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Ezra Pound and the Monument of Culture: Text, History, and the Malatesta Cantos.

1993; Duke University Press; Volume: 65; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2307/2927365

1527-2117

Cary Wolfe, Lawrence Rainey,

Poetry Analysis and Criticism

In summer of 1922, Ezra Pound viewed church of San Francesco in Rimini, Italy, for first time. Commonly known as Tempio Malatestiano, edifice captured his imagination for rest of his life. Lawrence S. Rainey here recounts an obsession that links together whole of Pound's poetic career and thought. Written by Pound in months following his first visit, four poems grouped as Malatesta Cantos celebrate church and man who sponsored its construction, Sigismondo Malatesta. Upon receiving news of building's devastation by Allied bombings in 1944, Pound wrote two more cantos that invoked event as a rallying point for revival of fascist Italy. These forbidden cantos were excluded from collected editions of his works until 1987. Pound even announced an abortive plan in 1958 to build a temple inspired by church, and in 1963, at age of eighty, he returned to Rimini to visit Tempio Malatestiano last, haunting time. Drawing from hundreds of unpublished materials, Rainey explores intellectual heritage that surrounded church, Pound's relation to it, and interpretation of his work by modern critics. The Malatesta which have been called one of decisive turning-points in modern poetics and the most dramatic moment in Cantos, here engender an intricate allegory of Pound's entire career, central impulses of literary modernism, growth of intellectual fascism, and failure of critical culture in twentieth century. Included are two-color illustrations from 1925 edition of Pound's cantos and numerous black-and-white photographs.