Dear listserv members, I have written an essay regarding the collapse of Pound's belief system as evinced in the Drafts and Fragments. I was prompted to post it on the net partly in response to Garrick Davis' article "Misunderstanding Pound." While Garrick Davis may be right in arguing that we cannot make a final judgment concerning Pound by reference to his fascism, the issue is further complicated by the obnoxiousness of the totality of Pound's ideology. I refer not only to Pound's "phallocentrism," his sexism, his elitism, his penchant for hierarchies, his pro-Hitlerian, pro-Mussolini, and anti-semitic tirades. The matter is far more serious. My criticism of Pound rests on an analysis of the Chinese elements of his work. I think Mr. Davis, in ignoring the East Asian dimension of Pound's thought, misses something essential. Pound was, arguably worse than a fascist. He embraced the most retrogressive and anti-democratic elements of Confucian thought at a time when the Chinese rightly decided that Confucianism could no longer serve as the basis of a modern society. This was a greater tragedy for Pound than his commitment to fascism. I would argue that the problem stems not simply from Pound's enthusiasm for Confucius, but from his dedication to the most right-wing and reactionary school of Confucianism. Most students of Pound miss this, and few critics have picked it up. Mr. Davis is correct when he says that the Cantos contain less about fascism than we might expect from the criticisms of the fiercest anti- Poundians. However, the Cantos do contain a great deal about Confucianism and Chinese history--this is undeniable. And the more one knows about the Chinese historical events which Pound idealized, the more troubling the picture becomes. If Pound had only endorsed the politics of Hitler and Mussolini, he would have been better off; but he endorses several thousand years of some of the most oppressive governments on the face of the earth---his dream was that Hitler and Mussolini could emulate the cruelest of the Chinese emperors. Many of the gentlest and most delicate artistic impulses of Chinese culture are the fruit of Buddhist and Taoist efforts; and for Pound ALL Taoists and Buddhists are no better than Jews---destined to be swept away. Those who wish to explore the issue more fully, who wish to better understand just what kind of Confucianist Pound was, can visit the article at http://www.geocities.com/danieshalaquand/cantos.html Pound may or may not be a great poet. However, the analysis of the moral, cultural, and political significance of his work cannot be gauged without a careful look at the Chinese dimension of his work, and its relation to his fascism and his fiercely anti-democratic and racist tendencies. These tendencies are reflected NOT merely in the direct references to Mussolini and Hitler contained in the Cantos, but they permeate his use (and abuse) of Chinese history. PW [log in to unmask] >Subject: Ezra Pound and Fascism > >Dear Listserv Members, > >I have written an essay concerning recent trends in the academic criticism >of >Ezra Pound (specifically the obsession with his anti-semitism, fascism, and >alleged insanity), which also reviews a number of critical books on the >subject, including The Roots of Treason by E. Fuller Torrey, The Genealogy >of >Demons by Robert Casillo, The American Ezra Pound by Wendy Stallard Flory, >and The Forméd Trace by Massimo Bacigalupo. > >For those interested in reading the essay, "Misunderstanding Ezra Pound," >the >link is www.cprw.com. > >Thank you, > >Garrick Davis >CPR (www.cprw.com) ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com