Auden on No-Platforming Pound
In 1945, when Bennett Cerf of Random House was preparing An Anthology of Famous English and American Poetry,
he omitted twelve early poems by Ezra Pound included in a 1927
anthology on which the new book had been based. W.H. Auden, one of
Cerf’s authors, wrote Cerf some letters about this that may still be
clarifying today.
Carl Mydans/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Ezra Pound composing pro-fascist commentaries on stationary emblazoned with Mussolini’s motto “Liberty Is a Duty, Not a Right,” Italy, 1940
In 1945, when Bennett Cerf of Random House was preparing to send to the printer An Anthology of Famous English and American Poetry, edited by William Rose Benét
and Conrad Aiken for the Modern Library series, he omitted twelve early
poems by Ezra Pound that Aiken had included in a 1927 anthology on
which the new book had been based. In place of the poems, a note explained
that, over Aiken’s protest, the publishers “flatly refused at this time
to include a single line of Mr. Ezra Pound. This is a statement that
the publishers are not only willing but delighted to print.”
In
the years since Pound wrote those poems,
he had become notorious for
his fascist politics, florid anti-Semitism and racism, and
hero-worshipping praise for Hitler and Mussolini. He stayed in Italy
during the war, insisting on making radio broadcasts to American troops,
urging them to drop their weapons and stop fighting on behalf of Jews
and everyone else whom Pound
hated. For these broadcasts, he was
arrested after the war and charged with treason against the United
States. At the end of 1945, he was awaiting trial in Washington, D.C.
In the eyes of many writers at the time, Cerf’s refusal to reprint Pound’s poems adopted the same logic that the Nazis had used when burning books by Jews and leftists. In January 1946, a few weeks after the
anthology appeared, the critic of the New York Herald Tribune, Lewis Gannett, criticized Cerf’s decision in his widely read column, Cerf rep
lied, in a letter that Gannett printed: “Pound, by his deliberate and consistent actions over a long period of years, sacrificed any claims, in my opinion, either to the title ‘poet’ or the title of ‘American.’” Cerf continued, “Damn it, Lewis, this war is not over. The same ideology that caused it… is still too prevalent in the world. Every time you parade the work of a man who represents such ideas, especial
ly while he still lives, you are in a sense glorifying him, and giving tacit approval to his point of view.” Cerf wrote that his partners Donald Klopfer and Robert Haas “firmly agree on this point.”
The controversy spilled into national magazines, and Cerf met with both wide support and wide disagreement. Two months later, under pressure from writers he valued, especially Henry Steele Commager and Max Lerner, Cerf reversed his decision, and agreed to print the poems in future printings of the anthology. But he continued to insist that he h
ad been right the first time
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
All of which is very intersting and no problem with that France had Celine and others who were tempted by the right wing facicst who seemed to be anyhow but more apt to say they were
fallen into the right wing racist delirium oof the unconscious pole of paranoid reactionaries
as much or less than or equal to those on the left
like Neruda to name the most famous and who won I believe Noble peace prize for literartue
he was a Stalinist
supported the Gulag never denounced itor wrote anyhting critical of to my knowledged
nor did many of the thyouysands of supporters of Stalinism
stop themselves getting prizes or being published
________________ SO Ezra Pound had to be declared mad, crazy insane
that whole war was Insane Dropping an Atomic Bomb was Insane
killing 25 million in USSr durring the enitre ww2 was in sane
the sughter of the jews was Insane
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)