Ebook: Ezra Pound’s Eriugena

Although the occult and neoplatonic influences that informed much of Ezra Pound’s writing are well known, little attention has been paid to the specific influence of the heretical ninth-century cleric Johannes Scotus Eriugena on Pound’s poetry and prose. Yet Pound himself developed detailed plans to publish a commentary on Eriugena alongside his translations of two of the books of Confucianism, plans that ultimately went unrealised. Drawing on unpublished notes, drafts and manuscripts amongst the Ezra Pound papers held at Yale University, this book investigates the pivotal role of Eriguena in Pound’s thought and his deployment of non-Western philosophical traditions.