Ezra Pound Politics Economics And Writing

Ezra Pound is known for his accomplishments in literature (specifically poetry), but little is known about his prowess in the realm of economics. Almost lost to history, but only to resurface, ABC of Economics & Social Credit: An Impact will allow readers to learn about Pound's views towards Finance, Commerce, and Usury; while presenting these complex subjects in a lucid and analogous manner.

Although many have tried to erase him from memory, Ezra Pound still stands with Mark Twain, Herman Melville, and Nathaniel Hawthorne as one of the great American writers, and most will still admit that he is America's greatest poet. He's famous for not only defining the modernist poetry movement with works such as Ripostes, Hugh Selwyn Mauberley, and The Cantos; but also for mentoring and promoting many of the twentieth century's most important writers including T.S. Elliot, Robert Frost, William Butler Yeats, Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, and D.H. Lawrence. On the other hand, Pound is also famous (or rather, infamous) for a series of pro-Fascist radio broadcasts made in Italy during World War II. After the war, Pound was arrested for treason and held for six months at a detention center outside Pisa. However, after he was flown back to America the US government shied away from trying Pound in court, instead choosing to lock him up in St. Elizabeth's Hospital for mental illness - even after he had been found fit to stand trial in Italy. According to literary scholar Hugh Kenner, the reason for Pound's being committed was to "prevent the ideas expressed in his broadcasts from being inspected" by the public at large. In short, they were likely worried that the public might hear something that they agree with. Contained in these pages are very likely some of the opinions and knowledge that they didn't want you to hear. Pound's distaste for the war and his admiration of Fascism largely stemmed from his exploration of the topic of economics. In particular Pound saw the Fascist model's ability to subordinate money to the interests of society as superior to the English and American models which allowed the power of bankers to run unfettered. In What is Money For?, Ezra Pound even touted Fascism as the only system whose "surgeon's knife" can cut the "cancer of usury out of the life of the nations." Although quotes like this were enough for many to label him a "genuine Fascist", Pound was not an idealogue. He was actually against promoting Italian-style Fascism in America. This is not to say that I "advocate" Fascism in and for America, or that I think that Fascism is possible in America without Mussolini. Pound believed that a country could take inspiration from the successes of other nations, but that there "may be several economic solutions to any problem," and that 1930s America was not suited for an Italian-style government.

Genius, Confucian, fascist, traitor, peace activist—Ezra Pound—love him or hate him, he is impossible to ignore as one of the most influential modernists and controversial poets of the twentieth century. His life, as Alec Marsh makes clear in this biography, raises vital questions for anyone interested in politics, art, and poetry. No writer of his stature promoted so many acquaintances who would go on to become such distinguished names in their own right—James Joyce, T. S. Eliot, and Ford Madox Ford were among the many who benefited from Pound’s enthusiasm and editorial suggestions. And without Pound’s generosity to his fellow writers, literary modernism might not have happened, or have been the significant, influential movement that it became. Yet by 1925, Pound himself was living in obscurity in Italy, having trouble publishing his own work. There he became a Mussolini enthusiast and was eventually indicted for treason by the United States before being judged mentally incompetent to stand trial. Marsh takes us inside these years in an attempt to uncover what happened. How did such a great modern artist succomb to such views? Was he a traitor? And was he, in fact, insane? Analyzing Pound’s prose and poetry as well as his magnum opus, The Cantos, Marsh provides clear insights into Pound’s work as well as a coherent account of his troubled life that will be essential reading for students and fans of modernist literature.

An international team of scholars provides an invaluable introduction to Pound's work and life.

This fascinating account of Ezra Pound and Italian Fascism allows the reader to understand the causes and results of Pound's ideology and actions.

‘An extraordinary book of real passionate research’ Edmund de Waal In 1945, Ezra Pound was due to stand trial for treason for his broadcasts in Fascist Italy during the Second World War. But before the trial could take place Pound was pronounced insane. Escaping a potential death sentence he was shipped off to St Elizabeths Hospital near Washington, DC, where he was held for over a decade. At the hospital, Pound was at his most contradictory and most controversial: a genius writer – ‘The most important living poet in the English language’ according to T. S. Eliot – but also a traitor and now, seemingly, a madman. But he remained a magnetic figure. Eliot, Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Lowell and John Berryman all went to visit him at what was perhaps the world’s most unorthodox literary salon: convened by a fascist and held in a lunatic asylum. Told through the eyes of his illustrious visitors, The Bughouse captures the essence of Pound – the artistic flair, the profound human flaws – whilst telling the grand story of politics and art in the twentieth century.

At last, a definitive, paperback edition of Ezra Pound's finest work.

Was Ezra Pound the first theorist of world literature? Or did he inaugurate a form of comparative literature that could save the discipline from its untimely demise? Would he have welcomed the 2008 financial crisis? What might he say about America's economic dependence on China? Would he have been appalled at the rise of the “digital humanities,” or found it amenable to his own quasi-social scientific views about the role of literature in society? What, if anything, would he find to value in today's economic and aesthetic discourses? Ezra Pound in the Present collects new essays by prominent scholars of modernist poetics to engage the relevance of Pound's work for our times, testing whether his literature was, as he hoped it would be, “news that stays news.”