james,
you have to rid your mind of all that
victor's war dept propaganda.
actually, ep seems to have pretty much
agreed with the hobson/lenin "imperialism" thesis
on ww1. And his view of fascism and
ww2
is rendered in the opening verses of
lxxiv: "the enormous tragedy of the
dream in the peasant's bent shoulders...to build the city of
dioce..."
using the xian allegory: here the plowman's "bullock" in place
of
the shepherd's ass, ben in place of jesus, dioce for
jerusalem, etc.
and as such he exults in the fascist effort, "the bang"
against the restoration
of the ancien regime of money, rejecting eliot's
"whimper"...nso on
...
as clearly he always loathed the reigning bourgeois
dispensation
in america as england (probably the principal virtue of
fascism
its not being bourgeois) and sought to live exclusively
in
bohemian realms (which america of course conspicuously
lacked)...
so he utterly lacked the bourgeois sense of national
identity, and,
like the medieval singers of tales found his
home entirely in culture; as in:
...(lxxxi)
what thou lovest well remains,
the rest is dross
what thou lovest well is thy true heritage.
whose world, or mine or theirs or is it none?
...anyway, with his art he could find "elysium in the halls of
hell"
finally, as to why he surrrendered himself ...probably he was
acting on
advice, as to the force of the practicality of his situation;
but, one can't
miss drawing the parallel with the NT passion
narative.
bob
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, January 23, 2000 7:30 PM
Subject: Fw: Re: Futurism
I often
wonder how different the general view of Pound might be today if he'd felt
himself sufficiently at home in Italy (or anywhere) to abandon his US
citizenship and obtain an Italian passport. As far as I can tell his main
reason for supporting the fascists was a desire to end the war - the friends
he lost in WW1 that war in, say, High Selwyn Mauberley, perhaps suggests that
he saw the war as unnecessary and wasteful, the result of a capitalist system
resembling a corrupt communist one, with absolute rulers and corporations
who kept their workers so much in the dark, and offered them a ready-made,
responsibility-free life in return for their money, that they didn't really
know what they were fighting for anyway, and he couldn't bear to see everyone
going back home to the same old lies all over again.
The
Futurists wanted a new artform- they wanted, in Pound's words, to 'make it
new'; and, certainly in the visual arts, their impact has been enormous. The
Fascists also wanted to make it new; as, I suppose, did Hitler. So did Pound;
and whereas he (and, of course, everyone in their right mind (dramatic irony
intended)) despised Hitler and perhaps didn't see quite eye to eye with
Mussolini on all things, he did see that the utopian ideals behind Itatian
Fascism, while quite unsupportable, were also, if advanced and supported,
likely to bring the war to a rapid end. After all, Alan Bullock's book
Hitler: a study in Tyranny closes by saying that Hitler's chief aim
was to destroy the structure of Europe and replace it with something new, and
that in this, he probably succeeded.
There was
an article on Italian Futurism in last summer's edition of the UK Poetry
Society's Poetry Review; when I have a chance I'll re-read it to see
if there's anything relevant.
James.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, January 17, 2000 5:14 PM
Subject: Re: Futurism
In The Women Artists of Italian Futurism: Almost Lost To
History
(Midmarch Art Press, 1997), there's a brief mention of
Pound's
admiration for the artist Benedetta (Marinetti's wife).
The
theories & forms of Futurism radicalized twentieth century art --
there
is little 'modern' art from the last century that doesn't
reference
Futurism in some way. Yet Benedetta & Marinetti were quite
public
in their admiration of fascism--if I recall correctly, Benedetta
at one
point toured the country as a spokesmodel for Mussolini's new
'ideal'
womanhood.
Yet, seemingly unlike Pound, the Futurists' influence is
frequently
cited without the impulse to make reference to their fascist
politics.
--Rosalie Gancie
C.Brandon Rizzo wrote:
>
> I've been searching for information pertaining to Pound &
Futurism (pref.
> pre-war), but haven't had much luck. Did Pound know
those Futurist fellows at
> all? If anyone could offer some assistance
it would be much appreciated.
>
> --CB
--
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