Notes on the Cantos, pt 2

From a 1927 letter from Pound to his father about "the whole thing":

1.) Point/ Counterpoint of th subject in fugue (cf Bach - the "divine sewing machine")
- themes/motifs in variation - a complete set (in every possible key)
- the Cantos do echo from one to the other

Themes:
- a living man goes down into the world of the dead (Odysseus as prototype, but Homer was responding to an even older mythos - more ancient than poetry itself)
- the repeat in history - Pound as an ideas man: Rhyme is not just metrical, but echoes exist across the ages - repeats on themes/images - a rhyme. Therefore Pound jumps a lot in his Cantos. I can't help but feel that he jumps a little too much, though... Maybe I don't like reading poetry with a dictionary and an encyclopedia next to me all the time, but that's what I have to do with the Cantos.
After I've read a couple of Cantos like that, though, they are enjoyable to read "normally".
[Pound is jumping A -> B -> C -> F]

Rhyme has closure (harmony) - but the disharmony in 1/2 rhyme (cacophony) is a kind of closure, in a way. It makes a point, anyway...
Rhyme in history -> P moves from society to society, handles allusion between cultures - Chinese, classical myths, the whole lot. There are so many allusions to chase down, almost too many (where do you begin - or end?). So again, it seems like he is so much more well-read than other people. Apparently, though, he had a limited range of available texts.. I'd love to have lists of the libraries of some of the writers I study, partly out of interest, and partly as a starting-point for new research.