions, 1976; repr. Faber & Faber, 1977)
EP&M Ezra Pound and Music: The Complete Criticism, ed. R. Murray Schafer (New York: New Directions, 1977; repr. Faber & Faber, 1978)
Radio ‘Ezra Pound Speaking’: Radio Speeches of World War II, ed. Leonard W. Doob (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1978)
EP&VA Ezra Pound and the Visual Arts, ed. Harriet Zinnes (New York: New Directions, 1980)
EP/Ibb Letters to Ibbotson, 1935–1952, ed. Vittoria I. Mondolfo and Margaret Hurley (Orono, Me.: National Poetry Foundation, 1979)
Lettere Lettere 1907–58 (Milano: Feltrinelli Editore, 1980)
P/F Pound/Ford: The Story of a Literary Friendship, ed. Brita Lindberg-Seyersted (New York: New Directions, 1982; repr. Faber & Faber, 1982)
Cav Pound’s Cavalcanti: An Edition of the Translations, Notes and Essays by David Anderson (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983)
EP/JT Letters to John Theobald, ed. Donald Pearce and Herbert Schneidau (Redding Ridge, Conn.: Black Swan Books, 1984)
EP/DS Ezra Pound and Dorothy Shakespear: Their Letters 1909–1914, ed. Omar Pound and A. Walton Litz (New York: New Directions, 1984; repr. Faber & Faber 1985)
I Cantos I Cantos, a cura di Mary de Rachewiltz (Milano: Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, 1985)—Italian translation with corrected English text en face, and substantial commentary
EP/WL Pound/Lewis: The Letters of Ezra Pound and Wyndham Lewis, ed. Timothy Materer (New York: New Directions, 1985; repr. Faber & Faber 1985)
EP/LZ Pound/Zukofsky: Selected Letters of Ezra Pound and Louis Zukofsky, ed. Barry Ahearn (New York: New Directions, 1987; repr. Faber & Faber 1987)
EP&J Ezra Pound & Japan: Letters & Essays, ed. Sanehide Kodama (Redding Ridge, Conn.: Black Swan Books, 1987)
Plays Plays Modelled on the Noh (1916), ed. Donald C. Gallup (Toledo: Friends of the University of Toledo Libraries, 1987)
EP/scienza Ezra Pound e la scienza. Scritti inediti o rari, ed. Maria Luisa Ardizzone (Milano: Libri Scheiwiller, 1987)
EP/MC Ezra Pound and Margaret Cravens: A Tragic Friendship 1910–1912, ed. Omar Pound and Robert Spoo (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1988)
EP/LR Pound/The Little Review: The Letters of Ezra Pound to Margaret Anderson—The Little Review Correspondence, ed. Thomas L. Scott, Melvin J. Friedman with the assistance of Jackson R. Bryer (New York: New Directions, 1988)
Elektra Elektra, A play by Ezra Pound and Rudd Fleming [translated 1949], ed. Richard Reid (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989)
P (1990) Personae: The Shorter Poems of Ezra Pound, A Revised Edition Prepared by Lea Baechler and A. Walton Litz (New York: New Directions, 1990)
P&P Ezra Pound’s Poetry and Prose: Contributions to Periodicals, Prefaced and Arranged by Lea Baechler, A. Walton Litz, and James Longenbach, 10 vols. [Addenda and Index in vol. xi] (New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1991). [Contains in photo-reproduction all contributions to periodicals recorded in Gallup: 1983.]
EP/JQ The Selected Letters of Ezra Pound to John Quinn, ed. Timothy Materer (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1991)
WT A Walking Tour in Southern France: Ezra Pound among the Troubadours, ed. Richard Sieburth (New York: New Directions, 1992)
Cathay/Catai Antiche poesie cinesi, [a trilingual Chinese–English–Italian edition of Cathay], a cura di Alessandra C. Lavagnino e Maria Rita Masci (Torino: Giulio Einaudi Editore
, 1993)
EP/ACH The Letters of Ezra Pound to Alice Corbin Henderson, ed. Ira B. Nadel (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1993)
EP/JL Ezra Pound and James Laughlin: Selected Letters, ed. David M. Gordon (New York: W. W. Norton, 1994)
EP/Dial Pound, Thayer, Watson and The Dial: A Story in Letters, ed. Walter Sutton (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1994)
EP/BC Ezra Pound and Senator Bronson Cutting: A Political Correspondence 1930–1935, ed. E. P. Walkiewicz and Hugh Witemeyer (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1995)
J e M (1995) Jefferson e Mussolini, Presentazione di Mary de Rachewiltz (Milano: Terziaria, 1995)—reprints EP’s 1944 Italian version of J/M, an edition printed by Casa Editrice Edizione Popolari di Venezia but of which nearly all copies were destroyed at the press
Lavoro/Usura Lavoro ed usura. tre saggi, terza edizione (Milano: All’Insegna del Pesce d’Oro di Vanni Scheiwiller, 1996)—reprints Oro e lavoro (1944), L’America, Roosevelt, e le cause della guerra presente (1944), Introduzione alla natura economica degli S.U.A. (1944), and adds ‘L’economia ortologica’ (1937)
EP/WCW Pound/Williams: Selected Letters of Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams, ed. Hugh Witemeyer (New York: New Directions, 1996)
EP/EEC Pound/Cummings: The Correspondence of Ezra Pound and E. E. Cummings, ed. Barry Ahearn (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996)
EP/GT ‘Dear Uncle George’: The Correspondence between Ezra Pound and Congressman [George] Tinkham of Massachusetts, ed. Philip J. Burns (Orono, Me.: National Poetry Foundation, 1996)
MA Machine Art and Other Writings, ed. Maria Luisa Ardizzone (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1996)
EP/ORA ‘I Cease Not to Yowl’: Ezra Pound’s Letters to Olivia Rossetti Agresti, ed. Demetres P. Tryphonopoulos and Leon Surette (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998)
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