I don't advocate that we should "simply ignore" those sides of Pound's
writing and "thought" which we find unpleasant.

I first started reading Pound when I was at school. Believe it or not, it
took a while for it to dawn on me that Pound was anti-semitic and had
supported the Axis powers during the war. All I saw at first was that
Pound's work was beautiful, interesting and funny, and he had a greater
command of rhythm (when he tried) than any other modernist poet.

When I learnt more about his life, I was initially eager to be persuaded by
the apologists: those who argued that when Pound said anti-semitic things he
was speaking metaphorically, he was not really a fascist, the worst of his
remarks were made whilst he was mad. Of course I soon realised this was
mostly bunk, some of it very dodgy too; whilst at University wrote an
extended essay demonstrating (extremely unoriginally, as I'm sure I didn't
then appreciate) that the whole of the Cantos were infected by Pound's
repellant politics, and that they were incomprehensible not because his
thought was difficult or recondite but because it was wicked, muddled and
wrong. I was sickened and didn't return to his work for several years.

When I went back to it rather gingerly two years ago, I found it once again
beautiful, interesting and funny, but I felt anxious about admiring it
because of what I now knew about Pound's life. I hurried to learn more, to
be sure I wasn't doing Pound an injustice through ignorance of the facts.
The ethical problem posed by Pound's life and work seemed of the very
greatest importance, a paradigm. One of the reasons I joined this list was
to find out how other readers (other than the biographers and critics whose
work I had read) have dealt with it.

When I asked in my last post "What more is there to say?" I guess I meant no
more than that having listened to months of debate (beginning long before
Wei joined the list and no doubt months or years before I joined), I don't
feel that we are any closer to finding an "answer" to this problem. "The
contradictions cover such a range. The talk would talk and go so far
aslant".

Anyway, I wasn't asking anyone to shut up. I was just recording a view -
perhaps a passing view - that all this chat isn't getting us anywhere. Each
reader has to live with the facts in his own way. We'd be better off talking
about the verse.


Richard Edwards






>From: En Lin Wei <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: - Ezra Pound discussion list of the University of Maine
>    <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Making a "molehill" out of a mountain
>Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2000 06:54:07 GMT
>
>The image of the “molehill” is a very interesting one.  People look at the
>molehill and sometimes think that the tiny hill is all there is to
>consider,
>when underneath there exists a complex series of tunnels, leading in
>numerous directions, interconnected, perhaps with the tunnels of other
>moles
>. . .
>
>The image is apropos.  The molehill exists on the surface.   But what is
>underneath (perhaps--- dare I say it?--- in the unconscious) is more
>interesting.  But like what is underneath, people miss it, or choose to
>ignore it; or ----AND THIS IS EVEN MORE COMMON,--- they are aware of it,
>but
>they choose consciously to ignore it.
>
>I have proposed a modest suggestion, a mere hint at what MIGHT lie
>underneath Pound’s conscious advocacy of fascism.  So far, a few list
>members have rejected it, but without supplying an alternative theory of
>the
>Pound’s psychic makeup which could be used to explain this, or any other
>aspect of Pound’s theory.  Those who do reject it may want to lend futher
>credibility to their positions by fleshing out their opinions.
>
>In the meantime, I propose people look at the following quote, which is
>very
>revealing about Pound’s attitudes concerning Mussolini and Douglas (found
>in
>the Selected Prose)
>
>“Douglas proposed to bring up the TOTAL purchasing
>power of the whole people by a per capita issue of tickets PROPORTIONAL to
>available goods.
>Mussolini and Hitler waste very little time
>PROPOSING.  They started and DO distribute BOTH
>tickets and actual goods on various graduated scales
>according to the virtues and activities of Italians and
>Germans.
>
>Douglas may object that this is not "democratic"
>(that is egalitarian).  BUT for the monetary scientist
>the result is the same. . . .
>Ten or more years ago I said that Mussolini had achieved more than Douglas
>because Douglas has presented his ideas as a greed system, not as a will
>system. . . .   (SP, 294).”
>
>
>Such a quote may appear to fall in the same category as the radio
>broadcasts.   But it will not do, I think, to just dismiss such quotes
>because they are unpleasant--- they are ( because of their frequency, and
>length) integral to Pound’s thought.
>
>
>Richard Edwards wrote:
>
>>There seems to me to be a lot of sense in Kevin Kiely's views about the
>>Rome
>>broadcasts. They are not texts for close reading.
>
>To say they are NOT texts for close readings means what precisely?  That we
>do not wish to read them?  That they are badly written?  That they show us
>a
>side of Pound which we should simply ignore?
>
>
>
>>They represent a part of
>>the Pound story which is in a sense tragic, in another sense appallingly
>>banal.
>
>Tragic in what sense?  Banal in what sense?  Banal perhaps in the sense of
>Hannah Arendt, who said that the evil of fascism was, like all truly
>horrific evils, thoroughly banal?
>
>There are many definitions of tragedy, from the Aristotle’s to Bradley’s,
>from Hegel’s to Schopenhauer’s.  I find it difficult to say in what sense
>Pound’s advocacy of fascism was tragic (misguided perhaps, or even
>unfortunate, but tragic?)
>
>
>>Pound's delight in Mussolini's supposed knowledge of and insight into
>>the Cantos - "MA QVESTO said the Boss, e divertente / catching the point
>>before the aesthetes had got there" - is simply *stupid*. Even Lord Haw
>>Haw
>>seems to have found Pound's rants impossibly boring (I'm referring to the
>>bit in Carpenter's biography describing the Pound/Haw Haw correspondence).
>>
>
>Perhaps the same number of people find the Adams Cantos just as boring.
>But
>there is more than boredom in Pound’s fascist progaganda.  It was one of
>the
>main activities he pursued in his conscious life, and it cannot be said to
>be wholly (or even mostly) disconnected with his artistic life.
>
>
>>Poor Pound. I wish he hadn't gone down that route.>
>
>You and I and everyone who cares for the culture of the English speaking
>world.  But wishing he had not gone  that route will not help us explain
>his
>work.  I don’t see how you can simply dismiss it.
>
>The Latin American writer Borges said ( in relation to the history of
>oppression on his continent):
>
>El pasado es indestructible.  Tarde u temprano vuelvan las cosas.  Y uno de
>las cosas que vuelve es un proyecto de abolir el pasado.
>
>[The past is indestructable.  Sooner or later, things turn up again.  And
>one of the things that turns up is a project to destroy the past].
>
>If students and scholars of Pound simply say, Pound’s fascism was
>foolishness, or banality, or say that we wish he hadn’t been a fascist,
>would that not be a disservice to literary history?  Would it not be a
>disservice  to history itself, and to the proper understanding of the role
>which the horrors of fascism played in the 20th century?
>
>
>
>kevinkkiely <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> >As the list-member who claims to have interjected the Hitler/Joan of Arc
>> >quote from Pound into the list's mail, who now wishes to comment on/to
>>Lin
>> >Wei
>
>> >1. Pound quotes Pirandello's being anti-Freud while commenting on
>>Cocteau,
>> >so perhaps there is no use in applying Freud to Pound?
>
>Perhaps.  I am not sure how the Pirandello quote about Freud relates to
>this
>discussion.  But could not the use of the Pirandello quote signify a very
>precise NEED for Freudian analysis?
>
>Jung is quoted by
>> >Pound in his introduction to a selection from the Cantos, so perhaps
>> >putting
>> >Pound through Jung's sieve is valid?
>
>Valid or invalid, would you consider proposing an alternative reading for
>Pound’s conscious and determined commitment to fascism?
>
>> >2. You really made a mountain out of a molehill re Pound's feisty
>>comment
>> >"Hitler was a Jeanne d'Arc, a saint. He was a martyr."
>
>The issue is not simply this quote, but the entire tendency.
>
>
>
>>Pound's broadcasting
>> >was driven primarily by his personal reaction to the war & his adulation
>>of
>> >Mussolini (having had an audience with him in 1933) and prior to that
>> >having
>> >written some 'fan letters' to Il Duce including advice re economics etc.
>> >
>> >The fact that Pound believed that both Axis dictators (Hit & Muss)
>>actually
>> >had any interest in Confucius is daftness on his part.
>
>This may seem “daft” on the surface.  What is definitely not daft is the
>belief, strongly held by Pound, that Confucianism (as a political
>ideology),
>Fascism, and Nazism are thoroughly compatible.
>
>Look carefully, if you will at the way Pound himself interweaves his study
>of Confucianism and Chinese imperial history with his support for Mussolini
>and his Axis partners.
>
>(continued in next post)
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