Ezra Pound: Poet: Volume III: The Tragic Years 1939-1972 - Tapa dura

Moody explains and elucidates Pounds massive poetic output at length... subtitled The Tragic Years 19391972. It gives a detailed and moving account of the second half his life, which was indeed tragic. (A. Banerjee (Kobe Jogakuin University), The Journal)

Its almost a day-to-day account of the life of this prolific and erudite writer and scholar. As such, it illuminates and validates the poetry. (David Crook, Bookwitty)

A landmark three volume biography...David Moody's life of Ezra Pound is complete, and a splendid work it is. (Denis Donoghue, Irish Times)

magisterial...a masterful biography, as meticulous as its is broad-ranging. (Eric Ormsby, New Criterion)

The third volume is a magnificent conclusion to a magisterial biography and it's hard to imagine a better researched account of Pound's life and work emerging for generations to come. (Sean Sheehan, Irish Left Review)

With this final volume, aptly subtitled "The Tragic Years," Mr. Moody [ ― a sympathetic and indeed exemplary biographer― ] has written as wonderfully comprehensive and comprehending a biography as anyone interested in Pound-for or against-will want to have. (Allan Massie, Wall Street Journal)

A landmark three volume biography / David Moody's life of Ezra Pound is complete, and a splendid work it is (Irish Times)

Ezra Pound: Poet will surely stand for a long time as one of the great literary biographies; it is inconceivable to imagine that any other life of its subject will be necessary into the far future. (Bruce Whiteman, Hudson Review)

a brilliant performance..Moody's is by far the best researched, keenly judged, and in every sense comprehensive life of Pound we are ever likely to get. Altogether it is a crowning achievement for a very distinguished critic and scholar. (Alec Marsh, Make It New)

attention to nuance characterises Moody's general approach to writing Pound's life...[and] extends to readings of Pound's poetry...His monumental biography is...judicious and scrupulous (Matthew Creasey, PN Review)

This third and final volume of A. David Moody's critical life of Ezra Pound presents Pound's personal tragedy in a tragic time. The first volumes of Moody's biography have been acclaimed as 'masterly' (Daily Telegraph), 'exceptional' (Literary Review), and 'invaluable' (New York Times Book Review). In this concluding volume, we experience the 1939-1945 World War, and Pound's hubristic involvement in Fascist Italy's part in it; we encounter the grave moral and intellectual error of Pound holding the Jewish race responsible for the war; and his consequent downfall, being charged with treason, condemned as an anti-Semite, and shut up for twelve years in an institution for the insane. Further, we see Pound stripped for life, by his own counsel and wife, of his civil and human rights.

Pound endured what was inflicted upon him, justly and unjustly, without complaint; and continued his lifetime's effort to promote, in and through his Cantos and his translations, a consciousness of a possible humane and just social order. The contradictions run deep and compel, as tragedy does, a steady and unprejudiced contemplation and an answering depth of comprehension.