charles moyer wrote:
>
> blukas,
>     For that two cents you'll get no change. But I must be surprised as any
> to hear what a fine poetic ear John Adams had since the lines quoted here
> are from him and not Pound.
>     Now ain't you just a little embarrased to have said that one of our
> founding fathers wrote in "boring socio-political jargon"?
>
>     "presented in an unique way" - I like that. Maybe that is the reason no
> one will ever write anything quite like the Cantos.
>     At least you answered. What happened to the other "Hotmail" persona wha
> would all eager be ta discuss Pahund, an activity largely foreign to this
> list?
>
> Charles
>

John Adams wrote an awful lot -- Pound was rather selective in what he
quoted. I've never compared any of the Adams Cantos to the original text
in Adams, but I've always assumed that the Cantos resulted from a bit
more complex a procedure than merely copying out Adams. At a (not so)
simple level, Pound provides the line breaks. And in the present
instance, the "ear" was certainly Pound's, not Adams: That is, it was
Pound's 'ear' that detected the cadence he wanted in these lines.

The Adams Cantos, I think, are a metrical triumph. I doubt very much
that that triumph was (for the most part) to be found in the "undedited"
original.


...Is that despotism
     or absolute power...unlimited sovereignty,
     is the same in a majority of a popular assembly,
     an aristocratical council, an oligarchical junto,

What omission does the ellipsis here mark? (I haven't checked the text,
but should that "of a popular" be "or a popular"?) And Pound provides
the hanging indentation here.

and a single emperor, equally arbitrary, bloody,
and in every respect diabolical. Wherever it has resided

Pound not Adams breaks the lines before "and."

has never failed to destroy all records, memorials,
all histories which it did not like, and to corrupt
those it was cunning enough to preserve.....

Pound provides the line break between verb and object in the last two
lines.

> > I really like how the sound of the words sneaks up on me in this passage. On
> > the first quick read, the first five lines seem like a boring list of
> > socio-political jargon.

I don't see what is wrong with this as a characterization of a "first
quick read." It is socio-political jargon, and part of the triumph of
the passage is giving that jargon life.

Carrol