Pound and Pasolini

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.

Autorentext

Sean Mark is Teaching and Research fellow at Panthéon-Sorbonne University in Paris. He completed a PhD at the universities of Tübingen, Bergamo and Brown on a fellowship from the European Commission, and in 2018-19 was British Academy post-doctoral fellow at the British School at Rome. He has published on Pound, Pasolini and Futurism.

Inhalt

Introduction: Pound and/or Pasolini

Chapter 1: Family Portraits

Chapter 2: Creatures Facing Backwards

Chapter 3: Exposition

Chapter 4: An Economy of Signs

Chapter 5: Failure

Coda: Afterlives

Appendix

A. The Pasolini-Pound Interview

B. The Ronsisvalle-Pound Interview