Reprinted from Tamkang Review

Since no consensus has yet been reached regarding Pound's ultimate position in the literary Hall of Fame, and since the personal destiny and the literary career of the poet have been intricately linked with Italy and the Italians, critical opinions on Pound voiced by prominent Italian authors require special attention of Pound scholars. Clearly a poet of Pound's stature should not be limited to one national literature. (Indeed Pound had tried to broaden the scope of comparative literature long before academic institutions recognized its relevancy.) As Donald Gallup has deftly demonstrated in "Section D " of his Bibliography of Ezra Pound (London, 1963), Pound's writings had already been translated into twenty languages years ago. Significantly, of the 246 items belonging to the section of "Translations, " 113 are listed under the sub-heading "Italy." That Pound was infatuated with Italy and Italian literature before he became an expatriate in 1908 is a well-known fact. Although he lived in London for twelve years (1908-1920), and in Paris for a considerably briefer period (1920-1924), to make Italy his permanent home and settled in Rapallo in 1924. The major part of The Cantos and most of his mature writings were produced during his years in Italy. It was not until 1945, after six months' incarceration in the Disciplinary Training Camp of the U.S. Army near Pisa, that Pound was flown back to the United States to stand trial for treason on account of his shortwave radio broadcast from Rome during war. And after thirteen years of confinement at St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington, D.C. he returned to Italy in 1958, in the custody of his wife. He probably will spend his remaining years in Italy, dividing page 42 his time between Rapallo and Venice. Although Pound made his literary debut in London in his early twenties, it was in Venic