Reading Ernesto Cardenal Reading Ezra Pound: Radical Inclusiveness, Epic Reconstitution and Textual Praxis

Abstract

As early as the publication of Hora O (I960), Cardenal begins the practice of incorporating whole texts and parts of other texts into his own. This practice becomes a defining feature of exteriorismo and is responsible for producing the multi-discursive style that has become the trademark of his work. Cardenal attributes this borrowing procedure to the influence of Ezra Pound.1 In particular he cites Pound's essay, Retrospect, and ABC of Reading as having the most impact on his poetic development Although the Poundian influence is noted by scholars of only one article, and Cardenal, by Isabel Fraire (Fraire 36-42) examines the connection between the two poets very attentively. She argues that like the Italian verse-forms' influence on Garcilaso de la Vega, the influence of Pound's poetry on Cardenal has produced a dramatic shift in the course of Hispanic poetry. Defending CardenaTs originality, she states that what he took from Pound is the mechanics of a new poetic form, the Canto, and used it for his own purposes, filled it with his own content. A Latin American content (Fraire 37). The