Fascist Language in The Adams Cantos of Ezra Pound

Year 1995, Issue: 2, 61 - 72, 01.10.1995

Nick Selby

Abstract

In the middle of his epic poem The Cantos, Ezra Pound devotes eighty pages to retelling the life of one of America's founding fathers, its second president, John Quincey Adams. This paper argues that this section of the poem, Cantos LXII to LXXII, known as The Adams Cantos, demonstrates Pound's belief that the American Revolution should be seen as an exemplary 'text' for a twentieth century cultural revival. However, it is also argued that The Adams Cantos mark a turning towards an authoritarian discourse of history, one that propels Pound inexorably towards advocacy of Mussolini's Fascism.

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