lucas,
 
Off hand, you might try a comparison between the Wasteland/Four
Quartets, Canto 16 and/or 46 and a section from Dr. Williams answer to
the modernist 'epic', Paterson. Paterson is highly allsive in imitation
of Pound and Eliot. It is also a poorly integrated, half-digested
collection of flotsam (literally and metaphorically) that pales by
comparison to the work of the expatriots. Of course, I've found the
resistance to allusion and citation utterly entrenched among many people
studying (and teaching) poetry today unless the allusion is spare, in
English, and part of the regime of the immediately 'accessable'; or
rendered as a 'sign' quarantined from all wider context or textual
meaning. Convincing people of the efficacy of a poet accelerating a poem
through the history of the best that has been thought can be an uphill
battle. Of course, the cited material in Eliot and Pound is there for a
reason. And so much solid critical work has been done on the two that
perhaps you could demonstrate the hermeneutic depth and electric
connections that can be gained poetically by utilizing this most
modernist of methods. Though Kenner's Pound Era sounds like it might be
beyond your classmates, Kenner's earlier work The Poetry of Ezra Pound
might be a good place to start especially the chapters on the Cantos.
Good luck, Carlo Parcelli
 
Lucas R Klein 00 wrote:
>
> Pounders:
>
> taking a class on WCW's poetry wherein we also Mariani's biography of the
> Patersonite, many of my classmates have focused on the poetic antagonism
> Williams held and voiced towards Pound and Eliot through his
> poems.  Mariani makes much of this; in my mind, it's too much.  I
> personally see any frustration Williams had with the wannabe europeanness
> of Pound and Eliot, including the potentially arcane allusions etc, as
> minor and inessential to his--Williams's--poetic oeuvre.  what makes it
> worse is how obviously ignorant of Eliot's and especially Pound's poetry
> my classmates are.
>
> I seem to have lost my point.  this was more, originally, than a venting.
>
> ahh, yes: is there anything specific (as in, more than just a general
> sense I get from reading Pound's poetry--Cantos or otherwise) I can
> mention to argue that Pound's (and Eliot's) writings are more than
> overeducated and self-impressed mental gymnastics but instead are
> constituted of vibrant and emotional language that, as part of but not
> solely existent to the technique, re-INVIGORATES the classics and gives
> new life to literary tradition?
>
> I can think now, for instance, of Only emotion endures and Literature is
> news that STAYS news.  anything beyonf these soundbites?
>
> thank you.
>
> Lucas