The American Ezra Pound
By: Wendy Stallard Flory.
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 1989
Place of publication: New Haven
Language: eng
Number of pages: 246
Subjects: Pound, Ezra, 1885-1972 -- Psychology.; Poets, American -- 20th century -- Biography.; Critics -- United States -- Biography.; Poetry -- Psychological aspects.
Genres: Biography.
Description: A psychological study, analyzing the links between Pound's economic theories, his admiration for Mussolini, his pro-fascist and antisemitic propaganda broadcasts from Italy during the war, and his insanity. Ch. 4 (pp. 131-155), "The Antisemitism of the Rome Broadcasts", suggests that prejudice is present to some degree in all human beings and overcoming it involves a moral decision. The very violence of Pound's antisemitic effusions shows that he underwent a moral struggle, in contrast to the unemotional Eichmann who delegated the moral decision to others. Pound accused Churchill and Roosevelt of having started the war in the service of a world conspiracy of Jewish bankers, but he also describes the poorer class of Jews as victims of the bankers. Mentions that Pound was a eugenicist, but not a racist in the Nazi sense. The "Afterword" (pp. 221-228) discusses renewed interest in the psychology of collaboration with Nazism, which was soft-pedalled immediately after the war. Asserts that it is necessary to reemphasize the importance of individual moral choice.
Notes: Bibliography: p. 229-237.
Includes index.