An Attempt to Define the Somewhat the Charm of the Pre-Renaissance Literature of Latin Europe 
 
Ezra Pound. 
 
J.M. Dent & Sons: 1910. Possibly a first edition, but the boards and spine have been rebacked. Other points match the first. Hardcover. Octavo. Some foxing on the bottom edge of the text block. A few stains and bumps on the bottom of the leaves, which are a slightly browned. 251 pages. Very good. 
 
Spirit was developed from a series of lectures, themselves inspired by notes from Pound's undergraduate years. Pound followed his drive for controversy, this time against the dominant discipline of philology, as he tries to uncover just what makes poetry great. As always with the fervent Pound, you can almost see the electric discharges moving between the lines. 
 
"I have attempted to examine certain forces, elements or qualities which were potent in the medieval literature of the Latin tongues, and are, as I believe, still potent in our own time. The history of an art is the history of masterwork, not of failures, or of mediocrity. The omniscient historian would display the masterpieces, their causes and their inner-relation. The study of literature is hero-worship. It is a refinement, or, if you will, a perversion of that primitive of that primitive religion."