I'll begin by answering a query from Roxanne (?). I think that love is primarily masculine, as you said, but that there are some, perhaps, feminine aspects. Take Sonnet one from Pounds translation in the Faber 'Translations' (the poem beginning "You, who do breech mine eyes and touch the heart"). He (Pound or calvacanti, I'm not sure!) makes clear in the second line that the mind is female/feminine and is assailed by Love. But the line beginning the second Stanza indicates a kind of complicity between love and the mind, as well as seeming to make the distinction with the senses from the other two aspect mentioned (not including the addressee). The complicity between love and the mind is stated more clearly in the third stanza, where he says that Love came from the adressee's mind, who, one would assume, is Calvacanti's 'Lady' -- who i read to be related to the mind and the star she is. I hope this answers your question to some exent, although it should also display some of the problems I am having with Calvacanti. So far i see Calvacnti's poems as wrangling with the complexities of love, spiritual (i.e. with a spiritual being) and also lodged in the material emotions. and they go far byond the 'Scintilex Scintillions' (? it has been a long time!) of Marvell, Vaughn etc., of course because, as was noted yesterday, the Pagan influences on calvacanti (interesting correspondence though between these poems and the religious poems of the early C17th?). I was amazed at the debate about Pound and foreign languages yesterday, simply because I didn't expect it! I have to agree with the view that Pound was not a master of all the languages he translated from and used in the Cantos. In a Paris Review interview with Robert Frost, there was some discussion aboiut this topic. Frost claimed that the knew some of Pound's university lecturers, who claimed that Pound was far from a deft hand at languages. Pound himself admited that he used bi-lingual dictionaries more frequently that he would wish to. Moreover, hugh Kenner goes as far to say that Pound had some problems with the grammer of some languages (mistaking dative for genitive etc), as I remember. However, Pound's translations have never been, for me, a real problem because he decided not to give a literal translation -- for which I am grateful. I think this is a debate for academics concerned with translation. If anyone has read Arthur Whaley's translations, such as his 'Ute' translations, one can see how dull translation can be when no attempt is made to bring foreign poems into English, aside from literal meaning ( I think recent translations of Homer bear witness to this problem). Hugh Kenner made a convincing case for Pound's translations, simply saying that in some ways they are not translations at all but Pound's version of a poem written in another language (which most translations are). My problem is, as stated yesterday, that Pound was not the polyglot he claimed to be and does cause questions to arise, particulary when poems, like Calvacanti's, become so complex-- does he capture the complexities or garble them? Pound's involvement with Laguages brings me to one final point: Pound's political involvement. I think that until time brushes away the undenialble blemishes Pound left on his life or they are discussed until one can accept them in some way, Pound will not get the attention he deserves. I think Pound's involvement with other languages, German particularly, needssome closer inspection. what concerns me on this point is one of his Radio Rome Speeches where he claims to have read Hitler's Mein Kampf, and finds something of value in it (!!??). I would not call this book recommended reading. What I have read of it -- I couldn't physically finish reading it -- is very little more than anti-Semitic invective interspersed with a eugenic-meglomania-Nationalism. However, if someone could not read German very well it is possible that the anti-Semitism particularly would not come across as strong as it really was. Thus some of Pound's statements, such as condoning pogroms against CERTAIN Jews and Bankers etc. (which was mild considering what was actually happening)may have been interpreted by Pound as Hitler's Plan. I really don't believe that Pound sensed the Final Solution, which was implicit in Mein Kampf. This is only a minor point in the vast area of debate concerning Pound's anti-Semitism, I am only too aware. But I believe these points are necessary in at least separating Pound's Fascism from the Final Solution... and there is much stronger evidence than this. yours, Ben Basan P.s. I was heartend to see the relative pessimism of my last US port in the Republic of Texas... it's a shame, but at least the situation isn't much better in England. ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com