I’m glad more attention is being shed on the anti-liberal and fascistic impulses of many of the modernists. That doesn’t mean they didn’t write or think valuable things, but it’s something that sometimes gets elided in discussions about them.
"like Eliot, who was equally antisemitic and had fascist tendencies...". Eliot likewise was antisemitic; but my recollection is that he wasn't as furiously so as Pound.
Eliot wasn't a fascist, he was an Anglican. Being Anglican is as close as he got to fascism.
Also, calling him anti-semitic makes sense only if you call pretty much everyone else in the world, up to and including the jewish community, the same name.
He engaged in some stereotypes about jews (both positive and negative)in his personal correspondence. As well as many other stereotypes about everyone else from the British to Americans.
If you are going to be mining personal correspondence for stereotypes of drunk irish or lazy spaniards, then I'm sure you can find all sorts of names to call Eliot, but doing so says more about the cherry-picker's ethics than it does about the poet's.
In Eliot's actual behavior, he promoted the careers of jewish poets and writers, actively sought out their contributions to his literary magazine, and did not discriminate against them.
I didn't say that Eliot was a fascist, I was quoting a sentence from the review, and should perhaps have shortened it.
There is a sentence in I think Notes Towards the Definition of Culture to the effect that a large number of cosmopolitan Jews in a society is suboptimal (I forget the word used, perhaps "undesirable".) Yes, I suppose that some in the ultra-Orthodox community might agree, but still.
One can say as much for Pound and Jewish writers. He seems to have been on good terms with Louis Zukofsky, for example.
> There is a sentence in I think Notes Towards the Definition of Culture to the effect that ..
No, there isn't.
The only mention of jews in Notes Towards the Definition of Culture is the following footnote:
"Since the diaspora, and the scattering of Jews amongst peoples holding the Christian Faith, it may have been unfortunate both for these peoples and for the Jews themselves, that the culture-contact between them has had to be within those neutral zones of culture in which religion could be ignored; and the effect may have been to strengthen the illusion that there can be culture without religion."
