(I thought I had sent this on Thursday but by mistake sent it off list
to another poster.)

I'm not sure what Pound or anyone else means by "major form" (whether
they are demanding it or condemning it). But there are major works
concerning which the critics have laboreed mightily to identify the
form, without major success (success being measured by the consensus a
given view attains). It is always easy to give a label and call it form.

Examples: _Winter's Tale_, _Canterbury Tales_, _Paradise Regained_,
_Dunciad_, _Don Juan_, _Moby Dick_.

The "form" that is missing from the _Cantos_ seems, primarily, the kind
of form that eases the work of explication by providing a framework on
which to distribute the commentary.

If you want the masochistic pleasure of seeing to what heights of
dulness the chase after form can rise I recommend two books, both by
Barbara Lewalski: _Milton's Brief Epic: The Genre, Meaning and Art of
Paradise Regained_ (1966) and _Paradise Lost: The Rhetoric of of
Literary Forms_ (1985). Don't say I didn't warn you if you choose
tofollow this recommendation.

Carrol Cox