This looks great - it's amazing to have one of these projects on The Cantos actually coming to fruition - I look forward to it growing and growing! I think the Bunting quote on the front page is "You will have to go a long round way if you want to avoid them." not "You will have to go a long way if you want to avoid them." r. > Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2014 22:47:03 +0000 > From: [log in to unmask] > Subject: Timing the thunder > To: [log in to unmask] > > Dear Poundians, > > I am very happy to announce that on Ezra's birthday this year, The > Cantos Project is officially launched. The platform now is fully > operational and awaits our scholarly input. > > Please have a look at http://www.thecantosproject.org. > > A few words about it: > > TCP is a website that aims to fulfil a dream that scholars have had > since 1986: to have a second edition of Terrell's Companion - at best > in electronic form so errors can be corrected and information added on > a continuous basis without overwhelming the poem or the student. > Though attempts have been made along the years (we all still remember > Kybernekia) technology was not coping with our needs, nor were we > coping with what technology demanded. > > My position is that we are now ready. We can do it with the platform I > am proposing. (Which I dearly hope you will like). > > When I presented the project at the EPIC conference in Dublin last > year, Alec Marsh, the society's former president, generously offered > me the sponsorship I needed for it. In his vision, the Cantos Project > was to be located at the heart of the scholarly activity of the > society; it could be THE way for us to work together so as to bring > the annotation of The Cantos up to speed. > > There are almost 30 years of scholarship not included in Terrell's Companion. > > New Directions allows us to present six cantos on the website at any > one time. This is why TCP cannot be a digital edition of the poem, > however much we may regret this fact. (As an aside, Robert Spoo > remarked that we can apply Pound's economics to TCP: if your money is > scarce you can increase the velocity of circulation. Six cantos can > seem a lot, when the rhythm of publishing and hiding them is quick. I > found this a wonderful idea. Once the Cantos are annotated they can be > hidden and republished as often and as fast as we need.) > > TCP can be our building site. We can make it our scholars' resource, > our aid in research and teaching. Even at square one, as you will see > when you look at it, the bibliographies are in place throughout the > poem, at homepage and cycle page levels. A student, say, who wants to > see relevant books or articles about a section of The Cantos or even > individual poems can use TCP even now. The book bibliography is > complete, as far as I know. The journal articles biblio is very > comprehensive and will continuously be updated. What I still have to > put in are chapters and book sections - but I will do that in the next > six months. What we want is to make TCP our ultimate reference, the > place to go. The scholarly apparatus is OURS and remains so. > > What we can do: we can initiate a work stream whereby six cantos are > "live" at any given time. This means they will be online and the > annotation will be under construction. You don't need to be a > technological wizard to contribute: if working conventionally is > easier, that is possible - just drop me an email to discuss what suits > you best. When annotation is finished, the glosses will be transferred > to an online illustrated Companion, which will be a downloadable pdf, > one for every canto. Then the cantos will be "unpublished" to make > space for the next ones. This means that they are not deleted and the > annotation is not taken away from them. They are just hidden from view. > > I have uploaded six cantos on the site, from Ur-Canto I to Canto III. > Canto I is minimally annotated so you can see an example. In order to > preserve the integrity of the text and not spoil the magic, the > annotation is hidden. By hovering with your mouse over an underlined > word, you will bring up an electronic card with the gloss. Move the > mouse away and the card disappears. > The system offers us the possibility of having longer glosses as well, > which we can add by the "create article" function. > See the guidelines for contributors on the site. > > Terrell's Companion bears his name on the cover yet The Companion > would not have been possible without his friends and collaborators. > Hugh Kenner, Eva Hesse, Robert Gordon, to mention just the best-known > names, contributed massively to all aspects of its creation. Terrell > also used the accumulated knowledge stored in Paideuma. But he had > seven years of Paideuma behind him when he started. We now have forty > years. > > It is time we begin. > > Happy birthday Ezra. > > > > > > -- > The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in > Scotland, with registration number SC005336.