Well then, Two Thoughts on Propertius and Jules L.
 
1.
        My short answer is I've never been able to find any Laforgue prose on
Propertius, and man I've looked around. Maybe someone can save
"academic" from the pejorative, by giving me a ref. on that. Only
Laforgue prose I know is "Moralites Legendaires" (The short story called
"Salome" was translated by EP as "Our Tetrarchal Precieuse" in 1918.
It's in "Pavannes and Divagations"). Sent an e-mail today to a Laforgue
page in France, pour un petit renseignement. We'll see about that.
 
2.
        Until I see that ref. I stick by my (somewhat shaky) hunch that Pound
meant Laforgue's poetry shows a factive adaptation of Propertian
sensibility into the first true logopoeia.
         I don't know where you got that quote, Wayne. The one I'm familiar
with is in Literary Essays page 33: "Unless I am right in discovering
logopoeia in Propertius (which means unless the teaching of Latin
displays crass insensitivity as it probably does), we must almost say
that Laforgue invented logopoeia observing that there had been a very
limited range of logopoeia in all satire....." There is an element in
Propertius, the element which Pound brought to the fore in his poem,
which by juxtaposing private and public modes of speech creates
something like logopoeia which uses "words not only for their direct
meaning, but it takes count in special way of habits of usage." Given
this, I'm not entirely sure why Donne's great puns for instance don't
count as invention. (Anyone?)
        I imagine Pound did have some J.L. quote on Propertius (Does anyone
have a copy of J.L.'s "Lettres a un ami?" Never seen it, it might be the
hiding place.) Even if Pound didn't have one: the pitch of J.L.'s
"Complaintes," that is the satirical yet truly wounded voice of a
rejected lover, would draw natural comparisons with Propertius.
Since I do believe that biography is to an extent vitally relevant, I
should tell you that assuming J.L.'s knowledge of Propertius is not far
fetched if you look at certain facts of the French poet's life. One main
one: He grew up for half of his childhood in Uruguay where his father
Charles (I think his friend's called him Ra Set), taught Latin and
Greek.
 
Ok. I leave it in your (electronic) hands.
 
Peter
 
PS Best 20th century logopoetic poet besides E.P.? My vote's Mina Loy.