This introductory guide to Pound is number 154 in the inexpensive Castoro (Beaver) series, principally of Italian writers, but also of Europeans, with a few Americans. (The British authors so far are given as Dylan Thomas, Virginia Woolf, Agatha Christie and George Orwell.) The series is in a standard (square) format, and the form of the apparatus may also be standard: the last twenty-one pages give a chronological table and a full bibliography, the Italian part of which is of much interest; and the first seven pages are extracts from Pound's prose, without enough indication of context and date, translated into Italian.

In introducing Pound to Italian readers Professor Singh begins by quoting the tributes of other writers to Pound's generosity and his superiority of technique. He notes that Pound's upbringing was a free and healthy one, conducive to independence. Then he treats the very early lyric poetry at surprising length, quoting a good deal (as throughout) from poems and, here, from reviews. He neglects, however, the epigrammatic side of Lustra, which might have interested the fellow-countrymen of Catullus and Martial. Cathay is also treated very briefly, if well, perhaps because this already compound translation would have to be pursued via another translation. The limitations on the scope of Singh's discussion imposed by space and audience do not stop him presenting, among much that is familiar, at least in English, some fairly evolved propositions. For example, on Homage to Sextus Propertius: 'Questo modo stilistico per cui la ...