I can't resist this temptation.
 
Tim Redman wrote:
>I'm not sure that Jonathan Gill is correct when he says "Pound was
>not a linguist."  His Latin was excellent; he possessed near-native
>fluency in Italian and close to that in French and Spanish; his
>Chinese became rather good by the '50s and his Greek and German were
>adequate.
 
        All the Italian speaking correspondents who received letters or
articles from Pound found his Itlian to be "picturesque," "idiosyncratic,"
or sometimes "incomprehansible." It must be admited that some
English-speaking correspondents also found his letters incomprehensible, so
perhaps one shoud discount the last epithet.
        Tim;s Italian is much better than mine, but what I have heard
ofPoundspeaking Italian could hardly be described as "near native flueney."
        I agree with Jonathan Gill that Pound's linguistic aptitude was not
much better than average--though his motivation and industry in learning
foregn languages was, of course, muc above average. Pound himself admitted
in a letter--whose provenance I have forgotten for the moment--that his
Latin was adequateat best. His Greek was essentially non-existent. His
comand of French was better than any other language--not surprising given
his early study of Provencal, and long association with French letters. I
have not heard any recording of him speaking French, but it is difficult to
imagie that he had a good accent. I don't know of much that would count as
evidence for his command of Spanish--though he certainly did study it. That
language is notable for its absene from the Cantos
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