Ezra Pound's (Post)modern Poetics and Politics

The Author: Roxana Preda is currently a researcher at the Kennedy Institute in Berlin, Germany. She received her doctorate in literary theory from the University of Siegen and has published on translation and literature. At present, she is preparing an annotated edition of Ezra Pound's economic correspondence.

"'Ezra Pound's (Post)Modern Poetics and Politics' is a work that should be placed alongside Alec Marsh's 'Money and Modernity'. Both works place Pound's poetics, politics, and economics in the context of postmodern discourse. Several recent works have claimed Pound for the postmodern, but Roxana Preda provides for the first time a careful and critical examination of the extent to which Pound really is an avatar of the postmodern. Her discussion is comprehensive, balancing meta-postmodern, Derridean, and Rortyan approaches. This tripartite commentary permits critical analysis while avoiding commitment to a single dominating discourse-creating a sort of critical collage." (Leon Surette, University of Western Ontario)
"Roxana Preda's book has an unusual and far-reaching significance. She gives readers a picture of Ezra Pound in the context of postmodernity, at the same time going beyond its current quarrels with the modern tradition. In relating Pound's poetry to his translations and journalism, she describes and evaluates the ideology of a poet who, in his poetic and economic writings, illuminated aspects of history that are less known and often overlooked. In this book she outlines the role of this controversial poet within a contemporary frame of reference." (K. Ludwig Pfeiffer, University of Siegen)