Canto 29 (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Ezra Pound
- First Published: 1930
- Type of Work: Poetic sequence
- Genres: Free verse, Poetry, Epic, Lyric sequence
- Subjects: United States or Americans, Love or romance, Europe or Europeans, 1920’s, Women, Life, philosophy of, Italy or Italians, Renaissance
The Poem
Pound begins Canto 29 with a reference to a cosmology and a tribute to light (lux). This description is consonant with the metaphysics of light proposed by the thirteenth century philosopher Grosseteste, whose thinking was familiar to Pound. According to Grosseteste light is from God and is the basis of matter and form. Any dimming of light in the cosmos indicates a decline and a decadence in matter owing to the privation of light. This view constitutes Pound’s notion of forma; forma is that something which produces “ideas,” especially...
[The entire page is 1302 words long]
