Ezra Pound

Name: Ezra Pound
Author: J.J. Wilhelm
ISBN: 0271010827

by J.J. Wilhelm (1994)

Read Free Sample Buy on Amazon Audible Free Trial

About this book

This third and final volume of Wilhelm's life of Ezra Pound commences with Pound's departure from Paris at the height of his writing career for Italy, where he hoped to find a quieter life, and it takes him to his death in 1972. It tells how he settled in Rapallo and soon found Mussolini's fascism to be amenable to his own political and economic ideas, especially during the dark days of the Great Depression. As Italy girded itself for World War II, Pound was almost haphazardly drawn into the web, and he foolishly agreed to broadcast on Radio Rome for the Duce, even after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. When Italy fell to the Allies, Pound was put first into a dreadful American detention camp at Pisa and then was flown to Washington to be tried for treason. He escaped conviction on grounds of insanity, but he was then remanded to St. Elizabeths Hospital, where he languished for twelve years. Despite the incarcerations, Pound produced during this time some of his most magnificent poetry, including The Pisan Cantos and numerous excellent translations from the Chinese and Greek. He also heavily influenced an entire generation of poets ranging from Robert Lowell to Allen Ginsberg. With the help of Archibald MacLeish and Robert Frost, Pound was eventually freed in 1958. He returned to Italy, where he lived for a time with his wife and daughter. During the final years of his life, he eventually returned to live with his aged lover, Olga Rudge, in Venice and Rapallo. He died in Venice in 1972 and is buried next to Igor Stravinsky, whose work his own strongly resembles, since they both fought for liberation from traditional forms.

Setting / LocationFrance

Story EraWWII Era

Protagonist / CoreEzra Pound Lead Character

Themes & Moods

Biography & Memoir Psychiatric hospital patients American Poets World War, 1939-1945 Biography Literature and the war WWII Era

Readers who enjoyed this also loved

Meḿoires de guerre

Charles de Gaulle

Originally published in three separate volumes covering three distinct periods, this single edition encompasses all the personal writings by one of this century's most prominent generals and statesmen from the fall of France in 1940 to the aftermath of World War II in 1946. The first section, "The Call to Honor," recounts the confusion and despair triggered by Hitler's blitzkrieg invasion of France. The second section, "Unity," describes de Gaulle's struggles to rally the Free French in Africa and in underground movements throughout Europe, his bitter conflict with the Vichy puppet regime ruling occupied France, and his cooperation with the Allied powers. "Salvation," the final installment, chronicles the turning of the tide of war against Nazi Germany, de Gaulle's triumphant return to France, and the reincarnation of the French Republic as a major international presence. - Back cover.

The emperor of lies

Steve Sem-Sandberg

Follows the World War II tale of Jewish ghetto director Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski, who in an ambitious effort to render the ghetto an invaluable industrial complex makes compromises that have extraordinary consequences.

Eyewitness to World War II

[edited by] Neil Kagan, Stephen G. Hyslop

Personal writings and recollections of Roosevelt, Hitler, and Patton, as well as letters composed by soldiers at battle and diaries of women serving in the military at home, present an absorbing narrative that tells the entire history of the war from several perspectives.

Enemies

John Christgau

"They were called aliens and enemies. But the World War II internees John Christgau writes about are shown to be ordinary people victimized by the politics of a global war. The Enemy Alien Internment Program in America was born with the United States' declaration of war on Japan, Germany, and Italy, and lasted until 1946. In all, 31,275 enemy aliens were imprisoned in camps like the one described in this book--Ft. Lincoln, just south of Bismarck, North Dakota. In animated and suspenseful prose, Christgau tells the stories of several individuals who were representative of the internee experience at Ft. Lincoln. The subjects' lives before and after capture--presented in case studies-- tell of encroaching bitterness and sorrow"--Book jacket.