Ezra Pound, Italy, and the Cantos

364 Pages·2020·2.974 MB·English

by  Massimo Bacigalupo

EZRA POUND,
ITALY, AND
THE CANTOS
MASSIMO
BACIGALUPO
at the University of New Orleans
The Ezra Pound Center for Literature Book Series is a project dedicated to
publishing a variety of scholarly and literary works relevant to Ezra Pound
and Modernism, including new critical monographs on Pound and/or other
Modernists, scholarly studies related to Pound and his legacy, edited collections
of essays, volumes of original poetry, reissued books of importance to Pound
scholarship, translations, and other works.
Series Editor: John Gery, University of New Orleans
Editorial Advisory Board
Barry Ahearn, Tulane University
Massimo Bacigalupo (Emeritus), University of Genoa
A. David Moody (Emeritus), University of York
Ira B. Nadel, University of British Columbia
Marjorie Perloff, University of Southern California
Tim Redman, University of Texas at Dallas
Richard Sieburth, New York University
Demetres P. Tryphonopoulos, Brandon University
Emily Mitchell Wallace, Bryn Mawr College
Also Available in the Ezra Pound Center for Literature Book Series
William Pratt, Editor, The Imagist Poem: Modern Poetry in Miniature
Patrizia de Rachewiltz, Trespassing
Caterina Ricciardi, John Gery, and Massimo Bacigalupo, Editors, I poeti della
Sala Capizucchi/The Poets Of The Sala Capizucchi
Zhaoming Qian, Editor, Modernism and the Orient
John Gery, Daniel Kempton, and H. R. Stoneback, Editors, Imagism: Essays on
Its Initiation, Impact and Influence
Catherine E. Paul, Fascist Directive: Ezra Pound and Italian Cultural
Nationalism
Anderson Araujo, A Companion to Ezra Pound’s Guide to Kulchur
EZRA POUND,
ITALY, AND
THE CANTOS
MASSIMO
BACIGALUPO
© 2020 Clemson University
All rights reserved
First Edition, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-949979-00-8 (print)
eISBN: 978-1-949979-01-5 (e-book)
Published by Clemson University Press
in association with Liverpool University Press
For information about Clemson University Press,
please visit our website at www.clemson.edu/press.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Bacigalupo, Massimo, 1947- author.
Title: Ezra Pound, Italy, and the Cantos / Massimo Bacigalupo.
Description: Clemson : Clemson University Press, [2020] | Includes
bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “Pound spent most of
his life in Italy and wrote about it incessantly in his poetry. Only by
following his footsteps, acquaintances and composition processes can we
make sense of and enjoy his forbidding Cantos. This study provides detailed
accounts of Pound's Italian wanderings and of what they became in his
work. After this study we will be able to read Pound as a guide to the places,
people and books he loved, and we will share the poet-traveler's joys and
discoveries”-- Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019039287 (print) | LCCN 2019039288 (ebook) | ISBN
9781949979008 (hardback) | ISBN 9781949979015 (pdf)
Subjects: LCSH: Pound, Ezra, 1885-1972. Cantos. | Pound, Ezra,
1885-1972--Knowledge--Italy.
Classification: LCC PS3531.O82 C2834 2020 (print) | LCC PS3531.O82
(ebook) | DDC 811/.52--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019039287
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019039288
Typeset in Minion Pro by Carnegie Book Production.
To the memory of my wife
Angela Kirsten
CHENG 誠
INTEGRITY AUTHENTICITY COMPLETION
“Pensar de lieis m’es ripaus”—Canto 91

Contents
List of Figures ix
List of Abbreviations xi
Acknowledgments xiii
Foreword xv
Part I Places
1 How to Read The Cantos—Rapallo 3
2 City vs. Country—Venice 21
3 Greeting the Returning Gods—Rome 31
4 The Green World 41
Part II Meetings
5 “And Some Climbing”—Dante 55
6 Nature, History, and Myth—Montale 69
7 “My Best Translator”—Izzo 87
8 “‘Ma’ Riess of Rapallo”—Laughlin 107
Part III Readings
9 Poet as Anthropologist—“European Paideuma” 125
10 Moscardino and Enrico Pea (“pronounced peh-ah”) 145
11 “Republican Correspondence”—The Italian Cantos 72 and 73 169
12 The Pisan Cantos in Progress 197
Part IV Endings
13 “I wish he would explain his explanation” 213
14 End to Torment?—E.P., H.D., and La Martinelli 229
15 Sant’Ambrogio in the Half-Light 255
16 America vs. Italy in the Posthumous Cantos 269
Afterword 283
Chronology 287
Notes 313
Index 339
Figures
Part I
1 Dorothy Shakespear, Italian Landscape, undated, watercolor,
36 cm × 25 cm. Collection of the author. Reprinted by
permission of Elizabeth Pound. 1
2 Men digging and carrying sand, Sestri Levante (Genoa), 1930s.
Photograph by Giacomo Borasino. Reprinted by permission. 7
3 Rapallo, Vico dell’Oro, 1985. Photograph by Antonio Carta.
Reprinted by permission. 14
Part II
4 Max Beerbohm, Caricature of Ezra Pound, 1914.
Courtesy of the late Sir Rupert Hart-Davis. 53
5 Lucy Mabel Riess (“Mother May” to friends) bathing in Rapallo,
1930s. Collection of the author. 109
6 Il Pozzetto, Zoagli, 1985. Photograph by Antonio Carta.
Reprinted by permission. 111
7 Lola Avena, Rapallo, 1935. From the Laughlin Family Archive.
Used by the permission of the Trustees of the New Directions
Ownership Trust. 112
ix
x Ezra Pound, Italy, and The Cantos
8 Rolando Monti, Porto di Rapallo, 1934, oil on canvas,
50 cm × 64 cm. Used by permission of the Estate of
Rolando Monti. 118
Part III
9 The Narcissus, 1904, oil on canvas, 87 cm × 67 cm.
Votive offering, Church of Montallegro, Rapallo. 123
10 Children running on Easter Saturday to catch the “New Wave,”
Sestri Levante (Genoa), 1930s. Photograph by Giacomo
Borasino. Reprinted by permission. 127
11 Moses Levy, Portrait of Enrico Pea, 1935, oil on canvas,
116 cm × 89 cm. Donazione Levy. GAMC/Galleria d’Arte
Moderna e Contemporanea “Lorenzo Viani,” Viareggio.
Reprinted by permission. 144
12 Walter Molino, illustration for back cover of La Domenica del
Corriere, October 15, 1944. Courtesy of Flavio Costantini. 168
Part IV
13 Sheri Martinelli, EP (OL’ FussKAT ThinKin’), [Portrait of
Ezra Pound], undated, pencil on paper, 16.5 cm × 24 cm.
Collection of the author. 211
14 Sheri Martinelli, Self-portrait in Mirror, 1956, photograph.
Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book
and Manuscript Library, Yale University. 241
15 Ezra Pound and Olga Rudge with Giovanni and Vanni
Scheiwiller, Sant’Ambrogio di Zoagli, 1963. Photograph by
the author. 254
16 Nicola Verlato, Hostia, 2014, distemper on linen, 228 cm ×
152 cm. Private collection, Hong Kong. Reproduced by
permission of the artist. 282