Dorothy Shakespear (14 September 1886 – 8 December 1973) was the wife of the poet Ezra Pound, the daughter of novelist Olivia Shakespear and an artist. She participated in the Vorticism movement, and had her artwork 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.
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Dorothy's mother, Olivia Shakespear (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.[1] 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.[2] By the late 1880s, Dorothy's mother was active in London literary circles, started writing and by 1894 had published two novels.[3]
From her father, Dorothy learned to paint, accompanying him on regularly scheduled painting excursions in the country.[4] Pound biographer Wilhelm writes as "bright, pert, pretty English girl with a winning smile although some people found her cold".[5] 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.[6]
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 salon in Kensington, invited him to tea.[7] 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.[8]
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".[9]
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.[10] 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!"[11] 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.[7]
The two remained unofficially engaged until 1914, with Dorothy adhering to social convention and waiting for her father's permission to marry.[12] 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.[13]
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.[14] 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.[15]
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.[16]
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.[17] 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.[18] As a wedding present Olivia gave them two circus drawings by Pablo Picasso.[19]
Dorothy and Pound moved into an apartment at 5 Holland Place, with Hilda Doolittle, recently married to Richard Aldington, living in the adjacent apartment.[20] 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.[21] 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.[18]
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.[22] 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."[23] 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".[24]
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.[23] 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.[25] Additionally, she designed for her husband Chinese characters to add to his manuscripts.[26]
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, 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".[27] Nonetheless they forged a firm friendship that lasted many years,[28] with Dorothy turning to Hemingway for help in the early 1950s, during Pound's incarceration at St. Elizabeths.[29]
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.[28] In 1923, Pound met classical violinist Olga Rudge, with whom he fell in love and kept as his mistress until his death.[30]
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.[31] On 9 July 1925 Pound's mistress Olga gave birth to their child Mary, in the Italian Tyrol.[32] 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.[33] 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.[33] A year and half later he was sent to London to be raised by Olivia.[34]
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.[35]
In 1941 Pound tried on two separate occasions to leave Italy with Dorothy: on the first he was denied passage on by plane,[36] the second time they were refused on a diplomatic train out of the country.[37] In 1944 Pound and Dorothy were again evacuated (during World War they had been evacuated from Stone Cottage one winter),[38] 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.[39]
On 25 November 1945, Pound was arraigned in Washington D.C. on charges of treason. 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.[40] 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.[41]
The Nasher Museum of Art 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.[42]
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