The best reason for publishing Ezra Pound.s Italian broadcasts may be the simplest.
Thousands of people have heard about them, scores have been affected by them, yet
but a handful has ever heard or read them. Here they are.
There are other compelling reasons, the first having to do with the magnitude of
their author. No other American.and only a few individuals throughout the world.has
left such a strong mark on so many aspects of the twentieth century: from poetry to
economics, from theater to philosophy, from politics to pedagogy, from Provencal to
Chinese. If Pound was not always totally accepted, at least he was unavoidably there.
Those traits of mind and character that made Pound so inescapable are not only evident
in the broadcasts but also present in ways that make them more fully understandable.
Here is that same fearless plunge toward the heart of the matter.often heedless of
consistencies.that marked his study of ancient and exotic languages and cultures. Here
is that same urge to simplify and instruct that marked his unorthodox textbooks: ABC
of Economics, ABC of Reading and the rest. Here is that flair for dramatic hyperbole
which peppered the Cantos and produced such deliberately shocking titles as Jefferson
and/or Mussolini. The broadcasts do not always show these traits at their best, but
their blatant presence makes them useful clues in putting together the puzzle of that
powerful enigma at their center. Even if the shadow of Ezra Pound did not so broadly
color this century, these broadcasts might still command a clinical respect for the
way in which they interrelate so vitally with the rise of fascism in Europe and the
accompanying extremes of feelings, with the cause and conduct of World War II as viewed
from this special place by this very special commentator. To the historians who have
counted this an almost anti-ideological war, the broad casts offer considerable
counterpoint. Furthermore, they are the starting point for understanding two major
cultural events of the postwar years: the trial of Ezra Pound and the literary prize
controversies. The Bollingen Prize debate.by itself the politico-literary cause celebre
of the generation.while once totally preoccupying has to this day refused to lie at rest.
Even this young Greenwood Press series, begun twenty-five years after the fact, offers
two fresh and extensive treatments of the issue. Such insistent unrest shows clearly
the need for this essential evidence now at hand. The broadcasts do not show Pound at
his best. War, bigotry, and totalitarianism are not sunny subjects. Yet giant figures
need their full dimensions, and unpleasant subjects can and should be studied for the
best of reasons. How indeed are we to lessen our chances for future encounters with
shrinking horizons if we do not learn from episodes so recent, so strongly cast, and
so richly charted? We applaud, then, the respect for a complete historic record which
has allowed the Pound Literary Trustees to overcome an understandable reluctance toward
seeing these scripts in print. We applaud this same impulse which has motivated the
patience and stamina of Leonard Doob. There are, and there will always be, more motives
behind an act like this than one can chronicle. From our point of view, however, this
work provides a singular and extensive collection of data for the pursuit of that most
bewildering of cultural equations: the balance between the creative force, the individual
personality, and the social context. Seen in this light, Ezra Pound.s texts become
a .Contribution in American Studies. at a profound and essential level.
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