A. David Moody

Moody finally jumps the shark here: the book is, as another reviewer puts it, sustained by rage at the injustice done to Pound. The problem is that Moody's sense of this injustice is so absurd as to make the book itself ridiculous. Was Pound guilty of treason? Well, if you'd like to use the legal definition, it's arguable. Moody puts a lot of weight on a few clauses in a few cases, without considering that literally being in the pay of a fascist government in order to produce arguments about why America is run by Jews and should not be in the war probably counts as 'comforting' the enemy, even if the actual content of that propaganda is not aimed specifically at telling American soldiers not to fight. I just think splitting hairs isn't a good idea when your client is Ezra Pound. Moody, on the other hand, would claim that Alan Shapiro is a worse person than Pound because Shapiro didn't think Pound should be awarded prizes for his poetry all because he was literally a Nazi sympathizer.

I mean, come on, A. David. You can disagree with Shapiro in general, but you can't assault him as an immoral monster.

Leaving that aside, Moody also fails in more scholastic ways. His picture of Mussolini and fascist Italy in general is taken entirely from the apologist/revisionist biography by Nicholas Farrell. If you want to reference it, fine, but perhaps look at some alternatives as well, Bosworth or someone. It's hardly surprising that Moody can be sympathetic to Pound's sympathy for the Fascists when he's going on Farrell's unbalanced picture.

Smaller, but indicative of the lack of care shown in this final volume, is Moody's unwillingness to actually read about the things that Pound was reading in anything other than Pound's way. It's one thing to say 'Pound thought that the Kuan Tzu [Guanzi, as the orthography has it now] was an influence on the much earlier thought of Confucius and Mencius, but this is impossible,' another entirely to report Pound's factual errors as truths (see p. 347 for this particular error).

Given the moralistic turn of the humanities, it's unlikely that anyone will do anything to supplement Moody's work for a generation; it would be career suicide. This is a terrible shame. But Moody's readings of the poetry are second to none, and the biography as a whole is a monument of scholarship; Pound's life, no matter what you think of him, is one of the most remarkable of the twentieth century.… (meer)

The first volume of Moody's biography helped me no end as I was finishing up my dissertation, and this volume lives up to my memories. It's stylishly written, and a perfect mix of literary criticism (long condensations of the Cantos, with at least a sentence or two on each of them) and biography (focusing on what Pound did and said, rather than trying to get into his mind or emotions).

It's truly astonishing how important Pound was as a literary force; people have been making that point since, at least, Kenner's 'Pound Era.' But Moody is more willing to criticize Pound's ideas (rather often bad and/or immoral), without believing that their badness or immorality makes the man himself uninteresting. In fact, he assumes exactly the opposite, and tries to put the best possible spin on Pound's prose... right up until he says something truly despicable (usually about 'the Jews'). At that point Moody comes down on him as hard as anyone should.

Pound is fascinating because he's a kind of 20th century Ideal Type: democrat, yes, but also fascist; materialist, yes, but also obsessed with medieval metaphysics; writer of astonishing abilities who lets leftover romantic stupidities about poetry (essentially turning it into a religious vocation) distort what should have been one of the greatest collected poems of the century.

He wrote some incredible poems; he had an uncanny sense for what was truly important in art and worked tirelessly to promote it (see: Eliot, Joyce, Vivaldi). It's often said that Pound never really went insane, that the insanity was all a legal fiction designed to keep him off the gallows. But it's impossible to read the last third of this book and not see Pound's as a deeply disordered mind. Moody doesn't draw that conclusion; he simply gives you the evidence to draw your own, while making his own argument. A model biography.… (meer)

read humphrey carpenter's bio if you want the narrative to stick closely to pound's life and activities from cradle to grave. by comparison, moody usually narrates only as much as is beneficial to understanding pound's poetic mindset. the rest is a very good chronological, comprehensive criticism of the poetry.

i'm very excited to read this criticism as applied to EP's post-20s work on the cantos. the only misgiving i have in this first volume is that it may be a little too comprehensive on the point of very early work ( A Lume Spento, etc. ), work that isn't always worth reading itself, let alone reading convoluted analysis of.… (meer)