POUND, EZRA LOOMIS°

POUND, EZRA LOOMIS ° (1885–1972), U.S. poet and critic. Born in Idaho, Pound left the United States in 1907 and lived in London and in Paris before settling in Rapallo, Italy, in 1925. By then he had already won international acclaim as a modern poet. A prolific writer, he published over 40 volumes of poetry, verse translations, and literary criticism whose influence on 20^th-century poetic style has been enormous. In Italy, Pound became an admirer of Mussolini and came to adopt an increasingly pro-Fascist, anti-British, and antisemitic tone. He developed an ardent, if amateur, interest in economics and became an advocate of the Canadian C.H. Douglas' social credit doctrine, which vocalized agrarian discontent and blamed human misery on the financial manipulations of a small capitalistic class, largely Jewish in composition and inspiration. Pound's Money Pamphlets (6 vols., 1950–52), published in Italy in the 1930s, spoke repeatedly of the "Jewish poison," and in 1939 he wrote an article for the Italian press entitled "The Jew, Disease Incarnate." Many of his poems are also violently anti-Jewish. During World War ii Pound broadcast pro-Axis propaganda over the Italian radio.

He was arrested by the American army in 1945 and returned to the United States to face an indictment of treason, but was judged mentally unfit to stand trial and was committed to a mental hospital in Washington, d.c., in 1946. In 1958, following the intervention of many noted poets, he was released, and returned to Italy.

bibliography:

M. Reck, Ezra Pound (1967); C. Norman, Case of Ezra Pound (1969), includes bibliography; N. Stock, Poetin Exile (1964), includes bibliography; N. Stock, Life of Ezra Pound (1970); J. Cornell (ed.), Trial of Ezra Pound (1966).

[Charles Reznikoff]