Fabio,
 
dolce. Dolce.
 
For DECADES these topics were kept under the table. Almost nobody had enough guts
to take sides. Everybody said - God save New Crit/ -: Well, so what;  who cares
what DANTE thought & did politically.
 
OK. But EP lived here & [almost] now. It's a bit like this school teacher from
Israel who told us - when I was one yr from graduating from Hi School back in
West Berlin - that we were guilty & wd remain to be guilty for another 8
generations. This disturbed us. We went home & asked our parents: Why are we
guilty? We were born 9 months ofter V-Day here in Germany.
 
We didn't understand our parents' answers.
 
We are not guilty. No. But we were raised to take RESPONSIBILITY for certain
things. Especially here in Germany. We are old enough to be able to cope with
these things. Escapism is no solution. Or how do YOU read the Canti?
 
What the Pounders are discussing here is something which was PART of our beloved
poet. It belonged to him. It still does. And as we love him, it is part of
OURSELVES, too.
 
There is no use in pretending that poet & man cd be seen as different entities.
EP LIED in the Washington hearing when he jumped to his feet and exclaimed that
he never in his life believed in faschism.
Rd the Agresti letters. & the Doob collection. It's all there.
 
It's part of EP. There is no use in still trying to run away from the facts.
 
alex
(Horneburg, Germany)