THE DETROIT, JEWISH, NEWS
18 Friday, March 6, 1981
Ezra Pound's Pro-Nazi and Pro-Fascist Attitudes Probed
in New Biography by C. David Heymann: The Last Rower'
C. David Heymann, in the
preface to his "Ezra Pound:
The Last Rower" (Seaver
Books) makes this defini-
tive comment:
"Pound will no doubt al-
ways be regarded as a
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hugely problematic figure.
His supporters have tended
in the past to depict him in
terms most favorable to him
— to emphasize the power of
his poetry — but have ig-
nored some of the
paramount concerns — eco-
nomic and political — that
plagued him during a major
portion of his life.
"Conversely, there are
those more interested in the
fact that he was an anti-
Semite, a drumbeater for
Hitler and Mussolini, than
they are in coming to terms
with his poetry. The poetry,
let us not forget, is difficult
and often obscure; it is much
easier to think of Pound as a
political fanatic and to dis-
miss his verse as the work of
a madman."
Thus, there is the estab-
lished fact that Pound's
pro-Nazi attitude has
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been the cause of his vio-
lent anti-Semitism, a re-
cord which is not ignored
in the Heymann study of
the life and works of Ezra
Pound.
There has never been any
doubt about Pound's having
been a traitor, for which he
was declared insane in the
course of proceedings
against him. He was in-
stitutionalized when de-
clared insane. Indeed, he
himself emphasized his
pro-Nazi and pro-fascist
role in life and he kept re-
ferring to the USSR as the
"Stalin Judaic state."
Yet, Heymann adheres to
a journalistic escapism by
referring to the Pound
anti-Semitism as "alleged"
in this statement in which
the Jew-baiting is definitely
established:
"Race prejudice is red
herring. The tool of the man
defeated intellectually and
of the cheap politician: this
excerpt, also from 'Kul-
chur,' gives rise to a second
problem — the immediate
and ponderous question of
Ezra Pound's alleged anti-
Semitism. It was natural for
him to link the Jews with
usury, but often when he
made this association, he
did so in an exceedingly
ambiguous manner.
"In 1938, for example,
he wrote in the British
Union Quarterly (for-
merly the Facist Quar-
terly), that 'our worst evil
is the aryio-kike who is
able to take a dirty line
and stick to it without de-
viation or shadow of
turning with none of the
Jews' moments of pity,
excitement or need of
opulent display," and in
his Congressional
Record-inspired 'Ameri-
can Notes' column for the
New English Weekly he
wrote that 'Usurers have
no race,' and then added:
`How long the whole
Jewish people is to be
sacrificial goat for the
usurer, I know not.'
"His letters of the period
were equally ambiguous. In
February 1935 he wrote to
Virginia Rice, his American 12, 1940, for the Japan whether they are pro or
literary agent: 'Danger of Times in which he stated: anti, the New York Post can
jews. Not that they mayn't "Democracy is now cur- be as dangerous as Der
be O.K. individually. rently defined in Europe as Sturmer — must be with-
State of mind induced by a country governed by held.' "
Pound's anti-Semitism
being surrounded by noth- Jews."
Thus, ad infinitim, the was exposed in The Jewish
ing but.' And to James
Taylor Dunn, editor of the insanity that is Pound's News, July 1, 1970, in a re-
Globe, a small journal, he anti-Semitism, his hatred view of "The Life of Ezra
vouchsafed (March 1937) for Albert Einstein and Pound" by Noel Stock, pub-
lished by Pantheon. The re-
that `if the jews wd. take any Sigmund Freud.
There is an account of the view regretted "the attempt
sort of part in econi reform
as distinct from communis- FBI probe of Pound's to vindicate him, to
tic obscurantism and finan- treacheries and anti- minimize his prejudices and
cial obscurantism there wd. Semitism, which had led to hatred." The review added:
"In that respect the biog-
be no need of any anti- his being declared insane.
raphy by Stock is unjustly
the
Tragically,
in
Semitic stuff at all.'
apologetic.
is
also
Heymann
book,
there
"Yet as the war drew near
an
a
quote
of
a
comment
by
Pound became more and
Books are embalmed
more partisan in favor of other man of literary fame,
both Mussolini and Hitler, W. H. Auden, who was a minds.
and more irrational in his member of the advisory
hatred of Semitic cultural board appointed by the Li- -
and financial influences. In brary of Congress to act on
December 1938, he told the Bollingen Award,
Louis Zukofsky: 'Why curse awarded to Pound in 1949
Adolph (sic), why not git who said in a symposium in
down to bedrock? . . . As Partisan Review, May 1949:
" 'Anti-Semitism is, un-
always jewish outlaw and
Highest dollars paid for
crook leads the sheriffs fortunately, not only a feel-
your diamonds, gold,
ing
which
all
gentiles
at
posse back to the ghetto.'
sterling or old jewelry!
"The following year times feel, but also, and this
is
what
matters,
a
feeling
of
(August 1939) he wrote an
article for Sir Oswald Mos-. which the majority of them
ley's magazine, Action, in are not ashamed. Until they
which he lauded the Third are, they must be regarded
Reich: "The natural as children who have not yet
civilizer of Russia is Ger- reached the age of consent
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many. No less gusty and in this matter and from
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APPOINTMENT
whether
works
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or
not,
about educating the Mujik.'
And in 'What is Money For?' which reflect feeling about
he asks the reader to 'note Jews — and it doesn't make
the paragraph from 'Mein the slightest difference
Kampf magnificently iso-
Music by
lated by Wyndham Lewis in
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and freedom.'
To try to find out why
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the author of The Can-
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suggested (Encounter,
July 1956) that 'only a
man working in isolation,
without criticism or ig-
noring it, could have
failed to see the fretful-
ness and poverty of
contemporary crafts
argument in some of
these letters and essays.'
for the collector
"Certainly it is signific-
ant that Pound — always so
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of linguistic decay — did not
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either in Mussolini's or in
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Hitler's puffed-up and self-
aggrandizing rhetoric, to
say nothing of his own."
Quoted by Heymann are
the anti-Semitic cantos by
Pound.
A MEMORY YOU WILL
In one of his cantos Pound
wrote:
HAVE FOREVER
"Bismarck blamed the
LET US CREATE A WALKING
American Ciuil War on the
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One of whom remarked to
Disraeli
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Bar Mitzvas
That nations were fools to
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''
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