Editing Ezra Pound (section)

===University===
[[File:Hilda Doolittle, 1921 (cropped).jpg|thumb|alt=photograph|[[H.D.|Hilda Doolittle (H.D.)]], {{Circa|1921}}]]
In 1901, at 15 years old, Pound was admitted to the College of Liberal Arts at the [[University of Pennsylvania]] in [[Philadelphia]].<ref>Moody (2007), 14; Carpenter (1988), 35</ref> Years later he said his aim was to avoid drill at the military academy.<ref>{{cite web |url = http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/4598/the-art-of-poetry-no-5-ezra-pound |title = Hall (1962) |archive-url=https://archive.today/20130416003348/http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/4598/the-art-of-poetry-no-5-ezra-pound |archive-date=16 April 2013 |url-status=dead}}</ref> His one distinction in first year was in geometry,<ref>Carpenter (1988), 37</ref> but otherwise his grades were mostly poor, including in Latin, his major; he achieved a B in English composition and a pass in English literature.<ref>Moody (2007), 15–16</ref> In his second year he switched from the degree course to "non-degree special student status", he said "to avoid irrelevant subjects".<ref>Moody (2007), 14, 15</ref>{{efn|In "How I Began", ''[[T. P. O'Connor|T.P.'s Weekly]]'' (6 June 1913), Pound wrote: "I resolved that at thirty I would know more about poetry than any man living, that I would know the dynamic content from the shell, that I would know what was accounted poetry everywhere, what part of poetry was 'indestructible', what part could ''not be lost'' by translation and—scarcely less important—what effects were obtainable in ''one'' language only and were utterly incapable of being translated.{{pb}}"In this search I learned more or less of nine languages, I read Oriental stuff in translations, I fought every University regulation and every professor who tried to make me learn anything except this, or who bothered me with 'requirements for degrees'."<ref>Pound (1974), 24–25</ref>}} He was not elected to a [[Fraternities and sororities|fraternity]] at Penn, but it seemed not to bother him.<ref>Carpenter (1988), 39</ref>

His parents and Aunt Frank took him on another three-month European tour in 1902, and the following year he transferred to [[Hamilton College (New York)|Hamilton College]] in [[Clinton, Oneida County, New York|Clinton, New York]], possibly because of his grades.<ref name=Moody2007p20>Moody (2007), 20</ref> Again he was not invited to join a fraternity, but this time he had hoped to do so, according to letters home, because he wanted to live in a [[fraternity house]], and by April 1904 he regarded the move as a mistake.<ref>Carpenter (1988), 47</ref> Signed up for the Latin–Scientific course, he appears to have avoided some classes; his transcript is short of credits.<ref name=Moody2007p20/> He studied the [[Provençal dialect]] and read [[Dante Alighieri|Dante]] and [[Anglo-Saxon poetry]], including ''[[Beowulf]]'' and the 8th-century [[Old English literature|Old English]] poem ''[[The Seafarer (poem)|The Seafarer]]''.<ref>Moody (2007), 21, 23–24</ref>

After graduating from Hamilton in 1905 with a [[Bachelor of Philosophy|PhB]], he returned to Penn, where he fell in love with Hilda Doolittle (who later wrote under the name "[[H.D.]]"). She was then a student at [[Bryn Mawr College]], and he hand-bound 25 of his poems for her, calling it ''Hilda's Book''.<ref>Doolittle (1979), 67–68; Tytell (1987), 24–27</ref> After receiving his MA in [[Romance languages]] in 1906, he registered to write a PhD thesis on the [[Gracioso|jesters]] in [[Lope de Vega]]'s plays; a two-year Harrison fellowship covered his tuition and a $500 grant, with which he sailed again to Europe.<ref>Moody (2007), 19, 28; Tytell (1987), 30; for the announcement of a fellowship to Ezra Weston Pound, see "Old Penn gives out honor list". ''The Philadelphia Inquirer'', 10 June 1906, 2</ref> He spent three weeks in Madrid in various libraries, including in the [[Royal Palace of Madrid#Royal Library|Royal Library]]. On 31 May 1906 he was standing outside the palace during the [[Morral affair|attempted assassination]] of [[Alfonso XIII of Spain|King Alfonso]] and left the city for fear of being mistaken for an anarchist.<ref>Moody (2007), 28</ref> After Spain he visited Paris and London, returning to the United States in July 1906.<ref>Moody (2007), 29</ref> His first essay, "Raphaelite Latin", was published in the ''Book News Monthly'' that September.<ref>"September Magazines". ''Reading Times'', 11 September 1906, 4; Moody (2007), 31; Slatin (1955), 75</ref> He took courses in English in 1907, where he fell out with just about everyone, including the department head, [[Felix Emanuel Schelling|Felix Schelling]], with silly remarks during lectures and by winding an enormous tin watch very slowly while Schelling spoke.<ref>Moody (2007), 29–30</ref><!--Carpenter 1988, 37, places the watch incident during Pound's undergraduate years.--> In the spring of 1907 he learned that his fellowship would not be renewed.<ref name=Tytell1987p30>Tytell (1987), 30</ref> Schelling told him he was wasting everyone's time, and he left without finishing his doctorate.<ref>Moody (2007), 30</ref>