On the subject of reference works on Pound: I was considering purchasing
_A Companion to Ezra Pound's Cantos_, published by the UC press, 1993, by
Carroll Terrell; does anybody have any comments on this work? A browse of
it in the bookstore made it seem like a "must have", in some sense, for an
understanding of the threads of Pound's historical/literary narratives.
 
This might, I suppose, spark a discussion of the effect a Companion such
as the above might have on a reading of the Cantos. Terrell basically runs
each Canto line by line, picking out references and quoting relevant texts
(primary and secondary). Pound himself didn't have such a rigorously
analytical approach to what he brought in, and, given what he does with
the traditional academic narrative of literary development in a book such
as ABC's of Reading, it seems as if he himself saw Cantos' use of other
texts in a far different light than Terrell does. Does, then, in some
sense, a Companion actually distance the reader from the text more than a
muddle-through-and-get-what-you-can reading?
 
-- Simon DeDeo
 
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