Ezra Pound, Father and Teacher: Discretions - Softcover

Mary De Rachewiltz

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0811216470 ISBN 13: 9780811216470

Publisher: New Directions, 2005

Synopsis

In this moving and insightful memoir, set against a backdrop of Fascist Italy and the Tyrolean Alps, Pound's daughter Mary de Rachewiltz reveals a side of the poet which is seldom touched upon, that of the devoted father.

Mary de Rachewiltz’s autobiographical account, Ezra Pound, Father and Teacher, which first appeared as a New Directions Paperbook in 1975, is now reissued with a new afterword by the author. Set against the background of Fascist Italy and the Tyrolean Alps where she spent the early years of her childhood, the story Ezra Pound’s daughter movingly reveals is a side of the poet which is seldom touched upon, that of devoted father, and at the same time serves to illuminate many of the more difficult, personal passages of The Cantos. But the book is more than a mere memoir, for Mary de Rachewiltz is an accomplished poet and translator in her own right, guided in her craft under her father’s tutelage: through her stylized, often oblique prose technique we are enabled to appreciate more deeply Pound’s inner anguish during the war years and the strains put upon him by the circumstances of his life. Many of the scenes described are illustrated with photographs. while the narrative itself gleams with lines from The Cantos that light up the events of the author’s life as her life lights up the poetry.

About this title

About the Author:

Mary de Rachewiltz is an American poet and translator. She is the daughter of Ezra Pound and the violinist Olga Rudge. Though raised in Italy by foster parents, she frequently visited her father as a child. Rachewiltz married the Egyptologist Boris de Rachewiltz in 1946―the same year her father was deported to the U.S. to stand trial for treason. In 1971 her autobiography, Discretions, was published and she is also the author of several books of poems in Italian and English. Rachewiltz translated several of her father’s works including The Cantos. She served for years as curator of the Ezra Pound Archives at the Beinecke Library at Yale University. Rachewiltz lives in Italy with her husband.

Review:

“This story by Ezra Pound's daughter adds to all other testimony something indispensable for a just understanding of his life and work; it is also in its own right a work of literature, a record of great human difficulties and great devotion.”
- Robert Fitzgerald

About this edition

• Publisher: New Directions
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0811216470
• ISBN 13: 9780811216470
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 338