Reading the Cantos a Study of Meaning in Ezra Pound

by Noel Stock

First published in 1967, this is a study which tackles the central problem of meaning, within Ezra Pound's The Cantos. It deals with the question of important critical issues, as well as of interpretation and understanding. Students of modern poetry will derive great benefit from this vigorous and lucid analysis of Pound's masterpiece. Noel Stock's finding is radical: that The Cantos is not a really a poem at all, but rather notes towards a poem. It is a collection of fragments of varying quality - some of extraordinary power and beauty - but in no sense formed into a work of art.

Paperback

First published January 1, 1967

Reviews

[Kevin Fitzpatrick · Rating 3 out of 5]

"One of our objections to Pound in the later Cantos is his inability to make poetic use of what he takes from others. A poem, if it is genuine, contains its meaning within itself. Not absolutely, so that it is an isolated entity, but sufficiently to have a voice of its own. The imaginative center must be in the poem and not outside it. But that is not all: equally important is the poem's relation to tradition and usage. For the poetry grows in intensity as it approaches a traditional center of meaning without actually touching it. Too distant from a center, it tends to the inane. So close that it touches, to dullness and inertia. Tension comes of establishing originality within the field of attraction exerted by tradition, but still, as it were, separate from it, so that the originality is not overwhelmed. In this way, the traditional force of a word, without which a literature can scarcely exist, is turned into a new creation." (Stock, pg. 93).

Consisting of eight chapters, taking the Cantos from 1917 to 1962, Noel Stock's "Reading the Cantos: A Study of Meaning in Ezra Pound" is an effort that goes a long way towards explaining, in easy to comprehend prose and selections from the poetry, the attractions, and the faults, of Ezra Pound's magnum opus, "The Cantos." And the quote above is a fine example of Mr. Stock's effort here at its finest: concise explication of specific natures of Pound's effort in the context of what makes for exemplary poetry in general. The moments, and there are many of them, where Mr. Stock drops into this mode of explanation/inspirational effulgence are the 'high points' of what is, overall, a mostly tepid work of criticism. For the work found here, while it has these high points, consists mostly of the author bemoaning the inexactitudes of Pound's work, a work which has earned plaudits in innumerable quarters. Mr. Stock believes that the Cantos 'do not constitute a poem, but a disjoineted series of short poems, passages, lines and fragments, often of exceptional beauty or interest, but uninformed, poetically or otherwise, by larger purpose.' (Stock, pg. 117). This dismissive attitude towards his subject matter, though perhaps justified in a general manner, seems to obviate the need to read the tome here itself. If the poems are artistic 'failures,' one could beg to argue, why go through the effort to read them (or Mr. Stock's small yet interesting book)? Still, reading this book, even in light of the negative conclusion towards the subject matter's completeness, does assist in understanding the overall scope of Mr. Pound's effort, an effort I, for one, still believe is worth an attempt to understand. Recommended for all those interested in Pound's "Cantos," this book, though flawed, is a 'keeper.'