Usury and Ezra Pound

Usury is conventionally defined as the taking of unnecessarily high interest in loans, and it has long been part of the language of anti- semitism. Ezra Pound's anti-semitism was based on his interest in fascist monetary theories, which, to put it over-simply, saw usury as the chief economic ill of modern society. In the Cantos, Pound associated usury with making the naturally fertile infertile: usurers made something naturally infertile (money; coin) to "grow." "Metal is durable, but it does not reproduce itself," Pound reminds us. See cantos 14 and 15.

For more, consult:

 Author:         Davis, Earle Rosco, 1905-
 Title:          Vision fugitive, Ezra Pound and economics / by Earle
                         Davis.
 Published:      Lawrence, University Press of Kansas, <1968>.
 LOCATION:              CALL NUMBER:              
 Van Pelt               PS3531.O82 Z59            

 Author:         Edwards, John Hamilton, 1922-
 Title:          Annotated index to the Cantos of Ezra Pound : cantos
                         I-LXXXIV.
                 By John Hamilton Edwards and William W. Vasse, with
                    the assistance of John J. Espey and Frederic
                    Peachy.
 Published:      Berkeley : University of California Press, 1971.
 Series:         California library reprint series 1971
 LOCATION:              CALL NUMBER:           
 Van Pelt               PS3531.O82 C2844 1971  

 AUTHOR:  Miller, Tyrus
 TITLE:   Pound's Economic Ideal: Silvio Gesell and The Cantos
 YEAR:    1990
 SOURCE:  Paideuma: A Journal Devoted to Ezra Pound Scholarship
          Article in: vol. 19 no. 1-2, 1990 Spring-Fall
 PAGES:  169-80

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