Contemporary (post-)culture can be approached as a reservoir of images that have been created in the course of playing with recognised cultural values personified by artists and their works. This book of essays examines the images of the American modernist poet Ezra Pound that have appeared in a variety of media, not just art, from the 1950s to the present day. The text "Traded Images" examines those with which consumer goods are adorned. The essay "Pound Beaten, Battered, and Admired" focuses on images of Pound in postwar American counterculture, in Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and Charles Bukowski. Another theme is images of Pound in music: for example, in the song "Desolation Row", with which Bob Dylan introduced the persona into popular music, and in other songs of different genres, from indie rock, emo and post-modern pop to cool jazz. The essay "Pound with the Comic Book Bubble" explores the poet's imagery in comics. The text "Prose Pundopticus" concerns literature, with Pound's images appearing not only in biographical and historical prose, but also in crime, detective and conspiracy stories, post-modern narratives and science fiction. The essay "Monsters and Playwrights" is about Pound's images in dramatic and stage works, and also discusses his anti-Semitism, his support for Mussolini, and the trial that resulted in the poet's long internment at St. Elizabeth's Hospital for the Criminally Insane.
Czech edition