Carrol Cox asked: "It's been almost two decades since I read any criticism or biography of Pound. Is there any serious account of whether he did in fact suffer from a mental illness. I ask for this reason. I suffer from clinical depression, which was not diagnosed however until I was in my mid fifties. The connection to Pound is this. Almost the first line in the poem which caught my attention was the parenthetical line, "(and the mortal fatigue of action postponed)" (Canto 80) Nothing describes more precisely what depression feels like in one of its guises." Tim Redman--who has been writing a biography of Pound for several years now, and the author of POUND IN ITALY--posted the opinion about a year ago that Pound suffered from bipolar disorder--aka manic-depression. I don't think that diagnosis is very persuasive. From what I know about the disorder, the depressive phase is as inescapable as the manic phase, and Pound seems to have been manic more often than not in his later years. John Tytell, a psychiatrist, came up with a different diagnosis in SOLITARY VOLCANO some years ago, but I have forgotten just what it was. Pound certainly did suffer from a neurological disorder in his last years, but that is not the period of most interest for this question. Tytell worked for a time at St. Elizabeth' and had access to hospital files on Pound during his stay there. Leon Surette English Dept. University of Western Ontario London, Ont. N6A 3K7