Ezra Pound and the Social Responsibility of the Artist

Abstract

By JOHN L. BROWN Ezra Pound's confinement Saint Elizabeth's confronted American intellectual community with a dramatic example of a problem with which it had rarely been called upon grapple so directly : social responsibility of writter, relation between work and life. In American society of past artist had rarely, if ever, been taken really seriously as a social force. For majority of citizens, art was never anything more than icing on cake, a pastime for ladies. It had never acquired ideological overtones that harsher social and political conditions of an older and more structured society had forced it assume in Europe. C. David Heymann's recently published book The Last Rower* has capably assembled many of significant official documents relating Pound's broadcasts for Fascist radio (with abundant citations from often delirious texts), his capture by Italian partigiani and his imprisonment by US Army in a detention camp in Pisa, his years in what he called the booby-hatch of Saint Elizabeth's, his eventual release and return Italy in custody of his wife. It is a service have brought all these scattered documents together in convenient form, but in ploughing through thousands of words of opaque, bureaucratic prose, one often feels need of more interpretation, of situating Pound's case within framework of international anti-liberalism common so many leading European writers during early part of century. In addition assorted Army, FBI and Department of Justice files, appendices contain translations of selections from letters written by Pound Mussolini, Ciano and other Fascist bigwigs, as well as texts of brief concerning his bail and transcript of final hearing of case (1958) which resulted in his release. They all make melancholy reading as they reveal, in their deadpan prose, obtuse and often Kafkaesque procedures of process of law, lamentable conditions in mental hospitals and human deterioration which occurs in them, wrangling of psychiatrists often at a loss deal with a personality as complicated and contradictory as Pound's, his exploitation by members of lunatic-fringe, far-right groups. The rare bright spots are provided by those passages which testify fidelity of certain friends (notably Archibald MacLeish) and unwavering devotion of Dorothy Pound, who visited her husband daily during long years of his confinement. And Pound certainly was not an easy one befriend or love. He was continually abusing and berating those who were doing most help him (he always had something of bully in him) . And once back in Italy, he left faithful wife (who may finally have been somewhat relieved be free of her burden) rejoin (after having vainly proposed marriage a youthful secretary) mother of his daughter, Mary. Heymann's book poses once again old and thorny problem of relation of poet society. For Marxist, of course, problem does not exist. Either artist hews unwaveringly orthodox political line or he promptly pays price for his deviation. The democracies, up present at least, have been able afford luxury of entertaining doubts, of considering question as one which does not admit of a definitive, black-and-white solution, of admitting, with Gide, that avec de bons sentiments, on fait de la mauvaise litterature. Pound, accused of treason (although he always denied that he was a traitor, and in this he may have been quite sincere), was adjudged insane and put away by his government for over a decade. Such a judgment did not shock public opinion, since it merely confirmed that widespread popular notion, existing since Greeks, that poets are crazy. This course of action, however, was a somewhat less radical solution than promptly shooting accused, as French shot Robert Brasillach and a number of other literary collaborators. Pound, moreover, during his forced residence in the booby-hatch (where he enjoyed many special favors and where he was able continue write and publish extensively) received, in 1949, first Bollingen Prize for Poetry, for his Pisan Cantos, whose tragic dignity and compassion are eminently and nobly sane. The distinguished judges (they included Eliot, Auden and Robert Penn Warren) were quite aware that strong objections would be raised their choice. They consequently issued a public statement that to permit considerations other than those of poetic achievement would destroy significance of award and would in principle deny validity of that objective perception of value. Ironically, Pound in his own pronounce-