Stock, Noel.

Biographer of Ezra Pound; Professor of English, University of Toledo.

From the description of Papers, 1886-1983. (University of Toledo). WorldCat record id: 14039529

Noel Stock, a native of Australia, has worked as a writer and translator since 1949. From 1968-1969 he was Visiting Lecturer at the University of Tasmania, and from 1969-1971 was Visiting Professor at the University of Toledo, English Department. In 1971 he assumed the position of Professor.

Stock first began to read Ezra Pound's poetry in Melbourne in 1946. He knew that Pound had been connected with the beginnings of the "modern movement" in English poetry and that he held strong views on economics and politics. He also knew of Pound's problems due to broadcasts he had made over Rome Radio during World War II and of his indictment for treason by the U.S. In 1953, after Pound was sent to St. Elizabeth's Hospital for the Criminally Insane in Washington, D.C., Hugh Kenner who had just published a book on Pound's poetry, suggested that Stock contact Pound. He did so and received an immediate reply which was followed by more than 100 letters in the next five years. Stock left Australia in 1958 and was en route to England when charges against Pound were dropped, and he was released from the hospital. Pound returned to Italy in 1959 and Stock moved to Brunnenburg Castle, Tirolo di Merano, Italy where the poet's daughter lived. He first met Pound at Rapallo that summer and edited a collection of his essays entitled Impact: Essays on Ignorance and the Decline of American Civilization, which were published in 1960. From that year on, Stock had full access to Pound's collection of books and papers and had frequent contact with the poet and his wife and daughter. In 1961 he was awarded the Bollingen Fellowship to catalogue the Ezra Pound Archive at Brunnenburg. He was also awarded the Leverhulme Fellowship in 1968.

Stock has published several books including Poet In Exile (1964), Reading the Cantos: A Study of Meaning in Ezra Pound (1967, 1968), The Life of Ezra Pound (1970, 1974, 1982, 1985), Ezra Pound's Pennsylvania (1976), A Call to Order: Essays and Reviews, 1954-1974 (1976). In addition, he and Ezra Pound were the translators of Love Poems of Ancient Egypt (1962, 197l, 1978). Between 1960 and 1980 he edited and contributed to several books, including some written by Ezra Pound. Some of the periodicals he edited and contributed to between 1953 and 1980 are Shenandoah, X Quarterly, Modern Age, Quadrant, Poetry Australia, Helix, Edge, and Texas Quarterly. He also had numerous poems published in literary and poetry magazines between 1950 and 1957.

Along with the undergraduate and graduate courses taught by Stock, he has given numerous lectures and conducted seminars on the subjects of modernism and Ezra Pound.

Timeline

1929, May 29 - born in Melbourne, Australia

(?) married Marjorie and is the father of Maria and Jenny

1949-1955 - employed by News Department, Australian Broadcasting Commission

1955-1958 - free-lance writer

1961 - Bollingen Fellowship (New York) to catalogue Ezra Pound Archive at Brunnenburg, Italy

1961-1968 - writer and translator 1968 - Leverhulme Fellowship (London)

1968-1969 - Visiting Lecturer, University of Tasmania 1969-1971 - Visiting professor, University of Toledo

1971- 1991 - Professor, University of Toledo

From the guide to the Noel Stock Papers, 1886-2007, 1886-2007, (Ward M. Canaday Center for Special Collections, The University of Toledo)