From Economics to Fascism: Ezra Pound’s Shift Towards Inclusivity

Authors

  • Svetlana Nedeljkov

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18485/bells.2012.4.6

Keywords:

Ezra Pound, The Cantos, teaching pedagogy, fascism, closed and open text

Abstract

Ezra Pound was a literary activist who devoted his life to writing, translating, and educating those willing to be initiated to modernist writing. He was also a poet of megalomaniacal ideas, believing that he could change the world by educating “the nation.” Seeking a solution for the contemporary socio-political issues, Pound started equating Jews with usury and blaming them for the world’s ills. These views consequently pushed him over the edge, towards fascism. The aim of this paper, therefore, is to investigate how Pound’s aim to educate readers became an effort to re-educate them by exposing them to his fascist and anti-Semitic views, and explore whether The Cantos, which Pound sets up to be aesthetically and semantically “open,” consequently turns into a “closed” fascist manifesto, mirroring Pound’s political agenda.

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Published

2012-11-15

How to Cite

Nedeljkov, S. . (2012). From Economics to Fascism: Ezra Pound’s Shift Towards Inclusivity. Belgrade English Language and Literature Studies, 4(1), 77–92. https://doi.org/10.18485/bells.2012.4.6

Issue

Vol. 4 No. 1 (2012): BELLS - volume 4

Section

LITERARY AND CULTURAL STUDIES

License

Copyright (c) 2021 Svetlana Nedeljkov

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