Dear friends -- I last night ran across a claim (authored by Hugh Kenner) that Canto II is an "oblique protest against the Prohibition amendment". I did some searches around in the MLA bibliography but didn't find any articles that address this oblique protest. (I did find some that appear to suggest prohibition as a good-enough motivation to keep American expats in Europe.) Does anyone first of all know of essays that cope with Pound & Prohibition? Does anyone secondly, have a good reading of Canto II that points in this direction? I suppose I could attempt this reading alone (and I will, regardless), but recognizing that there is no substitute for critical tradition, I would very much like to listen to your thoughts as well. It does seem strange that such a socially sweeping legislative act should not find fuller representation in the verse of Modernist poets, particularly compared with the non-stop temperance talk of their antebellum predecessors. Perhaps there's a connection between popular social control of alcohol and popular discourse that state-imposed Prohibition short-circuits. Particularly in light of the present day War on Drugs, this seems a critical question. For what reasons do public communicators become silent about state-based prohibition? What Pound would have to say on this is opaque to me -- it doesn't seem to be something he talks about. Any ideas? Go Cubs! Jon Weidler (in Chicago)