"Archives"

As a contribution to a book assessing the multiple contexts (i.e.: aesthetics, history, Classicism, the Italian Renaissance, Orientalism, etc.) of Ezra Pound’s work, this essay explores – for the first time in the history of Pound’s critical reception – Pound's use of archives in search for manuscripts and original documents during the 1920s and the 1930s in Italy. It also analyzes the way in which his scholarly findings are encapsulated in his major work, "The Cantos". Special textual attention – as far as archival sources are concerned – is given to his Provencal material, to the long-debated question of his English translation of Cavalcanti’s "Donna mi prega", and to the Sigismondo Malatesta and Senese Cantos. Consequently, several questions are raised (especially in respect of palaeographic philology, the methods and politics of cultural transmission, the dilapidated conditions of the unevenly organized Italian libraries), offering new insights into Pound's major poetic work.