BOOK 11, Part 2: The Underworld
Read / Listen
Ezra Pound’s Cantos is one of the monumental works of 20th-century poetry. It begins as a “loose translation” of Homer’s Odyssey. Go to the link below and listen to the commentator, who speaks of Pound’s “remarkable ear” for rhythm. Then read Canto 1, also provided there. It deals with Odysseus’s preparations to follow Circe’s instructions to travel to the underworld.
The second thing to take into consideration is content and inter-textual play. The erudite Pound was known for interpolating hundreds of allusions to literature and history into his poetry. The Cantos may feel dense and crammed, but that’s how he wrote to great effect. Pound speaks of his conscious propensity for these references: “The problem was to get a form—something elastic enough to take the necessary material. It had to be a form that wouldn’t exclude something merely because it didn’t fit.”
The second thing to take into consideration is content and inter-textual play. The erudite Pound was known for interpolating hundreds of allusions to literature and history into his poetry. The Cantos may feel dense and crammed, but that’s how he wrote to great effect. Pound speaks of his conscious propensity for these references: “The problem was to get a form—something elastic enough to take the necessary material. It had to be a form that wouldn’t exclude something merely because it didn’t fit.”
Canto I
By Ezra Pound
And then went down to the ship,
Set keel to breakers, forth on the godly seas, and
We set up mast and sail on that swart ship,
Bore sheep aboard her, and our bodies also
Heavy with weeping, and winds from sternward
Bore us out onward with bellying canvas,
Circe’s this craft, the trim-coifed goddess.
Then sat we amidships, wind jamming the tiller,
Thus with stretched sail, we went over sea till day’s end.
Sun to his slumber, shadows o’er all the ocean,
Came we then to the bounds of deepest water,
To the Kimmerian lands, and peopled cities
Covered with close-webbed mist, unpierced ever
With glitter of sun-rays
Nor with stars stretched, nor looking back from heaven
Swartest night stretched over wretched men there.
The ocean flowing backward, came we then to the place
Aforesaid by Circe...
Go to site to read in its entirety.
By Ezra Pound
And then went down to the ship,
Set keel to breakers, forth on the godly seas, and
We set up mast and sail on that swart ship,
Bore sheep aboard her, and our bodies also
Heavy with weeping, and winds from sternward
Bore us out onward with bellying canvas,
Circe’s this craft, the trim-coifed goddess.
Then sat we amidships, wind jamming the tiller,
Thus with stretched sail, we went over sea till day’s end.
Sun to his slumber, shadows o’er all the ocean,
Came we then to the bounds of deepest water,
To the Kimmerian lands, and peopled cities
Covered with close-webbed mist, unpierced ever
With glitter of sun-rays
Nor with stars stretched, nor looking back from heaven
Swartest night stretched over wretched men there.
The ocean flowing backward, came we then to the place
Aforesaid by Circe...
Go to site to read in its entirety.