The Iowa Review
Volume 15
Issue 2 Spring-Summer: An Homage to Ezra Pound
1985
Major Form in Pound's "Cantos"
Ben D. Kimpel
T. C. Duncan Eaves
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Kimpel, Ben D. and T. C. Duncan Eaves. "Major Form in Pound's "Cantos"." The Iowa Review 15.2 (1985): 51-66. Web.
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Article 10
Form"
"Major
in Pound's
Cantos*
Ben D. Kimpel and T. C. Duncan Eaves
IN A RECENT
REVIEW
Froula
lists first among
Pound's "epic" whether
of three books on Ezra Pound, Christine
"the
remain unsettled
about
larger issues" which
it has "'major form,' and if so, how to describe
it."1 Speaking not of himself but ofWilliam
Carlos Williams,
Pound
the necessity of "major form" and pointed out several impor
questioned
or not, he
tant works which
in his opinion
lacked it.Whether
consciously
the effect of the Cantos:
describes very well
Art
to be the supreme achievement,
the "ac
ought
is
there
the other satisfactory effect, that of aman
at an indomitable
and hauling as
chaos, and yanking
very
possibly
but
complished";
hurling himself
much of it as possible
into some sort of order
aware of it
(or beauty),
...
...
as chaos and as
move
to the
I
would
almost
potential.
or
that plot, major
outline
should be left to
form,
generalization
authors who feel some inner need for the same; even let us say a very
need for these things; and to books
strong, unusual,
unescapable
both
where
the said form,
plot,
etc.,
springs
naturally
from
the matter
treated.2
on
was
to
epic, form
dependent
plot; something happened
state
the protagonist
which made his situation or his mental
(or both) at
it had been at the beginning.
But
the end of the poem different from what
In the older
as
is not an epic in this sense, even if one regards the protagonist
himself. The speaker is different at the end, but not as a result of a
the Cantos
Pound
causal sequence. Rather
there is a sudden change in the "Pisan
well-plotted
a
new
awareness of
Cantos"
pity, with
ordinary man, and
(a
turning from
on mental
outer social aims to increased
emphasis
states); there is another
a
sudden change in the last "Drafts and Fragments"
feeling of
(doubt and
in the tradition of
If an epic is a poem directly or indirectly
failure).
an
not
in
Cantos
is
the
of
the
fact
that it has heroes,
Homer,
epic
spite
It tells many
loves, gods, and a descent into Hell.
stories,
voyages, wars,
"An epic is a poem
but has no story. Pound's own definition,
including
*
All excerpts from unpublished manuscripts by Ezra Pound are copyrighted by the
Trustees
of
the Ezra
Pound
Literary
Property
Trust.
51
University of Iowa
is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve, and extend access to
The Iowa Review
®
www.jstor.org
about the Cantos,
is not much help either. "There is no mystery
history,"3
are the tale of the tribe."4 But if so, it is in the sense that they are a tale
they
about the tribe, not by the tribe. The values Pound tirelessly urges have not
in any period, most
of them not even in
those of any large group
not express aworld view accepted by society, or
Mussolini's
Italy. He does
been
by an influential part of society, like The Aeneid andBeowulf and The Song
ofRoland.
his is a poem about ethical, social, and religious
Comedy,
as his
values, and Pound most often cited Dante
Just before
predecessor.
as
one
"which be
he described his intended poem
the Second World War
Like
the Divine
of human error, and ends in
Forest' crosses the Purgatory
gins 'In the Dark
that the parallel with Dante was "pos
the light."5 He told Louis Dudek
can
to
a
line
from
dark
easily find
light very general."6 One
sibly
general
and Paradise.
passages in the Cantos of light and dark, of Hell, Purgatory,
is looking for "major form," is that they are not ar
in sequence. We would
equate Dante's
Inferno with Pound's de
ranged
of the modern world,
nunciations
especially of the financiers, Purgatorio
if one
The
trouble,
with
and economic justice, and Paradiso
the struggle for good government
visions of love, nature, and the gods. If this is correct, there are Para
with
dises inCanto II andCanto XVII and touches of Hell inCantos CV, CXI,
and CXV;
"Thrones."
touch
Denis
among
Canto
of Hell.
Goacher,
are the last three in
the most
cantos
CIV
of Paradise
clearly Purgatorial
a touch
begins with
followed
was
of this when
thinking
Perhaps Pound
isNOT
"Dante had aMAP/But
his matter
a
by
he wrote
to
zoned by that
all the dark not in
of degree
in different parts/matter
or
the sins of
Dante
does remember
in
Paradise."7
the
all
hell,
brightness
even in the
his
the earth in Paradise,
Nevertheless,
primum mobile.
is
he
and
cosmos
than
zoned
is much more
Pound's,
constantly
clearly
map
it is h?t?roclite
in a definite
moving
direction
ing which
direction,
Pound
down
is moving
and then up. There
in until he moves.
is no way
of tell
Itmay help reconcile those who approach literature through concepts of
as a
satire, as sug
Menippean
genres to regard the Cantos not as an epic but
between
similarities
Nanny
points out many
gested by Max Nanny.8
no
sets
Pound's poem and the long Menippean
tradition, which
expec
up
tation of "major form." But though such a classification
gets out of the
it simply says that structure is unnec
difficulty caused by the label "epic,"
like that of
is usually taken to imply a shape something
essary. Structure
52
the five-act
rising action, climax, and falling action, or at
tragedy, with
least a recognizable
from one state to another. Hugh Kenner,
progression
Ezra Pound did more than any other book to teach us how
whose
Poetry of
to read Pound, denies the poem
unity in the usual sense. He stresses the
of interlocking
of passage against passage") as
references ("weighing
the "poem's modus of structural unity" and finds that the Cantos can be or
ganized around many different schemes.9 This again denies the necessity of
mesh
structure
in the usual
structure
based
on
find one based
on
sense. The
changing
numerology
efforts
definitions
to find a
of Daniel
D.
of Time
and of Forrest Read
and patriotic
symbols
Pearlman
have not been
to
con
vincing.10
on his
Speaking of his earliest thoughts
long poem,
was to get a form ?
elastic enough
problem
something
It had to be a form that wouldn't
exclude
sary material.
it didn't
because
fit."11
Inclusiveness
Pound
said, "The
to take the neces
something merely
is a basic aim of the Cantos, which
is
one reason contrast
is such a frequent
technique, contrast in point of view,
style, tone, and subject matter. On page 258, contrasted with usury and
two frescoes by Simone Martini,
is the phrase, "Be
evidently
locating
tween KUNG
and ELEUSIS."12
The first is Confucius,
the most
socially
oriented of philosophers.
The second is the Eleusinian Mysteries,
where
there were
revelations
of the dead,
is the doctrine
"Kung"
"not taught,"
do not
but
of sex, and of the gods. On page 272
can be
of Confucius
which
taught and Eleusis is
revealed
"to catechumen
alone."
"Kung and Mencius
"But all valid
Pound wrote.
satisfy all the real belief of Europe,"
can
a
ethics is in accord with
them. In fact, only Kung
guide
so far as I know,
and fads that has
through the jungle of propaganda
Christian
man,
are not revealed, and no
Xtn
overgrown
theology. The mysteries
guide
are not
book to them has been or will be written."13
Those cantos which
Hell
can be divided
reform
of society)
generally
longer;
to expect
taught
not in conflict with
an idiot. He
Robert
an atheist is
has called Confucius
religion: "Whoever
a statement
the decree of heaven."14 Beside
in
respected
Morrison's
character
did not
cantos
into Kung
law ?the
economics,
(history,
cantos
and Eleusis
(vision, religion). The former are
are more like what we are
the latter (often called
"lyric")
more
from poetry and have been
is
popular. Confucius
about "the godless
Dictionary
of the Chinese Language
of the Confucian
Ethics" Pound wrote "Bunk."15 But Confucius
speak of the gods;
the mysteries
had no social purpose.
To Pound,
53
Personal
necessary.
ecstasy should not neglect
to
in
mind
needs
the goal of ecstasy.
improvement
keep
Mixture
of the two kinds is a regular structural feature.
both were
Chinese
and Adams
cantos
society;
social
in the
Except
there is alternation
and in the Pisan
sequence,
cantos
of
of the Kung
and
the
Eleusis
type
type, and within
cantos generally of one type there are frequent reminders of the other?for
are a
cantos
the brief lyrics which
example,
regular feature of the economic
of cantos
Between
(XLII-LII).
references
in the office of the New
Douglas
to Eliot's
of hell and a scene with
concept
appears:
Age
was cloud over
Zoagli
day there
And for three days snow cloud over the sea
like a line of mountains.
Banked
That
Snow fell. Or rain fell stolid, awall of lines
So that you
could
see where
the air stopped
open
andwhere the rain fell beside it
the snow
Or
fell beside
it.
(46/231)
Between
a
meeting
Cittatini's
Celso
of the Sienese
Grass
scheme
for increasing
the amount
of wheat
and
Balia:
out of
place.
nowhere
Pine
cuts
the sky into three
(43/219)
In the middle
of legal documents
about
the Monte
dei Paschi:
wave falls and the hand falls
Thou
shalt not
or see weed
Thy work
in the sun
always walk
sprout over cornice
in set space of years,
not over
an hundred.
(42/210)
Between
rives
54
economic
in Ferrara,
decrees
introduced
of Mantua
by:
and of Venice,
Lucrezia
Borgia
ar
When
the stars fall from
Or with
four points
the olive
or with
five
(35/175)
on concrete detail.
"lyrics," like the factual cantos, depend heavily
are
more
in
in the Romantic
the
than
sense, songs,
original
They
lyrics
"Our time has overshadowed
of personal emotion.
the
sense, outpourings
. . .Eleusis did not distort
on the individual.
an
mysteries
by
overemphasis
truth by exaggerating
the individual, neither could it have violated
the in
The
tone in most
is a strikingly
of the
spirit."16 There
impersonal
use
are about Pound's visions, not Pound's visions. We
could
lyrics ?they
a
more subtle distinctions
in speaking of the sense inwhich
poet speaks in
he does, it is a selected part of himself
that
his own person. Even when
dividual
to S. Propertius,'
Seafarer, Exile's Letter,
'Homage
are all 'me' in one sense; my
is certainly a great
personality
"While
speaks.
Mauberley
and
slag
heap of stuffwhich has to be excluded from each of this [sic] crystaliza
of the 'personality' wd. be a slag heap and not
expression
art."17 "I'm no more Mauberley
than Eliot is Prufrock."18
Probably?but
mean
not at all. There can be senses inwhich
in neither case does that
such
tions. And
an
as Artemis
"are" Pound
and Apollonius
of Tyana
and other
personae
senses in which
at Pisa are
and the prisoner
"ego scriptor cantilenae"
It is hard to find a rule that applies to all of the cantos, and it seems
Pound.
to
in the "Pisan
persona"
pedantic
speak of the "Pound
This persona was not the complete
but he
Pound,
obviously,
was
the things Pound was then doing and thinking,
doing and thinking
and he is not distanced
like, for instance, the observer in Canto XVII. The
needlessly
Cantos."
same
thing
Fragments";
hardly matters.
can
be
said of
if he is not Pound,
the
"persona"
he is so much
in
the
like him
last
"Drafts
and
that the difference
who prefers the lyric cantos,
says that
George Dekker,
are
in
of
kind."19
the
because
the
"different
poem
unity
they
they disrupt
But only a narrow conception
of unity will be destroyed by the difference.
a Sien
Pound was forging (to take only a few subjects of Cantos XLII-LI)
a voyage to Hell,
the sexual act, and
the results of the depression,
are.
the gods into aspects of one complex world?as
they
Some cantos have a unity within
the canto, but one cannot assume a
to
priori that all of them do. Passages may be cross references, or designed
serve the
not
canto:
of
the
of
"Most
and
the
in
Cantos
have
them
poem
unity
ese bank,
55
i.e. lines holding
them into the whole
'binding matter,'
poem."20 Or the
on
contrast.
Or
Pound
be
based
may
unity may
simply allow himself a
at the individ
least one should not decide without
digression ?at
looking
do not see that the memories
of Gibraltar on
ual case that he does not. We
pages
fit
103-05
into
the first
cantos,
seventy-one
though
(perhaps by
two
the way for
themes of the "Pisan Cantos,"
they prepare
serendipity)
the recovery of Pound's past and the reconsideration
of the Jews. John
on
woman
encounter with
the old
Adams'
from
page 360 is a digression
concerns of the Adams
cantos. Kang Hi's hunting
the political
and his
so far as we can tell, are
only colorful details, but per
(pp. 328-29),
someone can find their relevance or the relevance of Basil
Bunting's
haps
on page 474. One cannot decide until one
of
Firdausi
translation
projected
to decide
is in a position
from what, that iswhat
the canto is
"digression"
horse
an
Fang has made
mainly
dealing with. Achilles
unhappy choice
as
an
the second part of Canto XXXIII
example of miscellaneous
"it would
of time
to reconstruct
the coherence
scraps:
Pound
the
Fang had not discovered
together."21
an
to
turn
out
neat
form
which
Jefferson,
unusually
Karl Marx's
the thoughts
of the American
fathers,
founding
criticism of contemporary
the
of Marx
results
society,
unhappy
had in mind
other
a waste
be rather
in citing
when
he put
them
sources besides
pattern:
justified
ism in Stalin's Russia,
in an era of big
and the degeneration
of America
and corrupt politicians.22
All of the sources concern finance and
It isworth
social injustice, and all but the last concern revolution.
looking
business
to count on them unless one wants
to
for such patterns, but it is dangerous
risk imposing one's ideas of what
the poem should be rather than observ
it is.
ing what
The opening of Canto
taken
can be
the first of the "Pisan Cantos,"
a vivid
It begins with
picture of
of the end of Mussolini
and of the war,
the destruction
of
as a model
Pound's
view
LXXIV,
of Pound's
as he saw it. This
method.
continues
the sequence
throughout
a reference to the ideal
and is immediately
underlined
city of Dioce.
by
as
No
himself
Ou
often
Pound
another theme
One,
Tis,
appears
repeated.
and quattrocento
The references at the bottom of page 425 to romanesque
civilization
theme
are not hard to connect with
two favorite
the fall of
(Pound's
periods)
one
of
also
introduce
Pound's
favorite
the
civilization;
values,
they
impor
tance of
connections
The
between
these
brief
good
craftsmanship.
references are left for the reader to discover.
art
56
the top of the next page, reference to the paper money
of the T'ang
in India by the gold
caused
the suffering
introduce
standard
the cause of the war in Pound's view, with
the misery of the
economics,
At
and
to
Indian peasants returning us to the first line of the canto. The reference to
the Roman missal not only implies the laziness of the clergy (Pound has
labor applies only to Sunday) but
suppressed the fact that the unnecessary
so hard," he says later,
the idea of rest ("don't work
plays also upon
to Pound's
p. 531), appropriate
has been useless. His weariness
that his work for social justice
recognition
is underlined
by the sapphire bed that
ends on a note of
brings sleep (a repeated reference), and Canto LXXXIII
re
weariness:
"Let an old man rest." The Wanjina
furthermore,
myth,
us that there can be too many words;
minds
like Wanjina's,
Pound's
mouth
a related cause
taken away. It also alludes to colonialism,
near Pisa and on Lake Garda reveal a
The sacred mountains
has been
of the war.
sphere
above
"woman,"
the misery
of the camp, with
Lake
an element never
absent
from
Pound's
long
of the prison
camp
return us to
actuality,
as
Garda
suggesting
The
poem.
people
the se
throughout
they do
quence.
to Pound's
References
other main
element
walking
of the sequence,
tours of southern
Pound's
France
recovery
introduce
of his personal
an
past,
especially of the things he has loved. The lizard that upheld him is the first
of many references to the consolation
found in the small segments
ture he could observe in the camp. Kuanon
signifies pity, illustrated
of na
by the
digging of the ditch around his tent and later by the gift of a table from
one of the
is brought
in by Erigena's assurance that
guards. An ideal world
are all
the
Chinese
sage kings, and by the Noh play Hago
lights, by
romo. Pound repeats the economics
the references to the loans
theme with
we
made
to build
the Athenian
fleet,
in Lenin's
of capitalism,
and in
the Old Testament
(a reconsideration
criticism
on economic
quotations
justice from
of the Jewish tradition Pound had so often
The ordinary man
denounced).
canto and the prisoners at
(the peasant of the opening of the
Pisa) reappears
an echo of page 131. Three hun
in the hanging of Till and in "tovarisch,"
later (p. 431), Pound discovers he has been a hard man. Crafts
reappears in an echo of the stone carving of page 238 and in the
manship
Benin mask of Edwards' face, and the fall of the city in the story of the lute
dred pages
of Gassir with
Here
the destruction
there is development,
and rebirth of the African
not
merely
repetition,
city ofWagadu.
since the city destroyed
57
in the outside world
in the mind
is indestructible
and can be renewed
like
in the beauti
the lark arising. Woman
and love make further appearances
at Terracina.
in Hades
The
and in the statue of the goddess
ful women
in
has
the
of
Pound
loved
of
and
what
the
reappears
recovery
personal past
in his youth, now dead. Also dead are the old aristoc
restaurants
the latter tying the personal
Pound has known,
racy and the
of the
of civilization
and the importance
the destruction
past with
in the reminder of "temples/plural"
Pound stresses polytheism
physical.
lordly
men
he knew
and in Micah's
It would
"Each
take much
in the name
too
to show
been
long
how
of his God."
to
explicate
this canto
fully. We
have
disconnected
references, by
trying
apparently
can
be
formed into a
form
which
do
patterns
repetition,
possibly
(plural)
a
was
at
conscious
of
of
the
Pound
given time. There
things
single pattern
is some movement,
internalized values; there is some hope
towards more
merely
of a better
minders
is never strongly
future, which
of an ideal world which makes
affirmed or durable;
there are re
present
suffering unimportant.
the sequence. The canto ends with
the suffering recurs throughout
to find
stress again on the ability of the mind
(the creative imagination)
as an indication
over
can take the last line
patterns. We
Lethe")
("passed
But
to be left for Paradise, since Dante crosses Lethe on
and soon (not immediately)
ascends
of Purgatory
to Paradise.
but
In Dante,
Lethe does not cause complete
forgetfulness
a
in the "Pisan
of evil deeds,23 and there is movement
only forgetfulness
its valuable moments.
Cantos"
the past by stressing
towards recreating
is about
that Purgatory
the top of the mountain
the negative
reappear over
aspects of Canto LXXIV
is attained. The dark night
and over; no lasting Paradise, even in the mind,
in this canto (pp. 436 and 438), but it is in Canto
of the soul occurs
But
in later cantos
LXXVI
that we
are reminded
that Hell
new themes introduced
important
and
the
ysus
ecstasy he brings and the
tent
But
Pound's
(and then vanish).
economic
fallen
civilization,
injustice,
two
of
the
last
pages of Canto
subjects
most
there
is movement
in the canto
is as real as Heaven
(p. 460). The
in the later Pisan cantos are Dion
visions
of women
appear in
the themes of
which
not
they do
replace
are the
and present misery, which
In other words,
LXXXIV.
though
we
in
the sequence?more,
and
think,
is elaboration
and
than in any other part of the poem ?the main method
but his
further illustration. At the end, the speaker has learned something,
58
is unchanged,
in the juxtaposition
world
and whatever
complex
themes.
of various
we
unity
find resides mostly
Itwill be noted (anddeplored by some theorists) thatwe have been talk
ing mainly of subject matter
(or themes). Most of Pound's
Cantos after he began to write
them stress the importance
that "Homage
often praised the valuable advice of Hardy
remarks on the
of content.
He
to Sextus
Pro
with his usual ability
pertius" should have been called "S. P. Soliloquizes";
as
to recreate the words of others, he read
Hardy
poking "the weak spot in
a dam'd lot of aesthetes we
most writing
of the last 30 years. = what
are. = One almost comes to believe that the artist
to be too damn
ought
bloody
taught
to be able to perceive
anything but his subject." The remark
stupid
a great writer
him to see the difference between
and a hanger-on:
at "WHAT,"
the poetaster worries
about "HOW."24
of which
reflected a "real" world
he
often spoke as if his work
merely
reported the "facts." Some critics deny that there is any reflection
of aworld outside the poem and are interested in purely formal structures.
Hardy
Pound
looked
we are sure that
though
all
earlier
he thought
writers,
disapprove
that the words of a poem can and should refer to (not of course reproduce)
a world
In "reality"
is that world?
the poem. But where
outside
(wher
ever that
In
In
Or
in
of
facts?
the
the
mind
poet?
"objective"
objective
is)?
Such
an interest
is of course
legitimate,
of it. Like almost
Pound would
facts
as reflected
in the mind
of the poet?
even
is more
There
than a verbal
now seem to think
here. Few people of any sophistication
they
can capture the Welt an sich, but this does not necessarily mean that we are
or a
to live in aworld
condemned
(like language, mathematics,
philosoph
distinction
ical system)
which
can be consistent
because
it is a human
construct
like earlier metaphysicians
and like all non
describing
only itself. Pound,
a
was trying to discover or
impose meaning
by putting his
metaphysicians,
a pattern. Like anyone who
to do so, he
into
tries
observations
together
does not prove that he did not discover truths.
If the "reality" of the Cantos is Pound's view of a reality outside the poem,
of reproduction
of reality on the one hand
then we escape the dichotomy
and verbal structures on the other. Pound's view of "reality" depends on a
world outside the poem but is not bound by it; like all of us, he saw some
stimulated
inside.
something
thing "out there" which
fell short of Truth ?which
A musical
term used by Pound
himself
to describe
the Cantos
is "fugue."
59
his remarks, we judge that this term applies to subjects rather than
to the use of "counter
sounds; if so, it is not open to the usual objection
to
sentences at the
in literature,
that it is impossible
point"
"play" two
From
to his father in 1927, Pound called his "main scheme"
same time. Writing
and counter
"Rather
like, or unlike
subject and response
subject in
as his
man goes down
cantos:
two
"Live
He
the
first
cited
example
fugue."
the re
'repeat in history'"
(evidently
or
moment
of metamorphosis"
sponse), and "The 'magic moment'
(the
a
counter
"Take
fugue: theme, response, contrasujet. Not that I
subject).25
mean
to make an exact
analogy of structure."26 Yeats early reported that
into
the world
of Dead,"
"The
a struc
canto is finished,
the hundredth
poem "will, when
display
ture like that of a Bach Fugue. There will be no plot, no chronicle
of
no
two
into
the
Descent
of
but
Hades
events,
discourse,
themes,
logic
a
from Homer,
from
mixed
with
Ovid,
and,
these,
Metamorphosis
must
Yeats
historical characters."27 Pound
medieval
and modern
have told
Pound's
irritation with
the same thing he told his father. Pound expressed
a
not
not "have
Yeats' remark: Yeats did
know what
fugue is and could
the hell Iwas talking about."28 The fugue as Pound describes
known what
a musical
it has contrast as a main element:
form would
take the
"Only
about
and the Confucian
material,
strains and tensions"29?subject
yang?30
"Cantos won't
universe
as I see it is a universe
and counter
of interacting
to yin and
subject compared
to Norman
until my demise," Pound wrote
reserve
of
death-bed
swan."31
Pearson;
"shd/always
possibility
He seems to have had no fixed idea of how long his poem was to be; most
a hundred cantos
in the Divine
often he mentioned
(the number
Comedy),
as
1922 he spoke of "100 or 120,"32 and
but he did not stop there. As early
be finished
Holmes
he seemed
that would
always
or round off a
to imagine a
paradise
philosophy
an end. After his revision of the three cantos
published
unable
provide
was
did not change;
rewritten,
only Canto VI
Poetry, his method
was still called "A Draft of XXX Cantos."
section
But his
the
first
though
in
to
in response
In
interests.
and tone changed
subject matter
changing
the Renaissance,
Cantos XXXI-LI
and Art are largely re
Provence,
a less
His imprisonment
glamorous
history and by economics.
placed by
near Pisa introduced new themes
of
his early life) and
(especially memory
on an old one, the
city fallen and reborn; it also intro
emphasis
a new persona,
the poet who
lives and feels, not merely
"ego scrip
increased
duced
60
tor cantilenae"
his poem
judges. At St. Elizabeths
(pp. 350, 360) who
to reflect his biography
and more obviously
the new books he
a very
"Drafts and Fragments"
again has
personal
speaker, med
on his poem and on his life.
continued
found.
itating
When
Pound
partite structure,
in the Schifanoia
spoke of the divisions
most often of Dante's.
Palace
in Ferrara,
life on the bottom,
from everyday
If Yeats
Triumphs.
events
got
that do not recur,
scent into the underworld
of the Cantos,
Another
model
also
tripartite:
then the Zodiak,
the parallel correctly,
the signs of the Zodiak
a tri
spoke of
was the frescoes
he
scenes
contemporary
and above, Petrarch's
the bottom
are fixed elements
the
are
like de
and at the top are "arche
the recurrent,
the permanent,
the
and metamorphosis,
"Best
div. prob,
the frescoes sent to James Laughlin,
of
plan
"Constructive
"Dominated
by the Emotions,"
typal persons."33
casual."34 Above
frescoes
a
Pound
calls
?
Efforts
planes
order into things" and "The
and Adams ?Putting
Chinese
Emperors
in 90"
of Benevolence.
Theme
of St. Victor can
domination
(the Richard
was
to
same division
the Dantean
scheme.36 A slight
to).35 The
applied
dominated
variation,
by emotion,
people
struggling
upwards,
"people
and those who have some part of the divine vision," was also applied to it.
"The thrones in Dante's Paradiso," he told Donald Hall, "are for the spirits
have been responsible
for good government.
The
the people who
to move
out from egoism and to
in the Cantos are an attempt
on
of an order possible or at any rate conceivable
establish some definition
.
.
.
concerns
states
of
for
mind
the
of
earth.
Thrones
people responsible
of
thrones
something
people
Hsi,
more
looking
Hohenlohe,
does include
than their personal conduct."37
"Thrones"
Leo VI, K'ang
for order and good government?Justinian,
and especially
Thiers,
Buchanan,
Anselm,
Talleyrand,
and at least as just in earlier
such people have been as prominent
the good Chinese
Adams, Van Buren,
cantos?Jefferson,
emperors, Ran
in
Benton.
of
Dante
the
Thrones
Roanoke,
Actually
dolph
(the third
Coke.
But
highest order of angels) correspond
but to the higher heaven of Saturn
ing deeply into the truth "in which
not
to the heaven
highest
value,
the schemes
(Justice)
is see
delight
is quieted."38 The good
of St.
Richard
Purgatory;
(Contemplation)
every intellect
seem to
rather with
governors would
belong
Victor
does belong with
the contemplatives.
for his hesitation
between
Justice
Except
are similar,
of Jupiter
?their
as the
and Contemplation
and each of them needs to end with
61
a
a Paradise,
to the poem. Pound saw the
problem:
a
are
all the superficial indications
paradiso when
to write
an
I am
And he added. "Okay,
apocalypse."
triumphal
to write
"It is difficult
that you ought
... Imust
find a verbal formula
stuck.
of order
principle
situation
been
And
A god
to combat
the rise of brutality?the
Even aside from the world
versus
the split atom."39
the Second World War, writing
following
easy.
Pound's
conclusion
Paradise was
is an eternal
both
internal
a Paradise
and transient.
has never
is a god?
"What
state of mind."40
Le Paradis
but
spezzato
it exists
only
n'est
apparently
in fragments unexpected
the smell of mint,
Ladro
the night
pas artificiel
excellent
sausage,
for example,
cat;
(74/438)
Le Paradis
n'est
pas artificiel
are
States of mind
inexplicable
to us.
(76/460)
"From 72 on we
the Adams
cantos, he had written,
finishing
war and
the empyrean,
etc."41
philosophy/Geo/Santayana
Perhaps
we
doubt it?it has not been
imprisonment
kept him from entering it, but
After
enter
in a long poem for well over six centuries. And
(convincingly)
was
one
not
to
was in it. In 1953 he was still
Pound
promising
pretend he
. . .
"a Paradiso
toward final coherence."42 We
Guy Davenport
moving
cannot
feel much
irritated by
those, however
sympathy with
justly
entered
or his Modernist
methods,
political views
in the last "Drafts and Fragments"
his confession
Pound's
cohere. Who
has? Who
in fact cohere? The
herence,
have gloated over
that he has not made it
who
that tried to take in asmuch
confession
of failure
itself shows
as Pound
a
high
did? Does
it
standard of co
and of truth.
Paradise might have come in at least three ways. He might have
or a
that assured a happy end. But he was
religion
accepted
philosophy
He used philosophers
little interested in abstract philosophy.
like Erigena
to
extract
own
not
to
and Plotinus
fitted his
ideas,
tags which
explore
Pound's
a
their systems.
62
If he had an epistemology,
itwas
that of the common
man,
?we
empiricism
ligion-and
learn from our senses. He was
to
otherworldly
accepted belief.
religions
hostile
to the Christian
re
and his age offered him no
haven't got a nice little road
in general;
you
generally
"Obviously
map such as the middle
ages possessed of Heaven."43 He might have imag
ined a terrestrial paradise in the future. He had once hoped for amore just
state inMussolini's
even in his mind,
never
Italy, but it was,
really Para
dise, and it had fallen. Or he might have found a Paradise in his mind. The
general pattern of the "Pisan Cantos"
wards his own states of mind; but many
with
external events. He was probably
is away from external events to
cantos deal again
of the post-Pisan
too much devoted
to social issues
to be
satisfied with
this solution; but more
serious is the fact
altogether
was a better reporter of
that as an honest observer and reporter
(and he
mental
state of
than of political events) he could hardly impose a
fleeting
mind as a permanent
solution. Without
such a solution there is no satisfac
structure.
tory ending and therefore no rounded
Wordsworth
had found a climax for his poem
the creative
Pound's
discovered
imagination
the world
with
relationship
on
about
the ascent
around
him
the poet's mind,
of Mount
Snowden.
illustrates
the creative
but he has little to say about
imagination,
a
would
probably have regarded
discovery
but not in the 1950s. And he had discovered
Canto
II, and
could
several
thereafter;
but not
take them anywhere.
a
that
felt
poem should go somewhere,
them,
report
It is usually
is circular and
times
it. Very early in his career he
about Art as a fitting climax,
his gods too soon ?already
in
went.
He
they came, and they
even
if its structure
it returns
to its starting
see that the
cannot
point. We
Cantos goes anywhere.
It changes as Pound's
interests change, but there is
little horizontal
Its unity
is more
can cut
vertical ?one
development.
at
interests and values
through it many points and find several of Pound's
on one page. In this sense it is static. It
changes, but does not progress, ex
us
to
on
different
old scenes.
cept
give
perspectives
Those
Others
events
ment
who
demand
think
may
observed
towards
structure
that aworld
both
a climax
outside
in the usual
view
sense will
based on contrast
be disappointed.
(the poet's view of
and inside his mind)
rather than on move
a
If poet's world view can be regarded as
is enough.
the Cantos in away that will ac
enough unity, it is not hard to summarize
count for every canto
not in
(but
order) and almost every passage (except
colorful details to flesh out events and
characters). At the bottom,
ruling
63
avarice. It is unnatural,
is self-interest,
the world,
usually equated with
to combat
it. Another
the natural cycles is one way
and a life following
in the earlier cantos) is Art. Sex is another. Both lead to tempo
(especially
is a search for
rary revelations. During most of the poem the main weapon
a
also
and economic
system, based closely on ethics, which
just political
at
On
Law
the
evil.
another
there
least
level,
proves temporary.
mitigates
seen in the mind
of the various gods,
and in
glimpses
unpredictable
?
us
to
and provide consolation
nature, which
encourage
keep searching,
are
the
Overall,
again temporary. Our glimpses of them
metamorphoses.
a
a
sense
a
It demands
of the past,
towards Light.
search is voyage
ques
are
tioning
of the dead,
and an awareness
of repeated
patterns.
Notes
1. Christine Froula, rev. of The Poetic Achievement ofEzra Pound byMichael Alexander,
Ezra Pound andThe Cantos: A Record of Struggle byWendy Stallard Flory, and The Tale of
the Tribe: Ezra Pound and theModern Verse Epic by Michael Andr? Bernstein, Modern
Philology, 80 (1982), 103.
2.
Literary Essays, ed. T. S. Eliot (New York: New Directions, 1968), pp. 394-98.
Ezra Pound, Literary Essays, p. 86; ABC ofReading (New York: New Directions,
1960), p. 46.
3.
4.
Ezra Pound, Guide toKulchur (New York: New Directions,
5.
Selected
p.
7.
ed. William
Prose,
6. Dk/Some
Cookson
(New
York:
New
Letters of Ezra Pound, ed. Louis Dudek
1970), p. 194.
Directions,
1973),
p.
(Montreal: D C Books,
167.
1974),
13.
Loose
in the Humanities
sheet
to thank
want
the authorities
Research
of the Humanities
from this and theMS letter to Ingrid Davies
Trustees
of
and other
the Ezra
manuscripts
Pound
Literary
in this article.
Property
University
Center
Research
for permission
(see note 36). We
Trust
at Austin.
of Texas
Center,
for permission
alsowant
to quote
We
to quote
to thank the
from
these
"Ezra Pound and theMenippean Tradition," Paideuma, 11 (1982), pp. 395-405.
9. The Poetry of Ezra Pound (1951; rpt. Millwood, N.Y.: Kraus Reprint, 1974).
10. The Barb of Time: On theUnity of Ezra Pound's Cantos (New York: Oxford, 1969);
16: One World and The Cantos of Ezra Pound (Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina
8.
Press, 1981).
11. Donald Hall, "The Art of Poetry V: Ezra Pound: An Interview," Paris Review, 28
(Summer-Fall, 1962), p. 23.
12. All quotations from the Cantos are from the edition published by New Directions,
New
York,
1972,
to which
we
are
indebted
for permission
(copyright 1969, 1972 by the Estate of Ezra Pound).
64
to
quote
from
the Cantos
13. The Selected Letters of Ezra Pound, ed. D. D. Paige (New York: New Directions,
1971), p. 327.
14.
"Pace
Pound,
decisiva,"
15 March
di Roma,
Meridiano
1942,
p.
1.
15. Dictionary of theChinese Language (Macao, 1815-1822), I, p. 705. Pound's copy of
Morrison's
is in
Dictionary
for permission
Library
toKulchur,
16. Guide
want
We
the Library
of Hamilton
College.
from Pound's
marginalia.
to
thank
p.
299.
17. Pound/Ford: The Story of a Literary Friendship, ed. Brit a Lindberg-Seyersted
York: New Directions, 1982), p. 42.
18.
Selected
Letters,
the
to quote
(New
180.
p.
19. Sailing After Knowledge: The Cantos of Ezra Pound (London: Routledge & Kegan
Paul, 1963), pp. 139-40.
20. Pound to John Drummond, 5 Dec. 1932 (Paige Transcript 1063), in the Center for
the Study of Ezra Pound and His Contemporaries, Collection of American Literature,
Rare
Beinecke
Book
and Manuscript
Yale
Library,
want
We
University.
to thank
the
authorities of the Beinecke for permission to quote from this and other unpublished
in its possession.
material
21.
"Materials
on Canto
in the Beinecke
Pearson
XXXIII,"
since been
have
notes
See Shannon's
Holmes
of Pound's
the Study
of the sources
22. Most
Chace.
23.
for
Diss.
Cantos,"
Harvard
1958,
p.
1-51.
M.
and William
by James P. Shannon
in the TS notes by students
of Norman
as Cento:
A
"The Canto
of Canto
Reading
discovered
XXXIII
and Chace,
Paideuma, I (1972), pp. 89-100.
xxviii.
Purgatorio
127-29.
24. Pound/Ford, p. 55; Pound to Francis F. Mineka, 3March 1939 (MS in the Cornell
University Library.)We want to thank the authorities of theCornell University Library
to
for permission
quote from this manuscript.
for the Malatesta
"Pound's
Research
Eaves,
25.
Selected
Letters,
p.
210.
26.
Selected
Letters,
p.
294.
27. A Vision (London: Macmillan,
28.
No.
29.
D.
G.
Bridson,
"An
Interview
See also Ben D.
Cantos,"
Kimpel
11
Paideuma,
and T. C. Duncan
(1982),
pp.
418-19.
1962), p. 4.
with
Ezra
Pound,"
New
Directions
in Prose
and
Poetry,
17 (1961), p. 172.
Hall,
p. 23.
30. In "Fuge andCanto LXIII," Paideuma, 11 (1982), 15-38, Kay Davis has given a very
good detailed analysis of Canto LXIII as a fugue in Pound's sense.
31. Letter dated 5 Dec. 1958 (MS in the Beinecke).
32.
Selected
33.
Yeats,
34.
Letters,
A
Selected
Vision,
Letters,
180.
p.
p.
, p.
5; Bridson,
p.
172.
239.
35. Letter to James Laughlin dated 14Nov.
We
cited
want
to thank Mr.
in note
Laughlin
1955 (MS in the possession ofMr. Laughlin).
for permission
to quote
from
this and
the manuscript
41.
65
36. Letter to Ingrid Davies,
University
37.
Hall,
Wilson
of Texas
at
49;
see also
p.
Austin).
Paradiso
39.
Hall,
xxviii.
letter
Pound's
Library, University
38.
31 March 1955 (MS in the Humanities Research Center,
103-09,
to Charleen
Swansea,
n.d.
(MS
in the South,
of North Carolina at Chapel Hill).
ix.61-63.
p. 47.
40. Pound, Pavannes andDivisions (New York; Alfred A. Knopf,
1918), p. 43; see also
pp.143-44.
41. Letter to James Laughlin, 5 Feb. 1940 (MS in the possession ofMr. Laughlin); Noel
Stock, ed. "Letters of Ezra Pound," X: A Quarterly Review, I (1960), p. 265.
42. Davenport, "Pound and Frobenius," Motive andMethod inThe Cantos ofEzra Pound,
ed. Lewis Leary (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1954), p. 52. On 27 April 1958, the
month
he was
released
from
St. Elizabeths,
Pound
wrote
to J. Stummvoll,
"I have
ar
rived at the paradisiacal segment of my Cantos" (Letters1907-1958, ed. Aldo Tagliaferri
a
[Milano: Feltrinelli, 1980], p. 171). After that he wrote only few drafts.
43.
66
Hall,
p.
23;
see also Selected
Letters,
p. 323.