4. Ezra Pound was so enamored by Mussolini’s Fascist movement that he moved to Italy and even became a spokesman for the authoritarian regime.
In the 1920s and 30s, a number of writers and academics flirted with authoritarianism. Most, however, were quick to renounce their views once the true nature of Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia were revealed. Not so Ezra Pound. The American fully embraced far-right politics. Indeed, he aligned himself with vile regimes for 20 years and even became a spokesman for fascism. According to his supporters, Pound was mentally unstable, and was even exploited by Nazi and Fascist propagandists. To his critics, however, the author was fully responsible for his actions, and his was more than just a relatively harmless flirtation with the politics of repression and hate.
Pound didn’t start out a fascist. He moved to the right steadily from 1915 onward. In 1924, he moved to Italy, largely as he believed the new Fascist society was sympathetic to his economic views. By the 1930s, however, he had embraced the anti-Semitic ideology of Nazism. As such, the radio broadcasts he made from Italy between 1941 and 1943 blamed America’s descent into war on ‘the Jews’. In 1945, Pound handed himself in to be tried for treason. While in prison, he welcomed numerous literary guests and was finally deemed mentally unfit to stand trial. After 12 years in an asylum, Pound was released – he immediately returned to Italy.