A Quinzaine for this Yule explained

A Quinzaine for this Yule
Author:Ezra Pound
Language:English
Country:Britain
Genre:Poetry collection
Published:1908 (Pollock and Co)
Pub Date:December 1908
Isbn:0879680873

A Quinzaine for this Yule (or A Quinzaine for this Yule: Being Selected from a Venetian Sketch-book "San Trovaso.") is a collection of poetry by Ezra Pound.

Content

The title refers to an archaic word for the fifteenth day after a feast day, or a verse with fifteen syllables. Yule is a traditional word for a winter religious festival. The book is 27 pages long and contains 15 poems. It was published in 1908 by Pollock and Co.[1]

Background

When Pound was working on getting his first collection, A Lume Spento, published while in Venice, he kept a notebook commonly known as the San Trovaso notebook that contained drafts of poetry. When he returned to London towards the end of 1908, it was this notebook that he used as the basis of a new poetry collection. The book was, like his first, self-financed, though it was promoted out of the shop of Charles Elkin Mathews.[2]

Reception

Robert Stark notes that "he rejects many of the conventionally poetic qualities of his earliest verse" claiming that Pound attempted for a sort of "literary barbarianism".[3] Contemporary reviews, such as in Punch, noted (referring collectively to A Quinzaine, A Lume Spento, Exultations, and Personae) that "[Pound's] verse is the most remarkable thing in poetry since Robert Browning".[4]

Notes and References

  1. Book: Pound, Ezra. A quinzaine for this Yule; being selected from a Venetian sketch-book "San Trovaso.". 1973. Gordon Press. 0879680873. New York. 1009043.
  2. Web site: A Quinzaine for this Yule. www.litencyc.com. en. 2019-05-20.
  3. 2013-04-17. Ezra Pound's early verse and lyric tradition: a jargoner's apprenticeship. Choice Reviews Online. 50. 9. 50–4873-50-4873. 10.5860/choice.50-4873. 0009-4978.
  4. Book: Erkkila, Betsy. Ezra Pound : the contemporary reviews. 2011. Cambridge University Press. 9781139190169. Cambridge. 796803940.