CALENDAR OF COMPOSITION

1918-1923

To Homer Pound, 24 January 1918

L/HP 411

Dear Dad

[…]

“The Future” is printing some chunks out of the long poem.

Note: These are “Passages from the Opening Address in a Long Poem” (February 1918); “Images from the Second Canto of a Long Poem” (March 1918); and “An Interpolation taken from the Third Canto of a Long Poem” (April 1918). (Bush Genesis 301-309).

To John Quinn, 2 December 1918

A 17

The book* is to contain the stuff from the May L.R., the Three Cantos (not yet pub. here in book form) and the new Propertius series. Best shaped book of verse I have had since Personae. As the Cantos appear in the American "Lustra" I think I had better wait until spring of 1920 for another American vol. poems.

Note:

* The book in question is Quia Pauper Amavi, published by the Egoist Press in 1919. The “stuff from the May L.R.” is the Langue d’Oc series (Homage à la Langue d’Or [sic] LR V.1 (May 1918): 19-31; P&P III: 98-105). The Three Cantos had already appeared in Poetry June-July-August 1917 and in the American edition of Lustra (October 1917) in an abridged form, which would be reproduced in the new volume; “Propertius” would appear in Poetry March 1919 (under the title “Poems from the Propertius series” Sections: I-IV. After Prof. Hale’s attack, it would be serialized in the New Age (where the name “Homage to Sextus Propertius” appears for the first time: June – August, 1919: Sections: I-VI).

It is clear that by the end of 1918, “Three Cantos” signified for Pound the abridged version in the American Lustra, not the original one in Poetry.

To John Lane & Co., [1918]

A 17

Enclosed proof as per your letter of 10th inst. As to right hand head lines. I was particularly pleased to find none had been used and hope the printers wont insist on inserting any. It is in a very excellent tradition of printing. I can produce the Divus’ “Homer” Wecheli 1538 without right hand headlines. if he wants proof.

Setting copy, QUIA PAUPER AMAVI: [1919]

A 17-18

Proofs Property of Ezra Pound EP

E.P. Please look these over & cable anything specially important. Knopf; AK

small italics in margin EP                                                “Ur III: 1, 7, 26-27, 51-52”

First Selection. Start here.> <Begin> EP                      “Ur Ill: 35”

<no spaces > EP                                                                 “Ur III: 58.2”

no spaces > EP                                                                    “Ur III: 59.1”

dele xxx > < dele > EP                                                      “Ur III: 89-92”

Begin follow> EP                                                                “Ur III: 93”

End. 1st Selection.> <end> EP                                        “Ur III: 111”

Second Selection.> <Begin> EP                                      “Ur II: 2”

End. 2nd Selection> <end> EP                                       “Ur II: 87”

Begin 3d Selection.> EP                                                    “Ur I: 54”

end either here or at foot of next page.> EP                 “Ur I: 132”

end> EP                                                                                “Ur I: 149

To Dorothy Pound, [13 July 1923] Lilly: Pound, III

A 20

Am rewriting the first three cantos; trying to weed out and clarify; etc, a BHLoody JHobb.

To Dorothy Pound, [17 July 1923]

A 20

also have been trying to rewrite Cants I. II. III. so haven’t been back to museum myself.

From Dorothy Pound, [21? July 1923]

A 21

Dearest Mao

Have found Roscoe’s Life of L. De Medici in the library - with the poems at the end: they are most charming. Am copying a word or two of Roscoe’s for you re earlier subjects than Lorenzo.

Are you wise to be already revising the first Cantos? Don’t kill them.

To Dorothy Pound, [23 July 1923]

A 21

Re Cantos, I shdnt, have started revising if it hadn’t been for the edtn? de LOOKS; probably no harm, I have now a sense of form that I hadn’t in 1914, (very annoying, in some ways). Also I shd have rested a few months before tackling it. May save time in the end. Anyhow, anything I leave out can be restored later from earlier edtns, if needed. With sense of form, very difficult to get it all in, hodge podge, etc,

Note: de LOOKS - the de luxe folio edition of A Draft of XVI Cantos that Pound was preparing with Bill Bird and Henry Strater in 1923. His revision was done by November 1923. The volume was published in Paris in January 1925.

To Dorothy Pound, [25 July 1923]

A 21

Have started some sort of revision; cuts down the opening to two cantos instead of three, beginning with Odysseus descent into Nekuia, and doing the Browning item after that, with Bacchus ship as second canto). & then the miscelany. & then 4. 5 etc. Also various repetitions, even in later cantos, can go. Mostly its too cluttered.

From Dorothy Pound, 28th [July 1923]

A 21

HE not entirely rewrite those early cantos: or HE’ll lose the life in them: She’s coming back soon to put a stop to it!

To Dorothy Pound, [1] Aug. [1923] Lilly: Pound, III

A 21

Ugh, have got draft of first three cantos done.

REFERENCES

Kenner, Hugh. The Pound Era. Berkeley: U of California Press, 1971.

Norman, Charles. Ezra Pound. London: McDonald & Co., 1969.

Pound, Ezra. A Memoir to Gaudier-Brzeska. 1916. New York: New Directions, 1970.

Pound, Ezra. The Letters of Ezra Pound to Alice Corbin Henderson. Ed. Ira Nadel. Austin: U of Texas Press, 1993.

Pound, Ezra. Ezra Pound and Dorothy Shakespear: Their Letters 1909-14. Eds. Omar Pound and A. Walton Litz. New York: New Directions, 1984.

Pound, Ezra. Ezra Pound to His Parents – Letters 1895-1929. Eds. Mary de Rachewiltz, A. David Moody and Joanna Moody. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2011.

Pound, Ezra. Pound/Joyce: The Letters of Ezra Pound to James Joyce, with Pound's Critical Essays and Articles About Joyce. 1967. Ed. Forrest Read. New York: New Directions, 1970.

Pound, Ezra. The Selected Letters of Ezra Pound to John Quinn 1915-1924. Ed. Timothy Materer. Durham NC: Duke UP, 1991.

Pound, Ezra. Pound/The Little Review. The Letters of Ezra Pound to Margaret Anderson: The Little Review Correspondence. Ed. Thomas L. Scott and Melvin J. Friedman, with the assistance of Jackson R. Bryer. New York: New Directions, 1988.

Pound, Ezra. Ezra Pound’s Poetry and Prose. Eds. Lea Baechler, A. Walton Litz and J. Longenbach. New York: Garland, 1991.

Pound, Ezra. Ezra Pound Poems and Translations. Ed. Richard Sieburth. New York: Library of America, 2003.

Pound, Ezra. Selected Letters 1907-1945. Ed. D. D. Paige. 1950. New York: New Directions, 1971.

Surette, Leon. A Light from Eleusis. A Study of Ezra Pound’s Cantos. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979; XLibris, 2000.

Taylor, Richard, ed. “Annals.” Variorum Edition of Three Cantos. A Prototype. Bayreuth: Boomerang, 1991.