Pound and Pasolini: Poetics of Crisis

Description

In October 1967, Pier Paolo Pasolini travelled to Venice to interview Ezra Pound for broadcast on national television. One a lifelong Marxist, the other a former propagandist for the Fascist regime, their encounter was billed as a clash of opposites. But what do these poets share? And what can they tell us about the poetics and politics of the twentieth century?This book reads one by way of the other,aligning their engagement with different temporalities and traditions, polities and geographies, languages and forms, evoked as utopian alternatives to the cultural and political crises of capitalist modernity. Part literary history, part comparative study, it offers a new and provocative perspective on these poets and the critical debates around them – in particular, on Pound’s Italian years and Pasolini’s use of Pound in his work. Their connection helps to understand the implications and legacies of their work today.    Series Editors’ Preface Acknowledgements Contents Abbreviations of Works by Ezra Pound and Pier Paolo Pasolini Ezra Pound Pier Paolo Pasolini Introduction: Pound and/or Pasolini References Chapter 1: Family Portraits Encounters Civil War Ghosts and Benedictions References Chapter 2: Creatures Facing Backwards Spirit of Romance Congenial Ancestries Nekuia Barbarians References Chapter 3: Exposition Revelations Passion and Ideology Crisis-Writing Pure Opposition References Chapter 4: An Economy of Signs Reality’s Written Language Lapsus The Age Demanded an Image The End of the Avant-garde New Techniques References Chapter 5: Failure The Record / The Palimpsest Paradiso Perduto Katechon The End of the Poet References Coda: Afterlives References Appendix A Appendix B References Index