Andrew Schelling

The CANTOS of Ezra Pound

Structure & Theme in the CANTOS of Ezra Pound I-XXX

N.B. This list is not meant to indicate that a particular Canto is “about” the theme. I have tried to highlight the significant focus of a Canto, or note new material when introduced by a Canto. Most Cantos are composed according to “the ideogram method.” This means they layer various time periods, actors, events, myths, and voices, with the intention that the “why” will eventually become clear by letting image, sound, and sense interplay with your psyche.

Ezra Pound: “It is dawn in Jerusalem and midnight at the Pillars of Hercules. All times are contemporaneous in the mind.”

Canto                                                                           Theme

A draft of XXX Cantos

I                                   Odysseus & the shamanic journey to the dead: “Nekyia” chapter of Homer’s Odyssey

II                                  Metamorphosis & the cult of Dionysus (Lyaeus). Ovid.

III                                 El Cid (old Spanish epic: a glimpse of the heroes)

IV                                Disasters of Eros & the Ideogram (Ovid, Troubadors, Noh plays)

V-VI                             Poetry & Tradition Sappho, Arnaut Daniel, Troubadors; Eleanor of Aquitaine, herself a patron & singer, 12th c. (Helen)

VII                               London The present, in the manner of TS Eliot

VIII-XI                          Sigismundo Malatesta & the Tempio

(Heroic Personality & architecture for the CANTOS)

XII                               Economics Baldy Bacon, Dos Santos, & Tale of the Sailor

(Productive investment vs. nonproductive Usury)

XIII                              Kung (Kung-fu-tzeu, or Confucius)

XIV-XV                        Hell

XVI                              Hell’s Mouth Purgatory of Earthly Wars

End of A draft of XVI Cantos, first publication of Cantos in book form.

XVII                             Eleusis: The Mysteries & Light of the Intellect

XVIII-XIX                     Purgatory of Money Currency, armaments, banks

20                                 Mysteries of Light Odysseus, the troubador Arnaut Daniel

21                                 Thomas Jefferson A heroic founder (rhyme with Malatesta)

22                                 Economics an Ideogram, & glimpse of the paradiso terrestre

23                                 Eleusis Visions of Light & Intellect

24-26                            Italian Custom, Law, Architecture Stories of Pound’s early travels

27-28                            Xarites & black darkness

29                                 Pearl, great sphere, and hollow

Mysteries of intellectual light

30                                 Compleynt agaynst Pity

Song contrasting the radiance of the Medieval World vs. the sloppiness of the modern