Editor’s Introduction

Summary

Ezra Pound’s rallying call to ‘Make It New’ became a powerful Modernist motto, invoking a sense of renewal in the avant-garde project in casting off the dead weight of stale custom and forging a new aesthetic. Pound famously adapted this phrase – 薪 日 日 薪 (xin ri xin) – from the ancient Shang Dynasty Emperor Ch’eng T’ang (1766–1753 BCE), who, legend has it, inscribed it on the side of his bathtub. It is a gesture emblematic of Pound’s career, crossing history and linguistic borders to create new art informed by the best that had gone before, and it quickly became a heuristic device by which to understand Pound’s artistic legacy and his role in cultural history.