Dorothy Shakespear
Encyclopedia
Dorothy Shakespear was an English artist, the daughter of novelist Olivia Shakespear
, and the wife of the poet Ezra Pound
. She was a member of the Vorticism
movement, and had her work published in the literary magazine
BLAST.
Dorothy met Ezra Pound in 1909; after a long courtship the two were married 1914. The couple moved to Paris in 1920, living there until 1924, when they moved to Rapallo
, Italy. Dorothy stayed married to Pound in spite of his long-lasting affair with Olga Rudge
whom he met in Paris in the early 1920s. In 1926 Dorothy gave birth to her son Omar Pound
, whom she sent to England to be raised by her mother. By the 1930s, she became financially independent, the result of various family bequests, but lost much of her money following Pound's advice to invest in Benito Mussolini
'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, Pound and Rudge lived together 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 to be visit him regularly, assumed control of his estate, and stayed with him until his release. They returned to Italy in 1958; in the 1960s she moved to London, leaving her husband to live out the last decade of his life with Olga Rudge.
(b. 17 March 1863), came from a British Indian Army
family on her father and mother's side. Olivia was born on the Isle of Wight
, lived in Sussex as a child before moving to London in 1877 where she and her sister, Florence, were raised to enjoy a life of leisure. Dorothy's father, Henry Hope Shakespear (b. 1849), traced his family to 17th-century East London
rope makers and, like his wife, came from a military family. Educated at Harrow, he went on to study law, became a barrister
and in 1875 joined a law practice. He and Olivia were married in 1885; Dorothy, the couple's only child, was born nine months later. By the late 1880s, Dorothy's mother was active in London literary circles, started writing and by 1894 had published two novels.
From her father, Dorothy learned to paint, accompanying him on regularly scheduled painting excursions in the country. Pound biographer Wilhelm writes as "bright, pert, pretty English girl with a winning smile although some people found her cold". She was educated at Hampshire Boarding School and at a finishing school
in Geneva, after which she lived at home, spending her time in activities such as water-colour painting, reading, letter writing, and accompanying her mother on social visits. Pound biographer Humphrey Carpenter
writes she had little romance in her life until she met Ezra Pound
.
in Kensington
, invited him to tea. 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:
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".
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
for a few weeks. Dorothy spent the time painting, becoming enthralled with Lake Garda
, as was Pound, claiming it was the first time she had seen color. At this time Olivia restricted contact between the two; days before Pound left for an extended stay in the US, Dorothy wrote to him in a letter she would abide: "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—dedicated to Oliva and Dorothy—the only instance in which Dorothy was allowed direct contact with him. John Harwood, Olivia Sharkespear 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. Dorothy likely considered herself engaged to Pound after the Italian trip.
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, 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 the 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.
Throughout the nearly five-year-long courtship, Dorothy and Pound corresponded regularly, fillng their letters with gossip about mutual acquaintances such as T.E. Hulme, Violent Hunt, Walter Rummel, Florence Farr
, and Henri Gaudier-Brzeska
; 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
period was capable of conversing easily with artists such as Wyndham Lewis
whom she met at her mother's salon.
Olivia realised her 27-year-old daughter was determined to marry Pound and in 1914 allowed the two to marry. At that time Pound earned less than he had in 1911 at the time of his first proposal.
.Wilhelm (2008), 151–154
Dorothy and Pound moved into an apartment at 5 Holland Place, with Hilda Doolittle, recently married to Richard Aldington
, 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 to 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 at Stone Cottage for the winter, where Pound worked on proofs for the second issue of BLAST
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." Poet Iris Barry
, writing in the 1930s about the Pounds during this period, describes Dorothy as, "With [Ezra] came 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 assimilated her own abstract Vorticist
style. In 1915, she designed the cover-art for her husband's volume of poetry, Ripostes
. Her work was simply signed as 'D.S.' and never exhibited. Despite her fragile demeanor, when BLAST was published, Dorothy carried the brightly coloured avant-garde
magazine conspicuously along Tottenham Court Road
in an effort to promote the publication. Additionally, she designed for her husband Chinese characters to add to his manuscripts.
. With a letter of introduction from Sherwood Anderson
, Hemingway
secured an invitation to tea for himself and his wife Hadley
, who found Dorothy's manners to be intimidating, and he considered their apartment to be as "poor as Gertrude Stein's studio was rich". Nonetheless they forged a firm friendship that lasted many years, 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
, with whom he fell in love and kept as his mistress until his death.
In 1924 Dorothy and Pound left Paris for Italy to allow Ezra time to recuperate after suffering from appendicitis
. They stayed in Rapallo
briefly, moving on to Sicily, and then returning to settle in Rapallo in January 1925. On 9 July 1925 Pound's mistress 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
in the autumn; and visited Egypt from December 1925 to March 1926, returning home pregnant. Visiting Paris in June for the opening of Pound's opera Le Testament de Villon
, Dorothy decided to stay there for the child to be born at the American Hospital. Pound was away at the time of the birth; Dorothy was brought by Hemingway to the hospital to the hospital where Omar Pound was born in the afternoon of 10 September 1926. A year and half later he was sent to London to be raised by Olivia.
In 1938 Olivia died, leaving Dorothy a substantial income. 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 Pound tried on two separate occasions to leave Italy with Dorothy: on the first he was denied passage on by plane, the second time they were refused on a diplomatic train out of the country. In 1944 Pound and Dorothy were again evacuated (during World War they had been evacuated from Stone Cottage one winter), from their home for being too near the coast. Pound wanted Dorothy to stay in Rapallo and care for his mother, Isabel, while he joined Olga. Dorothy insisted, however, 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 finally how to cook.
. The list of charges included broadcasting for the enemy, attempting to persuade American citizens to undermine government support for the war, and strengthening morale in Italy against the United States. Pound was unwell at the reading 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 June, when her 'legally incompetent' husband 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—after which she spent several hours with him each day. Upon his release twelve years later, they returned to Italy. According to Wilhelm, Dorothy was too frail to continue tending her husband, and Olga took over. From 1962 she lived with her in Sant'Ambrogio.
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.
Olivia Shakespear
Olivia Shakespear, , 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 copies. Her last novel, Uncle Hilary, is considered her best...
, and the wife of the poet Ezra Pound
Ezra Pound
Ezra Weston Loomis Pound was an American expatriate poet and critic and a major figure in the early modernist movement in poetry...
. She was a member of the Vorticism
Vorticism
Vorticism, an offshoot of Cubism, was a short-lived modernist movement in British art and poetry of the early 20th century. It was based in London but international in make-up and ambition.-Origins:...
movement, and had her work published in the literary magazine
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 letters...
BLAST.
Dorothy met Ezra Pound in 1909; after a long courtship the two were married 1914. The couple moved to Paris in 1920, living there until 1924, when they moved to Rapallo
Rapallo
Rapallo is a municipality in the province of Genoa, in Liguria, northern Italy. As of 2007 it counts approximately 34,000 inhabitants, it is part of the Tigullio Gulf and is located in between Portofino and Chiavari....
, Italy. Dorothy stayed married to Pound in spite of his long-lasting affair with Olga Rudge
Olga Rudge
Olga Rudge 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....
whom he met in Paris in the early 1920s. In 1926 Dorothy gave birth to her son Omar Pound
Omar Pound
Omar Shakespear Pound was an Anglo-American writer, teacher, and translator. He is the author of Arabic & Persian Poems and co-author of Wyndham Lewis: A Descriptive Bibliography...
, whom she sent to England to be raised by her mother. By the 1930s, she became financially independent, the result of various family bequests, but lost much of her money following Pound's advice to invest in Benito Mussolini
Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....
'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, Pound and Rudge lived together 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 to be visit him regularly, assumed control of his estate, and stayed with him until his release. They returned to Italy in 1958; in the 1960s she moved to London, leaving her husband to live out the last decade of his life with Olga Rudge.
Early years
Dorothy's mother, Olivia ShakespearOlivia Shakespear
Olivia Shakespear, , 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 copies. Her last novel, Uncle Hilary, is considered her best...
(b. 17 March 1863), came from a British Indian Army
British Indian Army
The British Indian Army, officially simply the Indian Army, was the principal army of the British Raj in India before the partition of India in 1947...
family on her father and mother's side. Olivia was born on the Isle of Wight
Isle of Wight
The Isle of Wight is a county and the largest island of England, located in the English Channel, on average about 2–4 miles off the south coast of the county of Hampshire, separated from the mainland by a strait called the Solent...
, lived in Sussex as a child before moving to London in 1877 where she and her sister, Florence, were raised to enjoy a life of leisure. Dorothy's father, Henry Hope Shakespear (b. 1849), traced his family to 17th-century East London
East End of London
The East End of London, also known simply as the East End, is the area of London, England, United Kingdom, east of the medieval walled City of London and north of the River Thames. Although not defined by universally accepted formal boundaries, the River Lea can be considered another boundary...
rope makers and, like his wife, came from a military family. Educated at Harrow, he went on to study law, became a barrister
Barrister
A barrister is a member of one of the two classes of lawyer found in many common law jurisdictions with split legal professions. Barristers specialise in courtroom advocacy, drafting legal pleadings and giving expert legal opinions...
and in 1875 joined a law practice. He and Olivia were married in 1885; Dorothy, the couple's only child, was born nine months later. By the late 1880s, Dorothy's mother was active in London literary circles, started writing and by 1894 had published two novels.
From her father, Dorothy learned to paint, accompanying him on regularly scheduled painting excursions in the country. Pound biographer Wilhelm writes as "bright, pert, pretty English girl with a winning smile although some people found her cold". She was educated at Hampshire Boarding School and at a finishing school
Finishing school
A finishing school is "a private school for girls that emphasises training in cultural and social activities." The name reflects that it follows on from ordinary school and is intended to complete the educational experience, with classes primarily on etiquette...
in Geneva, after which she lived at home, spending her time in activities such as water-colour painting, reading, letter writing, and accompanying her mother on social visits. Pound biographer Humphrey Carpenter
Humphrey Carpenter
Humphrey William Bouverie Carpenter was an English biographer, writer, and radio broadcaster.-Biography:...
writes she had little romance in her life until she met Ezra Pound
Ezra Pound
Ezra Weston Loomis Pound was an American expatriate poet and critic and a major figure in the early modernist movement in poetry...
.
Courtship
Dorothy met Pound at her own home on 16 February 1909 when her mother, who recently met the young American poet at a friend's salonSalon (gathering)
A salon is a gathering of people under the roof of an inspiring host, held partly to amuse one another and partly to refine taste and increase their knowledge of the participants through conversation. These gatherings often consciously followed Horace's definition of the aims of poetry, "either to...
in Kensington
Kensington
Kensington is a district of west and central London, England within the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. An affluent and densely-populated area, its commercial heart is Kensington High Street, and it contains the well-known museum district of South Kensington.To the north, Kensington is...
, invited him to tea. 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 hands, 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".
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
Sirmione is a comune in the province of Brescia, in Lombardy . It is bounded by the comunes of Desenzano del Garda and Peschiera del Garda in the province of Verona and the region of Veneto...
for a few weeks. Dorothy spent the time painting, becoming enthralled with Lake Garda
Lake Garda
Lake Garda is the largest lake in Italy. It is located in Northern Italy, about half-way between Brescia and Verona, and between Venice and Milan. Glaciers formed this alpine region at the end of the last ice age...
, as was Pound, claiming it was the first time she had seen color. At this time Olivia restricted contact between the two; days before Pound left for an extended stay in the US, Dorothy wrote to him in a letter she would abide: "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—dedicated to Oliva and Dorothy—the only instance in which Dorothy was allowed direct contact with him. John Harwood, Olivia Sharkespear 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. Dorothy likely considered herself engaged to Pound after the Italian trip.
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
H.D.
H.D. was an American poet, novelist and memoirist known for her association with the early 20th century avant-garde Imagist group of poets such as Ezra Pound and Richard Aldington...
arrived from America, believing herself to be engaged to Pound. Walter Rummel, 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 the 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.
Throughout the nearly five-year-long courtship, Dorothy and Pound corresponded regularly, fillng their letters with gossip about mutual acquaintances such as T.E. Hulme, Violent Hunt, Walter Rummel, Florence Farr
Florence Farr
Florence Beatrice Emery Farr was a British West End leading actress, composer and director. She was also a women's rights activist, journalist, educator, singer, novelist, leader of the occult order, The Golden Dawn and one time mistress of playwright George Bernard Shaw...
, and Henri Gaudier-Brzeska
Henri Gaudier-Brzeska
Henri Gaudier-Brzeska was a French sculptor who developed a rough hewn, primitive style of direct carving....
; 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
Vorticism, an offshoot of Cubism, was a short-lived modernist movement in British art and poetry of the early 20th century. It was based in London but international in make-up and ambition.-Origins:...
period was capable of conversing easily with artists such as Wyndham Lewis
Wyndham Lewis
Percy Wyndham Lewis was an English painter and author . He was a co-founder of the Vorticist movement in art, and edited the literary magazine of the Vorticists, BLAST...
whom she met at her mother's salon.
Olivia realised her 27-year-old daughter was determined to marry Pound and in 1914 allowed the two to marry. At that time Pound earned less than he had in 1911 at the time of his first proposal.
Marriage
On 20 April 1914, Dorothy married Pound despite her father's opposition who relented when the couple agreed to a church rather than a civil ceremony.Wilhelm (2008), 151–154 The marriage ceremony took place in the morning with six guests in attendance; official witnesses were the bride's father and her uncle Henry Tucker. As a wedding present Olivia gave them two circus drawings by Pablo PicassoPablo Picasso
Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
.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
Richard Aldington , born Edward Godfree Aldington, was an English writer and poet.Aldington was best known for his World War I poetry, the 1929 novel, Death of a Hero, and the controversy arising from his 1955 Lawrence of Arabia: A Biographical Inquiry...
, 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 to 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 at Stone Cottage for the winter, where Pound worked on proofs for the second issue of BLAST
BLAST
In bioinformatics, Basic Local Alignment Search Tool, or BLAST, is an algorithm for comparing primary biological sequence information, such as the amino-acid sequences of different proteins or the nucleotides of DNA sequences...
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." Poet Iris Barry
Iris Barry
Iris Barry was the founder of the film department of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City in 1935. Barry was a film critic, and an early proponent of relating cinema to sociology, mythology, and genre....
, writing in the 1930s about the Pounds during this period, describes Dorothy as, "With [Ezra] came 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 assimilated her own abstract Vorticist
Vorticism
Vorticism, an offshoot of Cubism, was a short-lived modernist movement in British art and poetry of the early 20th century. It was based in London but international in make-up and ambition.-Origins:...
style. In 1915, she designed the cover-art for her husband's volume of poetry, Ripostes
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...
. Her work was simply signed as 'D.S.' and never exhibited. Despite her fragile demeanor, when BLAST was published, Dorothy carried the brightly coloured avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
magazine conspicuously along Tottenham Court Road
Tottenham Court Road
Tottenham Court Road is a major road in central London, United Kingdom, running from St Giles Circus north to Euston Road, near the border of the City of Westminster and the London Borough of Camden, a distance of about three-quarters of a mile...
in an effort to promote the publication. Additionally, she designed for her husband Chinese characters to add to his manuscripts.
Paris and Italy
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 CaféLe Dome Cafe
Le Dôme Café or Café du Dôme is a restaurant in Montparnasse, Paris. From the beginning of the 1900s, it was renowned as an intellectual gathering place. It was widely known as "the Anglo-American café."...
. With a letter of introduction from Sherwood Anderson
Sherwood Anderson
Sherwood Anderson was an American novelist and short story writer. His most enduring work is the short story sequence Winesburg, Ohio. Writers he has influenced include Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, John Steinbeck, J. D. Salinger, and Amos Oz.-Early life:Anderson was born in Clyde, Ohio,...
, Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economic and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the...
secured an invitation to tea for himself and his wife Hadley
Hadley Richardson
Elizabeth Hadley Richardson married writer Ernest Hemingway in 1921. She was born the youngest daughter to a St. Louis family. After Hadley fell out of a window as a child, her mother became overprotective and curtailed her activities from then on...
, who found Dorothy's manners to be intimidating, and he considered their apartment to be as "poor as Gertrude Stein's studio was rich". Nonetheless they forged a firm friendship that lasted many years, 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
Olga Rudge 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....
, with whom he fell in love and kept as his mistress until his death.
In 1924 Dorothy and Pound left Paris for Italy to allow Ezra time to recuperate after suffering from appendicitis
Appendicitis
Appendicitis is a condition characterized by inflammation of the appendix. It is classified as a medical emergency and many cases require removal of the inflamed appendix, either by laparotomy or laparoscopy. Untreated, mortality is high, mainly because of the risk of rupture leading to...
. They stayed in Rapallo
Rapallo
Rapallo is a municipality in the province of Genoa, in Liguria, northern Italy. As of 2007 it counts approximately 34,000 inhabitants, it is part of the Tigullio Gulf and is located in between Portofino and Chiavari....
briefly, moving on to Sicily, and then returning to settle in Rapallo in January 1925. On 9 July 1925 Pound's mistress 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
Siena is a city in Tuscany, Italy. It is the capital of the province of Siena.The historic centre of Siena has been declared by UNESCO a World Heritage Site. It is one of the nation's most visited tourist attractions, with over 163,000 international arrivals in 2008...
in the autumn; and visited Egypt from December 1925 to March 1926, returning home pregnant. Visiting Paris in June for the opening of Pound's opera Le Testament de Villon
Le Testament de Villon
Le Testament de Villon is an opera written by American poet Ezra Pound.In 1919, when he was 34, Pound began charting his path as a novice composer, writing privately that he intended a revolt against the impressionistic music of Claude Debussy...
, Dorothy decided to stay there for the child to be born at the American Hospital. Pound was away at the time of the birth; Dorothy was brought by Hemingway to the hospital to the hospital where Omar Pound was born in the afternoon of 10 September 1926. A year and half later he was sent to London to be raised by Olivia.
In 1938 Olivia died, leaving Dorothy a substantial income. 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 Pound tried on two separate occasions to leave Italy with Dorothy: on the first he was denied passage on by plane, the second time they were refused on a diplomatic train out of the country. In 1944 Pound and Dorothy were again evacuated (during World War they had been evacuated from Stone Cottage one winter), from their home for being too near the coast. Pound wanted Dorothy to stay in Rapallo and care for his mother, Isabel, while he joined Olga. Dorothy insisted, however, on staying with her husband—for a year the three lived together. Olga took a job in an Ursuline
Ursulines
The Ursulines are a Roman Catholic religious order for women founded at Brescia, Italy, by Saint Angela de Merici in November 1535, primarily for the education of girls and the care of the sick and needy. Their patron saint is Saint Ursula.-History:St Angela de Merici spent 17 years leading a...
school; Dorothy who had not learned Italian after almost two decades in the country was forced to learn to shop and finally how to cook.
Later years
On 25 November 1945, Pound was arraigned in Washington D.C. on charges of treasonTreason
In law, treason is the crime that covers some of the more extreme acts against one's sovereign or nation. Historically, treason also covered the murder of specific social superiors, such as the murder of a husband by his wife. Treason against the king was known as high treason and treason against a...
. The list of charges included broadcasting for the enemy, attempting to persuade American citizens to undermine government support for the war, and strengthening morale in Italy against the United States. Pound was unwell at the reading 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
Lunatic
"Lunatic" is a commonly used term for a person who is mentally ill, dangerous, foolish, unpredictable; a condition once called lunacy. The word derives from lunaticus meaning "of the moon" or "moonstruck".-Lunar hypothesis:...
ward until February 1947. Unable to renew her passport, Dorothy only arrived in June, when her 'legally incompetent' husband 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—after which she spent several hours with him each day. Upon his release twelve years later, they returned to Italy. According to Wilhelm, Dorothy was too frail to continue tending her husband, and Olga took over. From 1962 she lived with her in Sant'Ambrogio.
Vorticist
The Nasher Museum of ArtNasher Museum of Art
The Nasher Museum of Art is the art museum of Duke University, and is located on Duke's campus in Durham, North Carolina, USA. The $24 million museum was designed by architect Rafael Viñoly and opened on October 2, 2005...
at Duke University
Duke University
Duke University is a private research university located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present day town of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco industrialist James B...
held an exhibition entitled The Vorticists
Vorticism
Vorticism, an offshoot of Cubism, was a short-lived modernist movement in British art and poetry of the early 20th century. It was based in London but international in make-up and ambition.-Origins:...
: Rebel Artists in London and New York, 1914-18 from September 30, 2010 through January 2, 2011 including a painting by Shakespear.
External links
Sources
- Carpenter, Humphrey. A Serious Character: the life of Ezra Pound. Faber, 1988. ISBN 978-0-5711-4786-1
- Carpenter, Humphrey. Geniuses Together: American Writers in Paris in the 1920s Houghton Mifflin, 1988b. ISBN 0-395-46416-1
- Dennis, Helen M. Pound, women and gender, in Ira Nadel (ed) The Cambridge Companion to Ezra Pound. Cambridge University Press, 2007. ISBN 9780521853910
- Harwood, John. After Long Silence. St. Martin's, 1989. ISBN 0-132-03458-X
- Moody, David A. (2007). Ezra Pound, Poet : The Young Genius 1885–1920. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199215577
- Nadel, Ira. The Cambridge introduction to Ezra Pound. Cambridge University Press, 2007. ISBN 9780521853910
- 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. ISBN 0-313-30448-3
- Reynolds, Ann, E. Ezra Pound and Dorothy Shakespear: Their Letters 1909-1914. MagillOnLiterature. 1985
- Stock, Noel. The LIfe of Ezra Pound. Pantheon Books, 1970. ISBN 0-86547-075-8
- Wilhelm, James J. Ezra Pound in London and Paris, 1908–1925. The University of Pennsylvania State Press. 2008 ISBN 978-0-27-102798-2