Dec 28, 2009
The above summary somewhat begs the central question regarding the Cantos because many ask whether it has any central message or overarching form at all. This is partly due to its serial creation over 50 years of Pound’s life, and partly because it is the epitome of the modernist poetic style of allusion (often arcane or private), juxtaposition, fragmentation, and the like.
Whatever else it is, the Cantos is a poem that centers on history--the history of Europe, of the East, of America, and, mixed in throughout, Pound’s own personal history. One interpretation...
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