Bill, I will agree with you that poets are unreliable critics of their own work per se - even though there are exceptions. Nothing I quoted however is an immediate defense of Pound's own work, but rather exposition of theory. Most of what I quote from Pound is not a standard defense of vers libre, but rather a standard criticism of second, third and tenth rate vers libre. Anyway, I wanted to know what Pound thought about quantity, and now I know. And I still think he's completely right, too. Here's another bit: -------from TRADITION (Poetry, III, 3 (Dec 1913)): As to quantity, it is foolish to suppose that we are incapable of distinguishing a long vowel from a short one, or that we are mentally debarred from ascertaining how many consonants intervene between one vowel and the next. As to the tradition of vers libre: Jannaris in his study of the Metic poets comes to the conclusion that they composed to the feel of the thing, to the cadence, as have all good poets since. He is not inclined to believe that they were much influenced by discussions held in Alexandria after their deaths. No one is so foolish as to suppose that a musician using four-four time is compelled to use always four quarter notes in each bar, or in seven-eights time to use seven eighth notes uniformly in each bar. He may use =, or <, and one 1/8 rest, or any such combination as he may happen to choose or find fitting. To apply this musical form to vers is to employ vers libre. [Etc.] (93) ------- end quote For me personally it is interesting to see Eliot employ some of these principles in what appears to look like metrical quatrains, but in fact employ quantity as well. As to whether Pound is right or not, I only need three words to prove him so: cord - cod - cot It seems to me that we were on the verge of repeating a mistake from the past: --------- The art of quantitative verse had been lost. This loss was due more to ignorance than to actual changes of language, from Latin, that is, into the younger tongues. (Troubadours, 1913) --------end quote Here Pound talks about Provencal, but, well... Anyway, sooner or later someone will write a dissertation about quantitative verse and the modern phonetic and tonic principles. The only current danger lies in that people might not read it, because so much nonsense is being written. A half bunch of grapes buried under a barrel of dust, to twist Pound's words slightly. Arwin. -----Original Message----- From: W. Freind <[log in to unmask]> To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]> Date: Friday, August 07, 1998 4:13 PM Subject: Re: Pound on metre There's an even better explanation: as shrewd as he often was about the work of others, Pound is an incredibly unreliable critic of his own work. His observations about the Cantos, for example, are all over the board and even the section which Arwin quotes is a pretty standard defense of vers libre. Bill Freind