Carte provenzali: Ezra Pound e la cultura trobadorica (1905-1915)

Ezra Pound’s interest in Troubadour lyrics and poetic culture constitutes a fundamental part of his poetic production and embodies a steadily more representative “luminous detail” in his visionary world even in light of the extraordinary transformations in his reading of Occitan lyric from his youthful experiments in poetical personae to his last Cantos. The book points out the unique features of Pound’s approach to and use of Provençal sources and demonstrates the presence and evolution of three complementary and progressive methodological phases in Pound’s long-term fascination and work with Provençal subjects: 1) the methodological solutions reflected in Pound’s Provençal materials, with special attention to his re-utilization of original sources characterized by a basically scholarly rather than impressionistic interest in linguistic and critical issues; 2) the methodological issues common to Pound’s Provençal materials and his other poetic and scholarly experiments with medieval texts, with special attention to other Romance literatures and languages, such as his translations and studies of Guido Cavalcanti; 3) the integration of this half-poetic, half-philological production into the increasingly theoretical poetic system represented by the Cantos, with special attention to the ways Provençal fragments enter the system of the Cantos as melodic examples and symbolic reminiscences of Pound’s ideal Provence.