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From:
Carrol Cox <[log in to unmask]>
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Date:
Sun, 6 May 2001 22:13:04 -0500
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By error I originally sent this only to Tim instead of to the list.

--

Tim,

I'm not really an expert on Pound -- just someone who has read him a
lot. I have presumed that the metric of Canto II is based on the latin
of ovid/propertius just as the the metric of Canto I is related to the
Seafarer. I find I can't immediately put my hands on my copy of the
collected poems, but if I remember correctly the translation/imitation
of Propertius has a lineation something like Canto II.

I was just browsing in Pope's Imitations of Horace today looking for a
quotation, and I noted in passing that a number of passages (despite the
apparent uniformity of the couplet) seemed to be "presentation" as you
describe it. Interestingly, Pope usually either in the lines themselves
or nearby in effect names or labels what is happening, but Pound does
also in such lines as

                poor old Homer blind,
                blind as a bat,
        Ear, ear for the sea-surge;

In which I take it that the third line labels the content of the cliche
"blind as a bat" in this context, as well as catching up the repetition
with a difference of breaking waves.

Carrol

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