John Kasper and Ezra Pound : Saving the Republic
Author(s): Alec Marsh
John Kasper was a militant far-right activist who first came to prominence with his violent campaigns against desegregation in the Civil Rights era. Ezra Pound was the seminal figure in Anglo-American modernist literature and one of the most important poets of the 20th century. This is the first book to comprehensively explore the extensive correspondence - lasting over a decade and numbering hundreds of letters - between the two men.
John Kasper and Ezra Pound examines the mutual influence the two men exerted on each other in Pound's later life: how John Kasper developed from a devotee of Pound's poetry to an active right-wing agitator; how Pound's own ideas about race and American politics developed in his discussions with Kasper and how this informed his later poetry. Shedding a disturbing new light on Ezra Pound's committed engagement with extreme right-wing politics in Civil Rights-era America, this is an essential read for students of 20th-century literature.
Review(s):
“The book’s erudition and exceptionally detailed index are to be commended, and the argument that literary studies of McCarthyism must include consideration of Pound seems impossible to overlook. This sets Marsh’s work beside important recent work … Marsh’s book not only builds on Pound scholarship but cements the value and rapid development of Bloomsbury’s Historicizing Modernism series.” - This Year’s Work in English Studies
ISBN: 9781350028401