Very sharp & thoughtful question, which I've wondered about too.  I've used
Terrell, often wondered if it was worth using systematically, and then like
you, I've wondered (perhaps like in Nabokov's Pale Fire) whether
alternatively it would be like an ant's perception of a mountain.  Glad you
raised the issue, and hope you get other responses.
 
-----Original Message-----
From:   Ezra Pound discussion list of the University of Maine
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Simon DeDeo
Sent:   Sunday, April 26, 1998 10:22 PM
To:     [log in to unmask]
Subject:        Pound Concordances and Companions
 
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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