Cookson, in his _Guide to the Cantos_ has Pound writing:
 
"1. Rather like, or unlike the subject and response and counter subject in
fugue.
A. A. Live man goes down into world of Dead
C. B. The 'repeat in history'"
B. C. The "magic moment" or moment of metamorphosis, bust thru from
quotidien into 'divine or permanent world.' Gods. etc."
(1927, from _Selected Letters_)
 
In 1922 Pound makes statements suggesting that he intended to compose a poem
of about 120 cantos which he planed to ". . . bring into . . . some sort of
design and architecture later."
 
While I'm at it, I'll look for any earlier mention of plans to implement
this notion of the fugue.
 
At 02:17 PM 6/6/98 -0400, you wrote:
>On Sat, 6 Jun 1998, Jacob Korg wrote:
>
>> With regard to David Centrone's problem with the unity of the Cantos --
>> somewhere Pound says that he has no use for the concept of "major form" --
>> or some such term. But he did seem to have begun with some ideas about
>> fugal form and the pattern of the Del Cossa frescoes, as in an early
>> letter to his father.
>
>A slight correction--
>
>It's a mistake to think that EP seems to have "begun with some ideas about
>fugal form" when writing cantos.  There's no evidence that Pound evoked
>the fugal analogy until about 1928, when he was well into the poem.  I
>wrote an article on the subject in ancient times.
>
>                                Stephen Adams
>                                [log in to unmask]
>                                University of Western Ontario
>                                London, Canada
>
>