Major influence on modern poetry, developer of Imagism, critic of international capitalism to the extent of supporting Hitler and Mussolini; Pound helped to discover, animate, and promote literary figures including Ernest Hemingway, T. S. Eliot, James Joyce, and Robert Frost. The depth and genius of his writing was tarnished by his political views and actions which resulted in being convicted of treason, solitary confinement and probably torture in a US military prison that caused a mental breakdown and 12 years of incarceration in a Washington, D.C. psychiatric hospital. Considered by Arthur Miller “worse than Hitler” and called a "National Monster" by many; Hemingway wrote that his writing “will last as long as there is any literature" and Carl Sandburg that "All talk on modern poetry, by people who know, ends with dragging in Ezra Pound somewhere.” In later life he confessed to his Jewish protege Allen Ginsberg his confused belief in ideologies and that, “Any good I've done has been spoiled by bad intentions […] But the worst mistake I made was that stupid, suburban prejudice of anti-semitism.” Although sages warn against flattery and recommend welcoming criticism, Pound’s anti-semitism and support for fascism make it extremely difficult although increasingly important to openly hear his valid criticisms of our culture and state of civilization. The smartest people learn from smart people’s mistakes.
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American (USA) Artists Humanism
Interview (1945)
“The temple is holy because it is not for sale”
from Cantos
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“If a man have not order within him, he can not spread order about him”
from Cantos
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“Nothing written for pay is worth printing. Only what has been written against the market.”
from Cantos
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“Do not move, let the wind speak - that is paradise.”
from Cantos
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“Poetry begins to atrophy when it gets too far from music.”
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“Real education must ultimately be limited to men who insist on knowing. The rest is mere sheep herding.”
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“Man reading should be man intensely alive. The book should be a ball of light in one's hand.”
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“A slave is one who waits for someone to come and free him.”
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“The artist is always beginning. Any work of art which is not a beginning, an invention, a discovery is of little worth.”
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“The sum of human wisdom is not contained in any one language, and no single language is capable of expressing all forms and degrees of human comprehension.”
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“The rich have butlers and no friends, and we have friends and no butlers.”
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“America's poet... He is America.”
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“Adolf Hitler was a Jeanne d'Arc, a saint. He was a martyr. Like many martyrs, he held extreme views.”
from Interview (1945)
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