This anthology is Ezra Pound's own choice of the poetry of various ages and cultures—ranging from his translations of the Confucian Odes up to E. E. Cummings—which he considered the finest of its type. It is a statement by example of the "Pound critical canon" and, as such, a short course in the history of world poetry, useful alike for the student and the general reader. Nearly a hundred poets are represented, a number of them in Pound's own translations, with emphasis on the Greek and Latin, Chinese, Troubadour, Renaissance, and Elizabethan. Of particular interest are the notes on certain of the poems and poets which Pound supplied in comment on his selections.