The Poets of Rapallo: How Mussolini's Italy shaped British, Irish, and U.S. Writers

by Lauren Arrington

Overview

A new story about the relationships between major twentieth-century English-language poets.

Why did poets from the United States, Britain, and Ireland gather in a small town in Italy during the early years of Mussolini's regime? These writers were—or became—some of the most famous poets of the twentieth century. What brought them together, and what did they hope to achieve?

The Poets of Rapallo is about the conversations, collaborations, and disagreements among Ezra and Dorothy Pound, W.B. and George Yeats, Richard Aldington and Brigit Patmore, Thomas MacGreevy, Louis Zukofsky, and Basil Bunting. Drawing on their correspondence, diaries, drafts of poems, sketches, and photographs, this book shows how the backdrop of the Italian fascist regime is essential to their writing about their home countries and their ideas about modern art and poetry. It also explores their interconnectedness as poets and shows how these connections were erased as their work was polished for publication.

Focusing on the years between 1928 and 1935, when Pound and Yeats hosted an array of visiting writers, this book shows how the literary culture of Rapallo forged the lifelong friendships of Richard Aldington and Thomas MacGreevy—both veterans of the First World War—and of Louis Zukofsky and Basil Bunting, who imagined a new kind of "democratic" poetry for the twentieth century. In the wake of the Second World War, these four poets all downplayed their relationship to Ezra Pound and avoided discussing how important Rapallo was to their development as poets. But how did these "democratic" poets respond to the fascist context in which they worked during their time in Rapallo? The Poets of Rapallo discusses their collaboration with Pound, their awareness of the rising tide of fascism, and even—in some cases—their complicity in the activities of the fascist regime.

The Poets of Rapallo charts the new direction for modernist writing that these writers imagined, and in the process, it exposes the dark underbelly of some of the most lauded poetry in the English language.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780198846543
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	09/14/2021
Pages:	250
Sales rank:	994,439
Product dimensions:	8.70(w) x 5.70(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Lauren Arrington, Professor of English, Maynooth University

Lauren Arrington is Professor of English at Maynooth University, where she also serves as Head of Department. She has held distinguished visiting fellowships at Boston College, Trinity College Dublin's Long Room Hub Arts and Humanities Research Institute, the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin, and Cambridge University's Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences, and Humanities. From 2009 to 2019, she worked at the University of Liverpool, where she reached the rank of Professor of Modern Literature. She was Adrian Research Fellow in English at Darwin College Cambridge from 2008 to 2009. Her doctorate is from Oxford University. In addition to her scholarly books with Oxford University Press, Clemson University Press, and Princeton University Press, her writing has appeared in TLS and the Irish Times.

Table of Contents

A Brief Chronology of Comings and Goings1. The Roads to Rapallo2. Shell-Shocked Walt Whitmans3. Primavera 19284. Singing School5. Making Living History6. Accounting for RapalloSelected Bibliography

Editorial Reviews

"The Poets of Rapallo is a work that students and established scholars of modernism will never fail to find less than stimulating ... Without a doubt, it will provoke lively debate and discussion within academic circles for some time to come: between those who agree with, and those who dispute some of its contentions." — Graham Price, Irish Studies Review

"a fascinating, intricate study of Pound's first steps on the road to perdition, and the cast of fellow travelers, Yeats among them, who went part of the way with him and then covered their tracks." — Dominic Green, Wall Street Journal

"A fresh, insightful literary history." — L. Simon, CHOICE

"Meticulously researched and clearly and comprehensibly written." — Brian Maye, Irish Times

"[A] beautifully produced and meticulously researched book ... The weight of material associated with the women of the group is valuable and fascinating [and] an important balance to the misogynistic, homophobic and masculinist influence of Pound." — William Wall, Dublin Review of Books

"A fresh, insightful literary history. Highly recommended... " — L. Simon, CHOICE

"Arrington's archival research is especially impressive, and the unpublished correspondence and other drafts that she has uncovered flesh out the frequently fractious relationships between her protagonists... [The Poets of Rapallo is] a sharp, controlled study of an influential literary network, and of shifting debates about art and politics, in a country descending into political hell." — Sean Pryor, Australian Book Review

"The most valuable reading Arrington offers is of the works by Pound's long-neglected wife, Dorothy... Arrington convincingly draws out the parallels between Dorothy's paintings of Roman architecture and the fascist ideal of a 'return to order'." — Daniel Swift, Literary Review

"Lauren Arrington is a careful, nuanced scholar, weighing words carefully." — David Luhrssen, Shepherd Express

"This book has a depth of detail and breadth of reference that will make it invaluable for those already familiar with intellectual currents between the wars... the theme of friendship disavowed speaks painfully to our times. Arrington brilliantly traces the toing and froing between rage and affectionate loyalty, and the way members of the group accommodated eccentricity, suspending judgement - until they couldn't." — Noonie Minogue, The Tablet

"Lauren Arrington writes a literary history at once super-informed and consistently surprising, even to those who think they know the territory. Ezra Pound's colony-village-retreat-beachhead-Utopia-publishing venture at Rapallo, under Arrington's scholarly scrutiny—and in her welcome, lucid prose—turns out to be the semi-hidden hinge for modernist journals, for Basil Bunting (who did more work there than Bunting fans suppose), and above all for the later intellectual and artistic developments in the work of W. B. Yeats. Ballads, collaborations, the afterlife of Robert Burns, and—most of all—the still-contested legacies of Italian fascism shape Arrington's persuasive introductions and discussions, while contested or underappreciated artists and writers—Aldington, Stokes, and especially Dorothy (Shakespeare) Pound—receive their moments in the Italian sun. This is a book to recommend." — Stephanie Burt, Professor of English at Harvard University

"This is essential reading on Ezra Pound and W. B. Yeats. It is also indispensable in its balanced approach to the wider coterie drawn to Pound in Rapallo, including Richard Aldington and the younger poets Zukofsky and Bunting. Of particular value is the book's focus on the women of the group—Dorothy Pound and George Yeats, among others, are given their due as individuals—as culpable as the men in their engagement with fascist aesthetics. Arrington deftly balances lively biography with an astute contribution to debates on Late Modernism. This book presents its impressive and extensive research in a clear and scrupulous manner, offering valuable arguments and opening doors to an objective and fuller understanding of fascism and modern art. The result is often discomforting, at times devastating, and always enormously readable." — Alan Gillis, The University of Edinburgh

"The Poets of Rapallo was a pleasure to read. Wonderful phrasings punctuate Arrington's prose throughout." — David Ben-Merre, State University of New York, Buffalo State College , ALH Online Review

"The Poets of Rapallo, it is worth mentioning that it is alive with literary gossip and intriguing background stories of affairs and friendships, rumours and scandals, offering comic relief from the serious matters of racism, sexism, anti-semitism, and rightwing politics that the book is otherwise preoccupied with... This broad-based approach to a niche subject makes the book appealing to a wide range of readership." — Ashim Dutta, Department of English, University of Dhaka

From the Publisher