"The Spirit of Romance": Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot and the Medieval tradition.

Abstract

This work focuses on two Anglo-American authors of the first half of the twentieth-century, Ezra Weston Loomis Pound and Thomas Stearns Eliot, who laid the foundation of Modernism through their works. Both had in common a poetic and critical life marked by an eager and scrupulous study of Dante and his sources, even if they started with a different education about it. The main purpose of this thesis will be a research on the tradition which both writers handled with, in order to show their debts with it; the most interesting goal is their different - but at the same time similar - way of relating with past tradition, thus rediscovering their predecessors' texts and what their greatness consists of. Pound and Eliot are deeply rooted in Provençal tradition, partly due to their study of Dante; thanks to Provençal literature they could learn how to manage to assimilate it, through experimentalism and imitation of the great past authors, bringing tradition back to life. They embodied a new interest and comprehension of Dante and his poetry, and a deeper attention to Troubadours poets; at the same time, as a pupil who exceeds his master, they marked a new literary period for Anglo-American culture, creating epic works of new breath, thanks to their innovative way of viewing the past.