A theme I would suggest would be the representation of
woman.  This undergoes drastic change: in the first XXX,
she's seen as a "chaos," a biological something-or-other
(I forget his exact phrase); whereas, by the time of the
Pisans, she's become spiritualized, the intercessor,
connected with moon-goddess and similar vs. the sun
imagery.  Does this change occur via steps, or all of a
sudden?  I don't know.  Is it a consistent development?
I don't know.  Check it out.
 
==Dan
 
 
 
At 08:24 PM 6/4/98 -0400, you wrote:
>Dan Pearlman:
>
>I've decided to revise my study and am probably going to pick a theme
>(usary, fraud, filial piety, etc.) which Pound introduces in I - XXX and
>follow its development through a much larger number of cantos.  I think that
>the problem with my original idea was that I was limiting the text to the
>first thirty cantos which would have been just enough to see just hints of
>things.  You suggested that I do an analysis of the various critics but I
>believe that that would be too difficult to accomplish in a mere 50 pages.
>
>My revised notion would limit the topic by focusing upon on single theme's
>reemergence (rather than limit the number of cantos); the structure would
>appear as the reoccurance of the theme would tend to emphasize it.
>
>Much gratitude,
>
>
>
>Dave
>
Dan Pearlman                    Office: Department of English
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