Fascist Aesthetics: Ezra Pound’s Cultural Negotiations in 1930s Italy
Although the nature of Ezra Pound’s Fascism has generated substantial critical study, the mechanics of his actual engagement in the cultural projects of the Mussolini regime has received less attention. Using as its starting point lines from Pound’s controversial “Italian Canto” 72—explicit in its praise of the Fascist regime— the essay examines Pound’s correspondence with Italian cultural figures in the 1930s. Focusing on his relationship with the academic librarian Manlio Torquato Dazzi and the celebrated Futurist F.T. Marinetti, the essay demonstrates the blurred distinctions between aesthetic and political spheres in Pound’s engagements with Italian culture in the 1930s. The essay further argues that Pound’s avant-garde aesthetics and neo-platonic philosophy colored the way he engaged with the cultural projects of the regime, making his Fascism a mixture of spirituality, modernism and totalitarianism.
The Lyric and the Lathe: Dreams of Perfect Poetic Efficiency, 1800-1917
This study examines patterns of efficiency in the poetry and theory of William Wordsworth, Hilda Doolittle, and other figures from the Modernist and Romantic periods. I begin by defining perfect efficiency as occurring when energy transforms, without loss, inside a closed energy system, and I offer perpetual motion machines as hypothetical examples of this impossible state. I then demonstrate the process of efficiency in William Wordsworth's poetry, which begins with circumlocutory poetic cycles but contracts into terse repetitions. Since technical efficiency is calculated by the formula output/input, poetry's subjectivity makes poetic efficiency difficult to measure. However, I suggest that repetitions offer an internal scale that compares efficiencies through relative concision. To address twentieth century poetry I begin with Gertrude Stein's notion of a "Portrait," which is an aesthetic closed system that nonetheless multiplies meaning through repetition. I then examine Ezra Pound, who led the Vorticists to implement a symbol of perfect efficiency, and, I discover that, just as vigorous and destructive vibrations arise in an energetic engine, Vorticism collapsed into chaos-not in spite of but because of its advocates' vehement assertions of order. Pound also showcases H.D.'s poetry as a triumph of the efficient Image, which is like an objectified emotion. As with Wordsworth and Stein, I identify H.D.'s repetitions, which signal, instead of the accomplishment of perfection, the process of efficiency. I conclude with the observation that efficient poetry does not denote concise poetry. I suggest that perfect efficiency demands the elimination of all disparate elements, eventually its beneficiary and even its creator. Acknowledgements I would first like to thank my family, my wife Heather, who has sacrificed so much to allow me to pursue what I love, and my son Cormac, who is willing at all hours to open the closed system of my research to a wider world. I also could not have succeeded in this endeavor without the tireless aid of my mentor Dr. Suzie Park. She has from the beginning offered me a bold and determined vision for my academic and professional lives and continues to make that vision a reality. Dr. Ruth Hoberman and Dr. Charles Wharram have likewise invested themselves in my writing and driven me toward excellence, when otherwise I might have settled for less. Further, I extend my gratitude to the Eastern Illinois English department, which has equipped me for success and set me on my way toward the next exciting episode in my professional development. Finally, I recognize my colleagues who have striven beside me throughout this process. Their comradery has meant much more than the hours we have spent studying, working, and writing together. Without all these wonderful friends and family members, the following research would never be.
An Actor Prepares
Stanislavski's simple exercises fire the imagination, and help readers not only discover their own conception of reality but how to reproduce it as well.