Christopher Ricks' book TS Eliot and Prejudice has an admirable chapter on Anti-Semitism. I am sure you have read it as it's very much your topic but others may find the reference useful. Richard Edwards >From: Jonathan Morse <[log in to unmask]> >Reply-To: Ezra Pound discussion list of the University of Maine > <[log in to unmask]> >To: [log in to unmask] >Subject: Antisemitism and biography >Date: Fri, 15 Oct 1999 03:49:46 -1000 > >Lee Lady's speculation is as plausible as any. Sure, it's possible that >Pound became more antisemitic during World War II as a means of resolving >the cognitive dissonance between his prejudice and the realization of what >that prejudice had led to. There's an incident in Carpenter that supports >Lee's idea, too. I'm sorry I can't cite it exactly (my greedily held >library copy of Carpenter is now on reserve for my Pound course), but most >of you know the incident I mean: the one where Pound learns, in reliable >detail, of the persecution of an acquaintance's Jewish friend. Pound's >Italian friends hear the same story and are disturbed, but Pound reacts >with rigid defensiveness. Individuals must suffer for the sins of the race, >he dogmatically insists, and he refuses to listen further. And at that >point, if I remember the tone correctly, he sounds almost panicky. > >On the other hand, maybe there's a simpler and more banal explanation, one >that makes Pound appear less tragic and more ordinary. It's this: as we get >older, our attitudes tend to harden, and psychological explanations >therefore have to take age into account. Judith Miller's _One, by One, by >One: Facing the Holocaust_ (Simon & Schuster, 1990) furnishes a grimly >comic example from the science of demography. > >In Austria in the 1980s, according to Miller, survey data indicated that >antisemitic feeling was generally age-related, with young people a lot less >prejudiced than their elders. The media interpreted that news in an obvious >and hopeful way. Yes, they said, Austria has a problem with antisemitism. >But this survey assures us that the problem is bound to decrease. All we >have to do is wait for the unprejudiced younger generation to replace the >prejudiced older one. > >Unfortunately, however, that opinion survey had been taken every few years >since the 1950s, and over the long run it showed that there actually hadn't >been any decrease in antisemitism in Austria. In the 80s just as in the >50s, Austria was antisemitic. In the 50s just as in the 80s, youth was >open-minded and age was prejudiced. The prejudice hadn't changed; only the >prejudiced people had. Yesterday's idealistic youth turned into today's old >bigots, just as today's idealistic youth may be turning into tomorrow's old >bigots. Surprise: the longer you live in a prejudiced society, the more >prejudiced you get. In that respect, Pound may have been more average than >we'd like to believe. > >Which brings me to Lee's biographical desideratum. > >The current anecdote is that I'm trying and failing to get through Jerome >Loving's _Walt Whitman: The Song of Himself_ (University of California >Press, 1999). How, you ask, is it possible to write a boring book about the >life of Whitman? Answer: by writing sentences that force your reader to >stop every few lines and reorient himself. Loving p. 49: "He returned to >teaching briefly . . ." -- make that "He briefly returned to teaching." >Loving p. 50: "His forte, like Theodore Dreiser . . ." -- oh, you mean "His >forte, like Theodore Dreiser's." It goes on like that. The book is as >informative and as carefully documented as you could desire, but boy. . . . > >On the other hand, Russell Baker's essay in the October 7 _New York Review >of Books_ makes me look forward to Marguerite Young's _Harp Song for a >Radical: The Life and Times of Eugene Victor Debs_, unfootnoted though it >is and unreliable though it may be, and uninterested though I may be in the >life or times of Eugene Victor Debs. After all, I can like Johnson's _Life >of Savage_ without feeling the need to read Savage, and for that matter >Boswell's _Life of Johnson_ is a stand-alone book, one that can be loved >without having read Johnson. The explanation is as easy as the trick is >hard: a significant biography needs to have been written by a significant >writer. Read Robert Frost's letters and you'll see: THERE was a man who >should have written biography. > >Corollary: sooner or later somebody will get the life of Pound right. When >that happens, though, we readers ought to be prepared for surprises. The >book may talk about the poetry, for instance, or it may not. It may get its >facts right, or it may get them wrong. Those things will matter too. But >finally Pound's life will have become a part of language, and that will be >the ultimate determinant of the book's fate -- and of the future's memory >of Pound, when all of those who knew the "real" man will have crumbled to >dust. > >Jonathan Morse ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com