Analysis of Ezra Pound's "The Garden"

Ezra Pound, an imperative imagist poet and fascist supporter (Gray), may have alluded to his personal support of fascism and condemnation of democracy (and his anticipation of its downfall after World War II) through his poem “The Garden.” In Pound’s eyes, the demise of aristocracy would be paralleled with the hopeful downfall of democracy, and the rise of the next era (tyranny) would correspond with the encouraged ascension of fascism. This theme of the disintegrating aristocratic class is illustrated through meaningful similes, allusions, puns, and paradoxes.
The first stanza introduces the poem by conveying the noblewoman as beautiful and fragile, but immediately shatters the illusion of beauty in the next two lines: “And she is dying piece-meal /of a sort of emotional anemia” (3-4). The word anemia, meaning lack of vitality, is the first depiction of the theme of the poem, in that it suggests the death of the upper class. Pound’s diction in line 1 (silk) establish...