SOURCE: “Ezra Pound, the Last Ghibelline,” in Journal of Modern Literature, Vol. 16, No. 4, Spring, 1990, pp. 511-32.

In the following essay, Dasenbrock argues that Ezra Pound's devotion to Mussolini must be understood within the context of Pound's reading and understanding of the political writings of the late-medieval Italian poet Dante Alighieri, particularly in light of Dante's idealization of King Henry VII as a God figure, which may have influenced Pound's perception of Mussolini.

No one can justly complain any longer, as once one could, that Pound's politics are a neglected topic. Everyone writing on Pound now has something to say about “the case of Ezra Pound,” and the work of many younger critics—quick to condemn where an earlier generation was quick to excuse—argues for a direct relation between Pound's life and work and his economics, support of Fascism, and anti-Semitism: between the poetry and the politics.¹ But...