“Agamemnon” according to Ezra Pound

Abstract

Around 1920, Ezra Pound was tempted by the idea of translating Aeschylus into English. He looked in vain for T.S. Eliot’s help and then started working on the first part of the drama (prologos and parodos). The result was by no means a simple translation but, to put it in Ezra Pound’s words, an exercise in «criticism through translation». The work was never finished. The draft of Pound’s Agamemnon remained unpublished till the poet’s death and appeared only in 1986. Though unfinished and sometimes extravagant, this work stands out anyway as a significant example of Pound’s approach to ancient Greek texts and to Greek tragedy in particular.