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Canto 116 (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)

The Poem

“Canto 116” (or “Canto CXVI,” as it was first known) was composed in Italy in 1959. It is a relatively short poem in free verse. Its seventy-four lines vary in length from three to eleven syllables. The figure the poem makes on paper is jagged because of frequent indentation; many of its lines begin in the middle or toward the end of the page.

Upon scrutiny, “Canto 116” reveals a threefold structure: Part 1, so called, extends from Neptunus (Neptune) of line 1 to Justinian, including the next line (line 22), “a tangle of works unfinished.” Muss...

[The entire page is 1551 words long]

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