Hello all,
 
I am taking a class called 'Americans in Paris,' which deals with the
expatriate crowd of the 20s.  Naturally, I want to write a paper about
'A Draft of 16 Cantos.' I have reconstructed a text of that book using
my New Directions paperback and several critical sources, including
Ronald Bush's study on the development of the early Cantos.
 
Pound mentioned a variety of structural motifs for the Cantos.  One
that I have found particularly intriguing is first mentioned (as far
as I can tell) in a 1927 letter to his father, and recalled several
times, including in a response to critics of the poem's structure in
the 1930s.  This proposed structure is the organization of the poem
around 1. the ephemeral 2. the recurrent 3. the eternal.
 
I am trying to avoid reference to Dante, because I believe that the
Divine Comedy motif is not as relevant for a discussion of 'A Draft of
XVI Cantos' as it is for the entire monster.
 
Does anyone know of any critics who have attempted a breakdown of the
first 16 Cantos (or even the entire work) in terms of this tri-partite
(ephemeral/recurrent/eternal) structure?  I have been working on it
myself, but it seems likely that someone would have attempted this
already.
 
Is the idea of the fugue, although often dismissed as confusing by
critics, applicable to smaller segments of the work as well as the work
as a whole?  In other words, is it reasonable to look at parts of one
particular Canto in terms of this form (as I suspect), or does it only
work when groups of Cantos are considered in relation to one another?
 
Is there any critical work that looks closely at structure in the early
Cantos, rather than seeing the first dozen or so as a gathering of
motifs for the larger work?
 
If anyone can provide an opinion on any of these questions or (better
yet) point me in the direction of a critical piece which addresses
them, I would be most grateful.
 
Chris Coffman