Fascist Language in The Adams Cantos of Ezra Pound
Keywords:
Ezra Pound, The Adams Cantos, John Quincy Adams, fascist language, Walter BenjaminAbstract
This article examines Ezra Pound’s The Adams Cantos and its relationship to fascist aesthetics. It argues that Pound’s fragmented poetic method undermines his attempt to present John Quincy Adams as a rational model for cultural renewal. By assembling historical and legal materials into compressed textual units, the poem collapses distinctions between aesthetic and political discourse. The article suggests that this stylistic strategy mirrors authoritarian rhetoric by eliminating ambiguity and contradiction. Drawing on Walter Benjamin’s critique of fascism, the study concludes that Pound’s poetic form reflects his ideological alignment.
(The abstract and keywords were prepared retrospectively for indexing purposes using AI-assisted tools and editorial review, based on the original article. They did not appear in the original publication.)
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