Honey and Holy Men

Feb 5th, 2021 | By Timothy Han SM ‘22+1

In 1909, Ezra Pound published “The Ballad of the Goodly Fere,” a retelling of the Christ story in epic tone. In Pound’s proto-fascist reading, Christ becomes not a sheep led to the slaughter, but a warrior-martyr in the tradition of William Wallace, Joan of Arc, or John Brown. The Christ figure is all-powerful, “a master of men.”