Details
POUND, EZRA. Autograph letter signed ("Ezra Pound") to "Dear Mr. [Antrobus?]," 10 Church Walk, Kensington, London, 27 December [1909]. 4 pages, folio, on two sheets of light tan paper, a few tears partly across text with the loss of two words, marginal remnants of mounting, three small tape stains, top edge of first sheet irregular; half morocco slipcase.
"IT'S THE THOUGHT & FEELING WHICH ONE CENTERS ABOUT WHAT ONE READS THAT MAKES ONE EDUCATED"
A fine and unusually early Pound letter on literature, written during the same year his first two regularly published books were issued. "...There are only two sorts of appreciation that count: that of the few people who know something about the art [of poetry], (there are about 12 living), & that of people who can really feel -- intensely, that is the people who know the feeling, the passion & the few experts who know the long hard way between the passion & its perfect expression...As for education & uneducation -- all that is relative. Chaucer was a scholar -- he owned 40 books. I have seen many men buried in universities who with all the books in the world at their command will never be educated...It's the thought & feeling which one centers about what one reads that makes one educated [Pound recommends the reading of Shakespeare, the Hebrew scriptures, and Dante]...I am as you see by enclosure [not present] lecturing, I am also making the lectures into a book on mediaeval literature [The Spirit of Romance, published 1910] & have other work uncommenced besides my real work which is my [own] poetry. Also we are getting ready to have a little renaissance of Provencal forms. I don't know whether or not it'll come off, but it is amusing for the time being..."
"IT'S THE THOUGHT & FEELING WHICH ONE CENTERS ABOUT WHAT ONE READS THAT MAKES ONE EDUCATED"
A fine and unusually early Pound letter on literature, written during the same year his first two regularly published books were issued. "...There are only two sorts of appreciation that count: that of the few people who know something about the art [of poetry], (there are about 12 living), & that of people who can really feel -- intensely, that is the people who know the feeling, the passion & the few experts who know the long hard way between the passion & its perfect expression...As for education & uneducation -- all that is relative. Chaucer was a scholar -- he owned 40 books. I have seen many men buried in universities who with all the books in the world at their command will never be educated...It's the thought & feeling which one centers about what one reads that makes one educated [Pound recommends the reading of Shakespeare, the Hebrew scriptures, and Dante]...I am as you see by enclosure [not present] lecturing, I am also making the lectures into a book on mediaeval literature [The Spirit of Romance, published 1910] & have other work uncommenced besides my real work which is my [own] poetry. Also we are getting ready to have a little renaissance of Provencal forms. I don't know whether or not it'll come off, but it is amusing for the time being..."