Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #201315 in Books
• Published on: 1999-12-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 824 pages

Synopsis
Provides the complete text of Pound's epic poem including a translation of Pound's Italian canto LXXII, Canto LXXIII, and a 1966 fragment concluding the work.

Customer Reviews

The literary Himalayas
How can you be critical about an opus which was so many decades in the writing and whose themes and methods changed between the slabs which were published piece by piece? Starting in the middle of Homer's Odssey and moving through Ovidian metamorphosis through several themes to the Russian Revolution, dropping in at the Italian Quattracento (and Lucrezia Borgia - `Madame Matter') as well as on his old pal Baldy Bacon en route (not to mention the Sigismondo cantos). He even brings in his granddad who `sweat blood' put to put that railroad... We follow the chapters on Jefferson `Nuovo Mundo' and even the Adams cantos put side by side with the Chinese history cantos. On the down side we read the fascism of the Italian Cantos, with a skull in a North African desert crying `Alamein! We will return!', and old Adolf `furious from perception'. On the other hand, we read the quiet reflections from Piza prisoner camp, follow American history intermingled with the Shu King, Confucius with modern life; and after the `rock drill', the 'thrones' showing flashes of saintly acts (eg del Mar)with flashes of the inferno. Finally, sad fragments from his depressed reflections in later life, the No-Khi wind ceremony. What can we make of this jumble of archaic snatchings and even hieroglyphics? Pound's need to change society, to battle against usury and to take example from those who lived the right way - Confucius, the Byzantines and the Sacred Edict of K'ung Hui. And to change ourselves. `Pull down thy vanity' is not the only beautiful introspective line in this maze of quotations. And we can watch the transformations take place in his `ideogram' method, where fragments are welded together in snatches to give an impression; just as Chinese characters are composed of several elements which add up to the meaning. For, obscure and complex as the Cantos are, they are undoubtedly a labour of love and an attempt to show society where it is going wrong. They are many beautiful passages in the text, and I suggest the reader wander through this book and appreciate them in their rightful place - the seven lakes canto, for example, and the canto on `lynxes', to mention but two. We can learn a lot from Pound and enjoy what he wrote, but we must make the effort. There is so much that is of great value in this huge work - it really is a modern masterpiece.

penny for a pound
the cantos of pound mark a change in modern poetry.

this edition is excellent value for money and coherent. especially for over 800 pages.

speechless
what can you say about this book that hasn't already been said before and a hundred times at that. ezra pound - mad man? fascist? genius? if you have any interest in modern poetry at all you must own this book. and then laugh mockingly in the face of all these poetasters that mutilate vers libre today