J Brennan says, >I think it's only fair to point out >that a great deal of the Cantos is concerned with the ideas and actions of >one Thomas Jefferson, who in the panoply of American ideals occupies a >rather exalted position as a democrat, in spite of the fact that he owned slaves and >occasionally slept with some of them. This is precisely one of the points which interests me. Can ANYONE ---Joe Brennan included--- find any quote in Pound's work which says (or even remotely suggests) that what Pound admired about Jefferson is that he OCCUPIES A RATHER EXALTED POSITION AS A DEMOCRAT. I have exerted considerable effort to find one such quote, and I cannot. Now I assume that Joe Brennan admires Jefferson precisely because he occupied such an an exalted position AS A DEMOCRAT. I share that admiration to a large degree (the issue of slavery aside). My impression, from the Cantos, and from "Jefferson and/or Mussolini" is that he admired Jefferson for his artistic sensibility, his style, his genius, and for "his ability to govern the country with a small circle of friends" (to paraphrase--I give the exact quote in another post). Never does Pound express admiration for Jefferson AS A DEMOCRAT, or because he believed in democracy, as far as I know. I would love to be proven wrong on this point if it is really the case. The work "Jefferson and/or Mussolini" seems designed to prove to the American public that Mussolini was very much like Jefferson (thought not in the sense that either one was democratic---only in the sense that both believed in "good government", which for Pound was fascist government). I hope everyone who is deeply interested in Pound would read and reread that work, which reveals so much about Pound's political thinking. Then tell me that Pound admired Jefferson AS A DEMOCRAT, or prove that Pound even gave a passing nod to a belief in democracy. Wei ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com