Dear ELL
 
Glad to see this letter since, pardon the insistance,
i have been hammering on this string for some time:
let's ask what we mean by fascism before calling P (or
anybody) a fascist.
 
Hamilton's is a good book for what its title promises.
Subtitled <A Study of Intellectuals and Fascism> (dust
cover reads "Why men of good will--artists and
intelletuals--chose fascism as their political
creed"), it has chapters on Italy, Germany, France,
and England.
 
Best monograph on P & Fascism is Redman's <EP and
Italian Fascism>. It's the o-n-l-y work on this topic
in Englkilsh that isn't discolored by jaundice.
Zapponi's <L'Italia di Ezra Pound> is early but a
dependable guide. Both works go to the Italian
archives.
 
Instead of starting with the accusation "P was a
fascist," or starting with the assumption that fascism
is a known category and all we have to do is place P
within it, they start with P and his work. That is,
they proceed inductively, following the scientific
method. Most work on the P&F topic, likewise letters
to this list, forget who it was who used to call for
an application of scientific method to criticism.
 
It was the same guy who late in his life was working
on a New Declaration of the Rights of Man which began,
"Every man has the right of have his ideas examined
one at a time." One at a time--i.e., not in the lump.
 
Best regards,
 
Wayne
--- Everett Lee Lady <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> >Date:  Sat, 20 Nov 1999 07:35:00 -1000
> >From:  David Centrone <[log in to unmask]>
> >Subject:      Re: Integer vitae scelerisque purum
> >
> >An excellant book on the subject of the formation
> of Italian fascism is
> >Alastair Hamilton's:. _The Appeal of Fascism_.
> After reading it, I'm not so
> >sure that I would characterize it as the "working
> class. . . at war with the
> >bourgeoisie"; many of the most pronounced
> supporters (against the violence
> >of the communist, syndicalist, maximalists) were
> the people who had actually
> >made money during the war (I).  This group included
> Italian Jewish people as
> >well.
>
> Thanks for the reference.  I, for one, will
> certainly be interested in
> looking at this.
>
> But since our interest in this list is with Pound,
> and with what we
> really mean when we say, "Pound was a Fascist," and
> with the question of
> whether Pound's poetry and literary criticism can be
> seen as a
> justification for Fascism in the same way that
> Nietzsche and Heidegger's
> writings can be read as a justification for
> Naziism....   Since this is
> our concern, the relevant question is:  What was
> *Pound's* understanding
> of Fascism?
>
> And strangely enough, considering how quick we are
> to label Pound a
> Fascist, it seems rather difficult to find much of
> an answer to this in
> Pound's writings.  If one reads JEFFERSON AND/OR
> MUSSOLINI, one sees that
> he admired Mussolini and admired the spirit of Italy
> under Mussolini.
> He doesn't, however, say anything about the
> repressive aspects of that
> Mussolini's government except where he denies that
> some of them exist.
>
> From the conversations I heard at St. Elizabeth's, I
> remember only that
> he liked the idea of the Corporate State, i.e. that
> members of the
> legislature would represent the various business and
> labor interests
> instead of representing geographical regions.  (To
> some extent, our own
> government functions according to this same
> structure, inasmuch as a lot
> of the real legislative debate is carried on by
> lobbyists more than by
> the actual Senators and Congressmen, who could
> probably not function
> without the information supplied by lobbyists.)
>
> Pound was typical of many people in that his
> feelings about the
> political figures he liked were based more on their
> words than their
> actual policies.  He liked the fact that Mussolini
> (and also Hitler)
> denounced munitions manufacturers, bankers, and
> financiers in their
> speeches.  He didn't seem to have much understanding
> of the fact that
> these speeches were designed merely to appeal to
> people like himself
> (many many people at that time shared Pound's
> sentiments) and were not
> a reflection of actual policy.
>
> I will be very interested in seeing what's in
> Alastair Hamilton's book,
> but I suspect that the level of discussion there is
> far more
> sophisticated than Pound's own understanding of
> Fascism.
>
> -- Lee Lady <Http://www2.Hawaii.Edu/~lady>
>
 
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Bid and sell for free at http://auctions.yahoo.com