![DorothyPound](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ae/DorothyPound.jpg)
Dorothy Shakespear (14 September 1886 – 8 December 1973) was an English artist. She was the daughter of novelist
Olivia Shakespear
Olivia Shakespear (; 17 March 1863 – 3 October 1938) was a British novelist, playwright, and patron of the arts. She wrote six books that are described as "marriage problem" novels. Her works sold poorly, sometimes only a few hundred cop ...
and the wife of American poet
Ezra Pound
Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an expatriate American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a Fascism, fascist collaborator in Italy during World War II. His works ...
. One of a small number of women
vorticist
Vorticism was a London-based Modernism, modernist art movement formed in 1914 by the writer and artist Wyndham Lewis. The movement was partially inspired by Cubism and was introduced to the public by means of the publication of the Vorticist mani ...
painters, her art work was published in ''
BLAST
Blast or The Blast may refer to:
*Explosion, a rapid increase in volume and release of energy in an extreme manner
*Detonation, an exothermic front accelerating through a medium that eventually drives a shock front
Film
* ''Blast'' (1997 film), ...
'', the short-lived but influential
literary magazine
A literary magazine is a periodical devoted to literature in a broad sense. Literary magazines usually publish short stories, poetry, and essays, along with literary criticism, book reviews, biographical profiles of authors, interviews and lett ...
.
Dorothy and Pound first met in 1909 in London, and after a long courtship the two married in 1914. They lived in Paris from 1920 until 1924, and in 1925 settled in
Rapallo
Rapallo ( , , ) is a municipality in the Metropolitan City of Genoa, located in the Liguria region of northern Italy.
As of 2017 it had 29,778 inhabitants. It lies on the Ligurian Sea coast, on the Tigullio Gulf, between Portofino and Chiav ...
, Italy. In spite of her husband's 50-year affair with
Olga Rudge
Olga Rudge (April 13, 1895 – March 15, 1996) was an American-born concert violinist, now mainly remembered as the long-time mistress of the poet Ezra Pound, by whom she had a daughter, Mary.
A gifted concert violinist of international reput ...
, whom he met in Paris in the early 1920s, Dorothy stayed married to Pound. In 1926 she gave birth to a son
Omar Pound
Omar Shakespear Pound (10 September 1926 – 2 March 2010)
''The New York Times'', 10 March 2010. was an Anglo-American ...
, who was raised in England by her mother. By the 1930s she received a number of family bequests, making her financially independent, but lost much of her money by following Pound's advice to invest in
Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (; 29 July 188328 April 1945) was an Italian politician and journalist who founded and led the National Fascist Party. He was Prime Minister of Italy from the March on Rome in 1922 until his deposition in ...
's Fascist regime.
Toward the end of World War II, Dorothy and Pound were evacuated from their home in Rapallo, and for a period she lived with Pound in Rudge's home. After the war, when Pound had been arrested for treason and incarcerated on grounds of insanity in Washington, D.C., she moved there, visiting daily, taking control of his estate, and staying with him until his release. They returned to Italy in 1958; in 1961 she moved to London, leaving her husband to live out the last decade of his life with Olga Rudge.
Early years
Dorothy's parents both came from
British Indian Army
The British Indian Army, commonly referred to as the Indian Army, was the main military of the British Raj before its dissolution in 1947. It was responsible for the defence of the British Indian Empire, including the princely states, which cou ...
families. Her mother
Olivia Shakespear
Olivia Shakespear (; 17 March 1863 – 3 October 1938) was a British novelist, playwright, and patron of the arts. She wrote six books that are described as "marriage problem" novels. Her works sold poorly, sometimes only a few hundred cop ...
, born on the
Isle of Wight
The Isle of Wight ( ) is a county in the English Channel, off the coast of Hampshire, from which it is separated by the Solent. It is the largest and second-most populous island of England. Referred to as 'The Island' by residents, the Is ...
, lived her early years in Sussex and later in London where she and her sister Florence were raised to live a life of leisure. In 1885 she married Henry Hope Shakespear (1849–1923), who traced his family line to 17th-century
East London
East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth.
Etymology
As in other languages, the word is formed from the ...
rope makers and, like his wife, came from a military family. Educated at Harrow, he went on to study law, became a
barrister
A barrister is a type of lawyer in common law jurisdictions. Barristers mostly specialise in courtroom advocacy and litigation. Their tasks include taking cases in superior courts and tribunals, drafting legal pleadings, researching law and givin ...
, and in 1875 joined a law practice. The couple's only child Dorothy was born nine months after the two were married. Dorothy's mother, a minor novelist, was active in London literary circles for much of her life.
From her father Dorothy learned to paint, with the two going to the countryside for regularly scheduled painting excursions. She attended Hampshire Boarding School and for a short period a Geneva
finishing school
A finishing school focuses on teaching young women social graces and upper-class cultural rites as a preparation for entry into society. The name reflects that it follows on from ordinary school and is intended to complete the education, wi ...
, after which she lived in her parents' home, keeping herself occupied with water-colour painting, reading, letter writing, and accompanying her mother on social visits.
Ezra Pound
Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an expatriate American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a Fascism, fascist collaborator in Italy during World War II. His works ...
biographer Wilhelm describes her as a "bright, pert, pretty English girl with a winning smile although some people found her cold",
[Wilhelm, 16] and
Humphrey Carpenter
Humphrey William Bouverie Carpenter (29 April 1946 – 4 January 2005) was an English biographer, writer, and radio broadcaster. He is known especially for his biographies of J. R. R. Tolkien and other members of the literary society the Inkl ...
says that she lived a sheltered life before meeting Pound.
Courtship
Dorothy met Pound at her own home on 16 February 1909 when her mother, who had recently met the young American poet at a friend's
salon
Salon may refer to:
Common meanings
* Beauty salon, a venue for cosmetic treatments
* French term for a drawing room, an architectural space in a home
* Salon (gathering), a meeting for learning or enjoyment
Arts and entertainment
* Salon ( ...
in
Kensington
Kensington is a district in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in the West of Central London.
The district's commercial heart is Kensington High Street, running on an east–west axis. The north-east is taken up by Kensington Garden ...
, invited him to tea.
[Harwood, 130–135] Although Olivia was more than 20 years older than Pound, she was a beautiful woman, and influential in London literary society, to whom Pound may have been attracted. But it was Dorothy, a year younger than Pound, who was struck by his presence, writing in her diary on the very day she met him:
Listen to it — Ezra! Ezra! And a third time — Ezra! He has a wonderful, beautiful face, a high forehead, prominent over the eyes; a long delicate nose, with little, red, nostrils; a strange mouth, never still & quite elusive; a square chin, slightly cleft in the middle — the whole face pale; the eyes grey-blue; the hair golden-brown, and curling in soft wavy crinkles. Large grotesque eyes, with long, well-shaped fingers and beautiful nails.
Many years later she would tell Ezra Pound biographer Noel Stock that her memory of the visit "was very hazy, all she could remember was that it was winter and she sat on a low stool near the fire and listened".
![Olivia Shakespear](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1a/Olivia_Shakespear.png)
From her mother, she gained an interest in
theosophy
Theosophy is a religion established in the United States during the late 19th century. It was founded primarily by the Russian Helena Blavatsky and draws its teachings predominantly from Blavatsky's writings. Categorized by scholars of religion a ...
and mysticism. With her best friend and cousin,
Georgie Hyde-Lees, she joined the
Order of the Golden Dawn
The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn ( la, Ordo Hermeticus Aurorae Aureae), more commonly the Golden Dawn (), was a secret society#Europe, secret society devoted to the study and practice of occult Hermeticism and metaphysics during the late ...
. Most specifically Dorothy was interested in astrology and asked Pound for his exact moment of birth to prepare an astrology chart. In her notebook she wrote: "You are very broad-minded—too much so. Very artistic. All for colour. Very sensitive—over-sensitive. At a very great turning point in life....you will marry twice & have two children."
In late 1909 and early 1910, chaperoned by her mother, Dorothy attended Pound's lectures at the London Polytechnic Institute; in June 1910, mother and daughter went to Italy and joined him in
Sirmione
Sirmione (Brescian: ; vec, Sirmion) is a comune in the province of Brescia, in Lombardy (northern Italy). It is bounded by Desenzano del Garda (Lombardy) and Peschiera del Garda in the province of Verona and the region of Veneto. It has a his ...
for a few weeks. Dorothy spent the time painting, becoming enthralled with
Lake Garda
Lake Garda ( it, Lago di Garda or ; lmo, label= Eastern Lombard, Lach de Garda; vec, Ƚago de Garda; la, Benacus; grc, Βήνακος) is the largest lake in Italy.
It is a popular holiday location in northern Italy, about halfway between ...
, as was Pound, claiming it was the first time she had seen color. She would later write to Pound that the days spent in Sirmione were deeply profound; according to Pound's biographer John Tytell, for the next two decades the watercolors she painted were of that location in Italy. Dorothy likely considered herself engaged to Pound after the Italian trip.
Olivia restricted contact between the two after the trip. Days before Pound was to leave for an extended stay in the US, Dorothy wrote him promising to abide by her mother's stricture and exhorting him to follow her lead: "In case I do not see you alone on Wednesday, I take it that during your 'exile' you have been forbidden to write to me?.... if you have promised—don't break your word—don't write to me!" Olivia allowed Dorothy to write a thank-you note when Pound's ''Canzoni'' were published—that he dedicated to Olivia and Dorothy—the only instance when she let Dorothy contact him directly. John Harwood, Olivia Shakespear's biographer, writes that Dorothy's lack of resistance seems extreme, even by Edwardian standards; however, he speculates that Olivia's motives were to keep Dorothy's behaviour controlled, whereas Pound's behaviour was ignored.
Engagement
The two remained unofficially engaged until 1914, with Dorothy adhering to social convention and waiting for her father's permission to marry. In 1911 Pound returned from America and in October formally approached Dorothy's father asking permission to marry her. Pound told Shakespear he had a guaranteed annual income of £200 in addition to earnings from writing and Dorothy's own income of £150 a year. Shakespear refused on the grounds of insufficient income believing Pound overstated his potential to earn money writing poetry. At the same time,
Hilda Doolitle arrived from America, believing herself to be engaged to Pound.
Walter Rummel Walter Morse Rummel (July 19, 1887May 2, 1953) was a prominent pianist, especially associated with Claude Debussy's works, as well as a composer and music editor. He was of German- English descent and active mainly in France.
Rummel was born in B ...
, with whom Pound was sharing a room while he waited for his old rooms at Church Walk to be vacated, told Hilda about Dorothy a few days before Pound asked permission to marry Dorothy. During that period Olivia invited Hilda to her home to meet her, and was concerned about the tension between Dorothy, Hilda and Pound, as well as her daughter's apparent obsession with Pound. Olivia continued to restrict contact between the two while Dorothy continued to treat the relationship as an engagement, despite short weekly or bi-weekly supervised visits in the family drawing room.
[Harwood, 142–145]
Throughout the nearly five-year-long courtship, Dorothy and Pound corresponded regularly, filling their letters with gossip about mutual acquaintances such as
T.E. Hulme
Thomas Ernest Hulme (; 16 September 1883 – 28 September 1917) was an English critic and poet who, through his writings on art, literature and politics, had a notable influence upon modernism. He was an aesthetic philosopher and the 'father ...
,
Violet Hunt
Isobel Violet Hunt (28 September 1862 – 16 January 1942) was a British author and literary hostess. She wrote feminist novels. She founded the Women Writers' Suffrage League in 1908 and participated in the founding of International PEN.
Biog ...
, Walter Rummel,
Florence Farr
Florence Beatrice Emery (''née'' Farr; 7 July 1860 – 29 April 1917) was a British West End leading actress, composer and director. She was also a women's rights activist, journalist, educator, singer, novelist, and leader of the occult ...
, and
Henri Gaudier-Brzeska
Henri Gaudier-Brzeska (né Gaudier; 4 October 1891 – 5 June 1915) was a French artist and sculptor who developed a rough-hewn, primitive style of direct carving.
Biography
Henri Gaudier was born in Saint-Jean-de-Braye near Orléans. In 1910, ...
; additionally in their letters they shared trivial incidents, family information, and showed affection for one another. They were separated for long periods each year when the Shakespear family visited friends and extended family (mostly members of the Tucker family) in the country, returning to London only for a few months in the spring and autumn—customary for many Victorian families. Generally young women of the period were expected to indulge in activities such as painting, embroidery and music while waiting for marriage. Dorothy, however, through the influence of her mother, was well read (and quite capable of conversing with Pound who had multiple degrees), knowledgeable in music, and a talented artist. She became a skilled artist and during the
vorticist
Vorticism was a London-based Modernism, modernist art movement formed in 1914 by the writer and artist Wyndham Lewis. The movement was partially inspired by Cubism and was introduced to the public by means of the publication of the Vorticist mani ...
period was capable of conversing easily with artists such as
Wyndham Lewis
Percy Wyndham Lewis (18 November 1882 – 7 March 1957) was a British writer, painter and critic. He was a co-founder of the Vorticist movement in art and edited ''BLAST,'' the literary magazine of the Vorticists.
His novels include ''Tarr'' ( ...
whom she met at her mother's salon.
Marriage
Olivia realised her 27-year-old daughter was determined to marry Pound and in 1914 allowed the two to marry although Pound was earning less than in 1911 when he made the first proposal. On 20 April 1914, Dorothy married Pound despite her father's opposition—he relented when the couple agreed to a church rather than a civil ceremony.
[Wilhelm (2008), 151–154] The marriage ceremony took place at
St Mary Abbots
St Mary Abbots is a church located on Kensington High Street and the corner of Kensington Church Street in London W8.
The present church structure was built in 1872 to the designs of Sir George Gilbert Scott, who combined neo-Gothic and early ...
, Kensington, in the morning with six guests in attendance; official witnesses were the bride's father and her uncle Henry Tucker.
[Stock, 154] As a wedding present Olivia gave them two circus drawings by
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...
.
[Wilhelm (2008), 151–154]
Dorothy and Pound moved into an apartment at 5 Holland Place, with Hilda Doolittle, recently married to
Richard Aldington
Richard Aldington (8 July 1892 – 27 July 1962), born Edward Godfree Aldington, was an English writer and poet, and an early associate of the Imagist movement. He was married to the poet Hilda Doolittle (H. D.) from 1911 to 1938. His 50-year w ...
, living in the adjacent apartment. Hilda was shocked and hurt when Pound married Dorothy, and even more shocked to find he rented the apartment opposite at Holland Place. She and Dorothy were not on friendly terms, with Hilda writing of her, "she is unbearably critical and never has been known to make a warm friend with a man or woman. She loathes (she says) children! However, that may be a little pose. She is a bit addictive to little mannerisms. I don't think she can be poignantly sensitive or she would never have stuck Ezra." When Dorothy came to
in the small apartment, she refused to cook—ever. In fact, she never cooked until she was to forced during World War II. Pound cooked in the larger room and worked in a small, better-lit room. He made furniture for the apartment where they stayed until 1919.
Although Dorothy and Ezra planned to honeymoon in Spain that September, the outbreak of World War I forced them to postpone. Instead they lived with
W.B. Yeats
William Butler Yeats (13 June 186528 January 1939) was an Irish poet, dramatist, writer and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival and became a pillar of the Irish liter ...
at Stone Cottage for the winter, where Pound worked on proofs for the second issue of ''
BLAST
Blast or The Blast may refer to:
*Explosion, a rapid increase in volume and release of energy in an extreme manner
*Detonation, an exothermic front accelerating through a medium that eventually drives a shock front
Film
* ''Blast'' (1997 film), ...
'' magazine. Of Dorothy, Yeats wrote, "She looks as if her face were made out of Dresden china. I look at her in perpetual wonder. It is hard to believe she is real; yet she spends all her daylight hours drawing the most monstrous cubist pictures."
[Moody, 252] Poet
Iris Barry
Iris Barry (1895 – 22 December 1969) was a film critic and curator. In the 1920s she helped establish the original London Film Society, and was the first curator of the film department of the Museum of Modern Art, New York City in 1935.
Life
Ba ...
, writing in the 1930s about the Pounds during this period, describes Dorothy as, "With
zracame Mrs. Pound, carrying herself delicately with the air, always of a young Victorian lady out skating, and a profile as clear and lovely as that as a porcelain Kuan-yin."
From her father she learned landscape art, but by 1913 her art showed influences of Japanese prints. Additionally, she was influenced by exposure to artists such as Wyndham Lewis and Henri Gaudier-Brzeska and by 1914 had assumed her own abstract
Vorticist
Vorticism was a London-based Modernism, modernist art movement formed in 1914 by the writer and artist Wyndham Lewis. The movement was partially inspired by Cubism and was introduced to the public by means of the publication of the Vorticist mani ...
style. In 1915, she designed the cover art for Ezra's volume of poetry, ''
Ripostes
''Ripostes of Ezra Pound'' is a collection of 25 poems by the American poet Ezra Pound, submitted to Swift and Co. in London in February 1912, and published by them in October that year. It was published in the United States in July 1913 by Small, ...
'',
and she designed Chinese characters to add to his manuscripts.
Her work was simply signed as "D.S." and never exhibited.
When the first issue of ''BLAST'' was published, to promote its publication, Dorothy walked along
Tottenham Court Road
Tottenham Court Road (occasionally abbreviated as TCR) is a major road in Central London, almost entirely within the London Borough of Camden.
The road runs from Euston Road in the north to St Giles Circus in the south; Tottenham Court Road t ...
conspicuously holding the brightly colored
avant-garde
The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretica ...
magazine for all to see.
Paris and Italy
![Dorothy Shakespear 1919](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/09/Dorothy_Shakespear_1919.jpg)
Dorothy and Pound moved to Paris in 1920 where they first lived in a hotel until renting a studio at 70 bis rue de Notre Dame des Champs, a small street near the
Dôme Café. With a letter of introduction from
Sherwood Anderson
Sherwood Anderson (September 13, 1876 – March 8, 1941) was an American novelist and short story writer, known for subjective and self-revealing works. Self-educated, he rose to become a successful copywriter and business owner in Cleveland and ...
,
Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style—which he termed the iceberg theory—had a strong influence on 20th-century fi ...
secured an invitation to tea for himself and his wife
Hadley, who found Dorothy's manners to be intimidating, saying of their apartment that it was as "poor as Gertrude Stein's studio was rich".
[Carpenter (1988b), 65] Nonetheless they forged a firm friendship that lasted many years,
[Stock, 267] with Dorothy turning to Hemingway for help in the early 1950s, during Pound's incarceration at St. Elizabeths.
During this period Pound edited and Dorothy worked as business manager for the four volume literary magazine, ''The Exile'', featuring works by Pound himself, Hemingway, and others.
In 1923, Pound met classical violinist
Olga Rudge
Olga Rudge (April 13, 1895 – March 15, 1996) was an American-born concert violinist, now mainly remembered as the long-time mistress of the poet Ezra Pound, by whom she had a daughter, Mary.
A gifted concert violinist of international reput ...
, with whom he fell in love and had a relationship until his death. A year later, in 1924, Dorothy and Pound left Paris for Italy to allow Ezra time to recuperate after suffering from appendicitis. They stayed in
Rapallo
Rapallo ( , , ) is a municipality in the Metropolitan City of Genoa, located in the Liguria region of northern Italy.
As of 2017 it had 29,778 inhabitants. It lies on the Ligurian Sea coast, on the Tigullio Gulf, between Portofino and Chiav ...
briefly, moving on to Sicily, and then returning to settle in Rapallo in January 1925. On 9 July 1925 Olga gave birth to their child Mary, in the
Italian Tyrol. Dorothy was separated from Pound for much of that year and the next; she joined her mother in
Siena
Siena ( , ; lat, Sena Iulia) is a city in Tuscany, Italy. It is the capital of the province of Siena.
The city is historically linked to commercial and banking activities, having been a major banking center until the 13th and 14th centur ...
in the autumn, and then went to Egypt from December 1925 to March 1926, returning pregnant to Rapallo.
[Carpenter (1988a), 448–453] In Paris in June for the opening of Pound's opera ''
Le Testament de Villon'', Dorothy decided to stay and to have the child at the
American Hospital. Because Pound was away when the child was born Hemingway brought Dorothy to the hospital. Omar Pound was born in the afternoon of 10 September 1926.
Dorothy kept the boy with her for only a short time; before his second birthday she sent him to London where Olivia raised him with Dorothy visiting frequently.
When Olivia died in 1938 she left a substantial income to Dorothy. In 1931 Olivia doubled Dorothy's income, who by that time had additional income in the form of various family bequests and dividends from investments. With her husband earning as little as £50 annually, the Pounds lived on Dorothy's income. Olivia set up a stock account for her which was soon depleted because she followed Pound's advice to invest in Italian stock. She inherited £16,000 from her mother, but during the war the money was inaccessible with assets from England prohibited from being sent to an Axis country. As a result, during the war years the couple relied solely on Pound's income, for the first time since their marriage.
In 1941 on two separate occasions, Pound tried to leave Italy with Dorothy: once he was denied passage by plane,
[Nadel, xxv] the second time they were refused passage on a diplomatic train out of the country. In 1944 Pound and Dorothy were evacuated from their home for being too near the coast. Pound wanted Dorothy to stay in Rapallo and care for his mother, Isabel, while he went to live with Olga. Dorothy insisted on staying with her husband—for a year the three lived together. Olga took a job in an
Ursuline school; Dorothy—who had not learned Italian after almost two decades in the country—was forced to learn to shop and how to cook.
Later years
On 25 November 1945, Pound was arraigned in Washington D.C. on charges of treason. The list included broadcasting for the enemy, attempting to persuade American citizens to undermine government support for the war, and strengthening Italian morale against the United States. Pound was ill at the arraignment and remanded to a Washington D.C. hospital where he underwent psychiatric evaluation. A week later he was admitted to
St. Elizabeths hospital and assigned to a lunatic ward until February 1947. Unable to renew her passport Dorothy only arrived in the US in June, at which point her husband, then declared 'legally incompetent', was placed in her charge. She was allowed infrequent visits until his move to Chestnut Ward the following year—the result of an appeal she initiated. She moved into a dreary apartment where she lived for 12 years, visiting her husband each afternoon. Tytell writes that she had "generally a calming, soothing influence." She typed his letters, acted as his confidante, shielded him from unwanted visitors, and led conversations amongst the visitors who flocked to visit the poet, particularly in the 1950s. However she failed to keep Pound from "himself" as Tytell writes, unable to prevent her husband's friendship with far-right activists such as
John Kasper
John Kasper (October 21, 1929 – April 7, 1998), born Frederick John Kasper, Jr., was a Ku Klux Klan member and segregationist who took a militant stand against racial integration during the civil rights movement.
Life
Educated at Columbia Un ...
. Furthermore, Pound continued to be interested in other women. He was visited at Chestnut Ward by
Sheri Martinelli
Sheri Martinelli, (January 17, 1918 – November 3, 1996) was an American painter, poet, and muse.
Life
Martinelli was born Shirley Burns Brennan in Philadelphia in 1918. Of Irish ancestry, she was the eldest of four children and began usin ...
, a former model according to Tytell, about whom Dorothy complained in a letter to the hospital's superintendent
Winfred Overholser Winfred Overholser (1892 – October 6, 1964) was an American psychiatrist, president of the American Psychiatric Association, and for 25 years the superintendent of St. Elizabeths Hospital, a federal institution for the mentally ill in Washington, ...
. Martinelli was then replaced with Marcella Spann, "a naive young English teacher from a small town in Texas".
[Tytell, 329–339]
In April 1958,
Archibald MacLeish instigated the campaign for Pound's release which was successful. He stayed on at St. Elizabeths for the next month, waiting for a passport, packing books and papers that were stored in Dorothy's apartment, leaving the hospital early in May. In June Dorothy and her husband, traveling with Marcella, now acting nominally as Pound's secretary, boarded a ship for Italy. Upon their arrival they were met in Verona by Mary, Pound's daughter with Olga, and from there they traveled to her home in
South Tyrol
it, Provincia Autonoma di Bolzano – Alto Adige lld, Provinzia Autonoma de Balsan/Bulsan – Südtirol
, settlement_type = Autonomous area, Autonomous Provinces of Italy, province
, image_skyline = ...
,
Schloss Brunnenburg. In January 1959 tensions between the three women became intolerable. Dorothy, who lived in her own section of the castle, maintained legal guardianship and controlled his funds. A few months later, Dorothy took Pound and Marcella to Rapallo to visit Olga, and then traveled through Italy. In Sirmione Pound began to talk about marrying Marcella, and Dorothy used her legal power: by the end of the summer Marcella, 40 years younger than Pound, had been sent back to the US. Pound fell into a period of ill-health in 1960 that lingered through the early months of 1961. Dorothy eventually brought him to Rapallo, and unable to cope with him, she turned his care over to Olga.
Dorothy returned to London where she lived until the end of her life.
When in 1970, Noel Stock published what was meant to be definitive biography of her husband's life, Dorothy approved the final version. Pound died in Venice 1972 but she did not attend the funeral. She died a year later, in 1973.
[Cockram, 274]
Vorticist
The
Nasher Museum of Art
The Nasher Museum of Art (previously the Duke University Museum of Art) is the art museum of Duke University, and is located on Duke's campus in Durham, North Carolina, United States. The Nasher, along with Dartmouth's Hood Museum of Art and Pr ...
at
Duke University held an exhibition entitled ''
The Vorticists: Rebel Artists in London and New York, 1914–18'' from September 30, 2010 through January 2, 2011 including a painting by Shakespear.
Nasher Museum
Retrieved September 17, 2010
Notes
References
Sources
* Carpenter, Humphrey. ''A Serious Character: the life of Ezra Pound''. Faber, 1988.
* Carpenter, Humphrey. ''Geniuses Together: American Writers in Paris in the 1920s''. Houghton Mifflin, 1988b.
* Cockram, Patricia. (2005). "Pound, Isabel Weston", in Demetres P. Tryphonopoulos and Stephen Adams (eds). ''The Ezra Pound Encyclopedia''. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2005.
* Dennis, Helen M. "Pound, women and gender". in Ira Nadel (ed.). ''The Cambridge Companion to Ezra Pound''. Cambridge University Press, 2007.
* Harwood, John. ''Olivia Shakespear and W.B. Yeats: After Long Silence''. St. Martin's, 1989.
* Moody, David A. '' Ezra Pound, Poet : The Young Genius 1885–1920''. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007
* Nadel, Ira. ''The Cambridge introduction to Ezra Pound''. Cambridge University Press, 2007.
* Nadel, Ira. "The Lives of Pound", Ira B. Nadel (editor), in ''Ezra Pound in Context''. Cambridge University Press, 2010.
* O'Connor, William. ''Ezra Pound''. University of Minnesota Press, 1963
* Pound, Omar. "Pound, Omar". in Demetres P. Tryphonopoulos and Stephen Adams (eds.). ''The Ezra Pound Encyclopedia''. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2005.
* Reynolds, Ann, E. ''Ezra Pound and Dorothy Shakespear: Their Letters 1909–1914''. MagillOnLiterature. 1985
* Stock, Noel. ''The Life of Ezra Pound''. Pantheon Books, 1970.
* Tytell, John. ''Ezra Pound: The Solitary Volcano''. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1987.
* Wilhelm, James J. ''Ezra Pound in London and Paris, 1908–1925''. The University of Pennsylvania State Press. 2008
External links
Nasher Museum Vorticist exhibition
The Women Vorticists
Pound Family Postcards
A collection of 268 postcards collected by Dorothy (Shakespear) Pound containing correspondence between her and her friends and family.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Shakespear, Dorothy
1886 births
1973 deaths
Ezra Pound
Vorticists
English expatriates in Italy
English women painters
20th-century English painters
20th-century English women artists