Editing Economic History: A Study and Electronic-Genetic Edition of Ezra Pound`s The Fifth Decad of Cantos 

Editing Economic History is the first comprehensive study and scholarly edition of Ezra Pound's cycle of poems The Fifth Decad of Cantos (published 1937). My thesis comprises a monograph that analyzes the historical background, genetic development, and editorial dimension of Pound's work, plus a CD-ROM containing the electronic genetic edition of Pound's manuscript and typescript materials, as related to The Fifth Decad of Cantos.

My study seeks to encompass the whole context of textual genesis, biography, and mental history by which The Fifth Decad of Cantos is defined. This includes the analysis of Pound's working methods, his mental background, and his theories concerning some subjects that play a crucial role in The Fifth Decad of Cantos: economics, politics, religion, and predjudice. At the same time, editing the Pound papers requires the development of a critical, methodological framework and editorial principles that allow us to analyze the autographs, to edit and finally interpret them.

The basic contents of my thesis result from those requirements, being divided into work-centered and editorial chapters. After a methodological introduction and terminological definitions of central textual/editorial terms (part I), my thesis deals with Pound's working methods and the genesis of the work as a foundation for the interpretation of the poems (part II). Third, The Fifth Decad of Cantos is placed in its historical-intellectual context (part III). Finally, the editorial assumptions on which my edition is based are explained (part IV).

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