>Date:  Wed, 17 Nov 1999 02:42:29 -1000
>From:  Steven Santos <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject:      Looking to get Pounded...
 
>Anyway, I want to read the Cantos from beginning to end and would like some
>advise on literary prerequisites to help me digest it.  On my own I started
>with Homer, "The Metamorphosis", "The Aenied".  Recently I've been working
>through the Greek tragedies and comedies.  I'm really surprised at how
>intense, vivid, and fun these "classics" have been!
 
Reading the classics is a worthy goal.  Reading them solely in order to
be able to digest the Cantos is a different matter.  You should be aware
that Pound tended to heavily emphasize a comparatively small number of
works.
 
The Greek (and Roman) tragedies and comedies don't show up in the Cantos
very much at all.  (Sophocles more than any other dramatist.)  Most
classicists consider the Iliad more important than the Odyssey, but
Pound's attitude was the opposite; he has many many references to the
Odyssey and none that I know of to the Iliad.
 
For Ovid, he stressed Arthur Golding's translation.
 
Get the anthology FROM CONFUCIUS TO CUMMINGS, edited by Pound and
Marcella Spann and published by New Directions.  This will give you most
of the literary background you need for the Cantos.  Also get the volume
of Pound's translations published by New Directions.  And realize that in
Pound's translations in many cases his goal was to produce a semblance of
the *sound* of the original even at the expense of accurately reproducing
the meaning.
 
Despite the fact that I visited Pound a lot at St. Elizabeths, I'm not a
Pound scholar.  Knowing him personally gave me an incentive to read the
Cantos but it didn't give me much help in understanding them.  So what I
say is my own personal opinion and not stated on a basis of authority.
 
Pound always claimed that almost everything necessary to understand the
Cantos was there *on the page*.  Even the foreign language material is
not a block, in most cases; the same content is repeated in the English
language text.  (However it's nice if you have some idea of the *sound*
of the foreign language passages.)
 
However you should definitely get Terrell's GUIDE TO THE CANTOS, which is
available in paperback.  I have also found Christine Froula's books very
informative:  GUIDE TO EZRA POUND'S SELECTED POEMS and GUIDE TO EZRA
POUND'S SELECTED CANTOS.  She seems to have information most other
annotators do not.  Guy Davenport's book CITIES ON HILLS has some really
excellent explanatory material.  (Guy Davenport was someone else who
visited Pound in St Elizabeths many times.)
 
And by all means read Hugh Kenner:  THE POETRY OF EZRA POUND and THE
POUND ERA.  This is by far the biggest help to reading Pound.
 
But meanwhile, just get in there and read.  Don't treat the Cantos as a
crossword puzzle.  Ultimately, for the most part the annotations are
irrelevant.  They help you at the beginning, but what's ultimately
important is what's on the page.
 
In the beginning, you will diligently read all the reference books and
critical books in order to find the answers to all the wrong questions.
This is unavoidable, so don't worry about it.
 
You'll wonder "What does all this add up to?" and "What's the basic plan
Pound was following?"
 
Pound's overall plan for the Cantos was extremely vague.  Hugh Kenner and
Guy Davenport can tell you some, but the information they give seems very
unsatisfactory.  However the information they give is as much as Pound
ever worked out himself.  (This is my opinion, at least.)
 
In my opinion, Pound was working on a much more intuitive level in the
overall organization of the Cantos.  He wanted to include just about
everything that he considered important for the world to know about.
And he let himself be guided by the feeling which let him know when what
he was doing was fitting into a coherent structure.
 
In the ABC OF READING, he talks about the difference between symmetrical
form, such as the form of a vase, and organic form: the form of a tree.
The Cantos have the form of a tree; new material was created where there
seemed to be a place for it.  And yet a tree does have a vague an overall
direction it is growing towards, and the Cantos had a vague overall
direction Pound was moving towards.
 
The academics who study Pound know vastly more than I do.  But most of
the academics (Hugh Kenner being the notable exception) study Pound by
holding him at arm's length.  They have been taught that this is the
proper critical attitude for an academic.  To do otherwise would subject
them to the possibility of ridicule from fellow academics.
 
Fortunately, you're not an academic.  Allow yourself to really *commit
yourself* to the Cantos.  Let yourself be absorbed in them.  Allow
yourself to be a believer.  You can always back off and distance yourself
later.
 
People here on the list have recently talked about the Cantos in terms
of film montage, as originally developed by Eisenstein and used so
effectively by Hitchcock, Scorsese, and other directors.  Remember the
shower scene in Psycho: almost two hundred different shots edited
together into about 45 seconds worth of film time.  This is very much
Pound's way of presenting narrative.  But I think it helps even more to
think of music videos, presenting a narrative sequence of visual images
but without any clearly defined plot.
 
Look at Canto 17 and see it as a music video.  Get the annotations from
Terrell or, better, Christine Froula, but they're only really important
in order to assure yourself that you're not missing anything important.
It does help to know that the Canto is based on two very different
cities:  Rapallo and Venice.  Only Christine Froula will tell you this.
And it helps a little to know that apparently in Venice there are
underwater trees beneath the canals which have become petrified.
 
But just read the Canto and take in the images.  Don't look for a story,
because there's not one.
 
Opening line:
 
"So that the vines burst from my fingers"
 
Who is this speaking that vines should burst from his fingers?
Dionysus???  In the critical works, you'll find only speculation.
You can decide to believe one of the speculations, just to set your mind
at rest, but it really doesn't matter.  Just accept the image.
(It's useful to know, however, that Zagreus, mentioned several times in
the Canto, is an appelation for Dionysus.)
 
"The goddess of the fair knees" is Artemis, also known as Diana.  So
what?  Knowing that doesn't really make any difference to your
understanding of the Canto.
 
Further down (and at the very end) we're suddenly in the Venice of the
Borgia's.  Why?  What's the logic of suddenly bringing in Borso,
Carmagnola, and Sigismondo Malatesta?  Don't worry about it.  Pound was
working on an intuitive basis rather than a logical one (in my opinion)
and the effect he was producing seemed to him to work.  It's more likely
to work for you if you just give up trying to figure it out like a
crossword puzzle and commit yourself to it.
 
-- Lee Lady    <Http://www2.Hawaii.Edu/~lady>