Ezra Pound and Italian Fascism

by Tim Redman

Overview

Ezra Pound's vocal support for Benito Mussolini and Italian fascism and his indictment, arrest, and imprisonment without trial have been a source of considerable puzzlement and embarrassment to an entire generation of poets and critics. In this book, Tim Redman draws from previously unexamined and unpublished archival material, to provide the first detailed and historical account of Pound's support for Italian fascism. Beginning with Pound's earliest political journalism for the socialist paper The New Age during the First World War, the book traces Pound's growing interest in the economic theories of C.H. Douglas and Silvio Gesell, his move to Italy, his meeting with Mussolini, and his increasing activity as an apologist and propagandist for the Italian fascist regime up to the time of his arrest. This fascinating account of Ezra Pound and Italian Fascism allows the reader to understand the causes and results of Pound's ideology and actions as well as the broader implications they have for the poetry and politics of this century.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521110013
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	03/23/2009
Series:	Cambridge Studies in American Literature and Culture , #47
Edition description:	Reissue
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.90(d)

Table of Contents

Introduction; Part I. A moralist and thence an economist; 1. A. R. Orage and the education of a poet; 2. C. H. Douglas and social credit; 3. The writer-critic, 1930–1; 4. The turn to Fascism; 5. The discovery of Gesell; Part II. Pound's Worlds at War: 6. The wizard in general practice; 7. The Second World War; 8. The republic of Salo and left-wing Fascism; Selected Bibliography; Index.

Editorial Reviews

"...an important book for Pound scholarship, and an extremely useful book for anyone interested in the political and ideological history of the first half of this century....As a piece of literary historical scholarship, the book is exemplary, and ought to put an end once and for all to denials of Pound's political heresy." Queen's Quarterly

"...he is always informative and often ground-breaking, leading us a good deal closer to an understanding of Pound's political evolution." Paideuma

From the Publisher