Notes on the Cantos, pt 3
Back to the Cantos:
1st Canto - written in Anglo-Saxon mode.
[Pound had a pagan, mystical sense in him... cf the spirit of the nymph in olives - wind and destruction. Evidence of the Gods moving through human existence.]
Pound's metaphor for the Gods = light. (replaces religion/ theology in much of his writing.)
2.) Burst through from the quotidian into the mystical (transcendence again) - metamorphosis. Luminosity - a testament to something else. [Daphne/ Laurel] -> cf Hugh Selwyn Mauberley. Also, in Canto 2, the myth comes through again.
//Polyphony//
[1930s - his politics took a "right" turn, and made his way into his poems]
cf Yeats - the disconnect between politics/ morality// quality poetry? How do you reconcile this?
Canto 3 - pity/ usury (good and bad)
So, read the Cantos as Pound suggested you read Homer - Periplus/Periplum - the Odyssey was written as it would be revealed to a passing sailor.
Canto 1: First 8/9 lines: hints at the alliterative tradition of poems like Gawain & the Green Knight, Seafarer etc...
This, though, has a slight artificiality - must have 3 alliteratives in each line.
Read this with the Odyssey, Book 11 - the descent.
Analogy to chase down - looking through soapy water using a glass - to see to the bottom, see more. Barry talked about this, but I'm sure I've read it before as well, just not in connection to Pound, unless it was last year in English 319.
1535 - Andreas Divus - Pound's Latin translation of the Odyssey, the one he worked from. Interesting that he would have worked from this, rather than from the Greek... I want to find an English translation of Divus' Latin, to compare to Pound's Canto 1.
[digonos] - key in the Cantos = rebirth/ reincarnation/ retelling.
Mistranslating n error [digenes] = exalted/ worthy
Pound takes advantage of a mistranslation, a linguistic error.
End the first Canto with and evocation of the muses - willful obscurity -> make the reader chase it down. (Generated from the sources he was using.)
cf The Waste Land (TWL) - rubble with an intimation of a tradition in ruins/ setting of tone.
- a provocative ending, a difficult one. Invoking the tradition of a poem without closure.
1st Canto - written in Anglo-Saxon mode.
[Pound had a pagan, mystical sense in him... cf the spirit of the nymph in olives - wind and destruction. Evidence of the Gods moving through human existence.]
Pound's metaphor for the Gods = light. (replaces religion/ theology in much of his writing.)
2.) Burst through from the quotidian into the mystical (transcendence again) - metamorphosis. Luminosity - a testament to something else. [Daphne/ Laurel] -> cf Hugh Selwyn Mauberley. Also, in Canto 2, the myth comes through again.
//Polyphony//
[1930s - his politics took a "right" turn, and made his way into his poems]
cf Yeats - the disconnect between politics/ morality// quality poetry? How do you reconcile this?
Canto 3 - pity/ usury (good and bad)
So, read the Cantos as Pound suggested you read Homer - Periplus/Periplum - the Odyssey was written as it would be revealed to a passing sailor.
Canto 1: First 8/9 lines: hints at the alliterative tradition of poems like Gawain & the Green Knight, Seafarer etc...
This, though, has a slight artificiality - must have 3 alliteratives in each line.
Read this with the Odyssey, Book 11 - the descent.
Analogy to chase down - looking through soapy water using a glass - to see to the bottom, see more. Barry talked about this, but I'm sure I've read it before as well, just not in connection to Pound, unless it was last year in English 319.
1535 - Andreas Divus - Pound's Latin translation of the Odyssey, the one he worked from. Interesting that he would have worked from this, rather than from the Greek... I want to find an English translation of Divus' Latin, to compare to Pound's Canto 1.
[digonos] - key in the Cantos = rebirth/ reincarnation/ retelling.
Mistranslating n error [digenes] = exalted/ worthy
Pound takes advantage of a mistranslation, a linguistic error.
End the first Canto with and evocation of the muses - willful obscurity -> make the reader chase it down. (Generated from the sources he was using.)
cf The Waste Land (TWL) - rubble with an intimation of a tradition in ruins/ setting of tone.
- a provocative ending, a difficult one. Invoking the tradition of a poem without closure.
posted by David | 5:57 PM
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