Carrol Cox asked:

"It's been almost two decades since I read any criticism or biography
of Pound. Is there any serious account of whether he did in fact suffer
from a mental illness. I ask for this reason. I suffer from clinical
depression,
which was not diagnosed however until I was in my mid fifties. The
connection to Pound is this. Almost the first line in the poem which
caught my attention was the parenthetical line,  "(and the mortal fatigue
of action postponed)" (Canto 80) Nothing describes more precisely
what depression feels like in one of its guises."

    Tim Redman--who has been writing a biography of Pound for several years
now, and the author of POUND IN ITALY--posted the opinion about a year ago
that Pound suffered from bipolar disorder--aka manic-depression.
    I don't think that diagnosis is very persuasive. From what I know about
the disorder, the depressive phase is as inescapable as the manic phase, and
Pound seems to have been manic more often than not in his later years. John
Tytell, a psychiatrist, came up with a different diagnosis in SOLITARY
VOLCANO some years ago, but I have forgotten just what it was. Pound
certainly did suffer from a neurological disorder in his last years, but
that is not the period of most interest for this question. Tytell worked for
a time at St. Elizabeth' and had access to hospital files on Pound during
his stay there.

Leon Surette
English Dept.
University of Western Ontario
London, Ont.
N6A 3K7