Read Ezra Pound’s extensive revisions to T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land.
October 15, 2021, 3:30pm
Today, T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land first appeared in print in The Criterion, a quarterly British literary magazine founded and edited by Eliot. The poem’s final form was heavily influenced by Ezra Pound, who made extensive cuts and revisions to Eliot’s manuscript. Eliot once said of his mentor and friend, who he first met in 1914 in Europe, “Mr. Pound is more responsible for the 20th‐century revolution in poetry than is any other individual.” In November of 1922, the poem appeared in the American publication the Dial, and Eliot earned the Dial Award of $2,000.
The British Library acquired Pound’s marginalia, some of which you can study below.
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T S Eliot: © Estate of T. S. Eliot and reprinted by permission of Faber & Faber Ltd. Ezra Pound: By Ezra Pound, from New Directions Pub. acting as agent, copyright © 2015 by Mary de Rachewiltz and the Estate of Omar S. Pound. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp. Berg Collection: © The Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature The New York Public Library Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.
T S Eliot: © Estate of T. S. Eliot and reprinted by permission of Faber & Faber Ltd. Ezra Pound: By Ezra Pound, from New Directions Pub. acting as agent, copyright © 2015 by Mary de Rachewiltz and the Estate of Omar S. Pound. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp. Berg Collection: © The Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature The New York Public Library Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.
T S Eliot: © Estate of T. S. Eliot and reprinted by permission of Faber & Faber Ltd. Ezra Pound: By Ezra Pound, from New Directions Pub. acting as agent, copyright © 2015 by Mary de Rachewiltz and the Estate of Omar S. Pound. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp. Berg Collection: © The Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature The New York Public Library Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.
T S Eliot: © Estate of T. S. Eliot and reprinted by permission of Faber & Faber Ltd. Ezra Pound: By Ezra Pound, from New Directions Pub. acting as agent, copyright © 2015 by Mary de Rachewiltz and the Estate of Omar S. Pound. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp. Berg Collection: © The Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature The New York Public Library Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.
T S Eliot: © Estate of T. S. Eliot and reprinted by permission of Faber & Faber Ltd. Ezra Pound: By Ezra Pound, from New Directions Pub. acting as agent, copyright © 2015 by Mary de Rachewiltz and the Estate of Omar S. Pound. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp. Berg Collection: © The Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature The New York Public Library Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.
T S Eliot: © Estate of T. S. Eliot and reprinted by permission of Faber & Faber Ltd. Ezra Pound: By Ezra Pound, from New Directions Pub. acting as agent, copyright © 2015 by Mary de Rachewiltz and the Estate of Omar S. Pound. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp. Berg Collection: © The Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature The New York Public Library Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.
You can view the manuscript in its entirety here.
[via British Library]
