At 01:17 PM 6/4/98 -0400, Erin Templeton wrote:
>As for intentional structure in the Cantos:
>
>Don't forget that this was a *lifetime* project we're talking about here--!
> Pound worked on the Cantos for 50 years!  His ideas of order and structure
>probably underwent some pretty radical change, especially from EP's
>original conception.
 
Hope no one minds if I stick my nose into the discussion and simultaneously
change its direction, but here goes:
 
does it matter that Pound's ideas of order and structure changed?
 
Does anything about Pound REALLY matter when we're talking about the
Cantos, or at least can anything be proved to matter?
 
we have a text and some biographies and notebooks and people who know
people who knew Pound.  But we all know the text.
 
Is there a structure?  Can there be a structure?  Don't the Cantos
themselves mutter something about "couldn't make it cohere"?
 
All right, fine, I'm being undereducatedly deconstructive, but some of the
beauty of the Cantos to me has been the way the structure falls apart, the
move from trying to keep the blossoms from falling off the trees to being
silent and letting the wind speek.  pretty sad, I think, but moving.
 
then again, this disintegration of structure that I see in the whole piece
may not be evident in the first XXX Cantos.  Haven't thought too much about
that.
 
anyway.  sorry about the interuption.  carry on.
 
Lucas