Re Pound's Mental Illness:
 
I wonder if we might move the discussion beyond questions of sanity or
insanity, and into much murkier territory.  It seems clear that we can find
evidence of both from throughout Pound's career.  The St. Elizabeths
nursing logs recording Pound lying down on the road in the winter and
claiming that he couldn't go on make it sound like depression, and
these days we consider depression  a treatable illness, rather than a lifestyle
choice.  Is Pound's depression a reaction to his earlier psychotic
periods?  Letters from Pound to Olga in the early 1940s, when he was making
broadcasts in Rome, show him constantly exhausted, taking frequent naps,
sleeping long hours--again, it could be a sign of severe depression.
 
The question seems to me: what kinds of responsibility accrues to the
language act, either over the radio, or in poetry?  Is there a way we can
deal with the most eccentric or extreme of Pound's writing without
putting it in the literary equivalent of an insane asylum? Then again, as
E.P. put it on his arrival in Italy in 1958: "All America  is an insane
asylum."
 
I for one would welcome the input of medical professionals out there, if
there are any on the list.
 
Jonathan Gill
Columbia University