CALENDAR OF COMPOSITION

List of Abbreviations

L/DP 51–77

EP to Reynolds Packard 

            Stalin has the best mind in Russia. Man I most want to talk to is Kumrad Koba^[2]

EP to Office of the Counter Intelligence Corps (7 May 1945) 

            […] After the Republican Fascist Government was formed in Northern Italy in the Autumn of 1943, I contacted PELLEGRINI^[3] who was Minister of Finance, and presented to him my stamp script plan for financing the new Government. 

EP to Office of the Counter Intelligence Corps (8 May 1945) 

            […] John Adams aptly called this “downright iniquity,^[4] robbing the public for private individual’s gain […]

            […] OUTLINE OF ECONOMIC BASES of historic process/ […]
            […] 4. The next essential datum is the statement in Lenin’s “Imperialism.”^[5]

EP To DP (20 September 1945) 

L/DP 89 

[…] Nothing said about any other people being authorized to write, so you better make a start collecting whatever news you can get, re readiness to publish “Confucius” “Zone,”^[6] reprints etc, & whatever

EP to DP (2 October 1945) 

L/DP 101 

[…] I sent you one extract from new CANTI. Here are two more. I have done a Decad 74/83 (about 80 pages this typescript), which don’t seem any worse than the first 70 [cantos]. Heaven knows whether they make sense in bits. Am sending carbon of the Leacok bit, as don’t know what typewriter is left up hill, if any. Will send the carbon of the bit begin[n]ing “teapot from another hotel”^[7] in my next, so you can pass on that extract also. 

EP to DP (4 October 1945) 

L/DP 105

[…] Whale’s brother Chris Morley has reedited Bartlett’s familiar quotations, I may have said that/ edition of 1943 chance to check up on mortality. Old Rhys^[8] still alive in ’43 […]  

Also ask him [T.S. Eliot] re cantos 71 OR 72 OR 74 to 83. Whether the N.Y. Faber will squabble with Laughlin re/ Cantos. Etc. etc. etc. 

EP to DP (8 October 1945) 

L/DP 117 

[…] Mystery of Nelly explained/ did pore ole Bunk know she had died? Swabey heard from via Olga, so only Basil^[9] to hear from and what ole Wyndham has been at in the U.S.A.

EP to DP (4 November 1945) 

L/DP 117

Herewith another batch of Canto ms/ sent via the Base Censor as per recent decision.^[10]

EP to JL (17 April 1947)

L/JL 160

[…] IF the “Odyssey” you sd / was being sent had arrived I cd / have supplied the Greek—only dia hyphorbe. & the Elpenor dustenn kai essomenosi^[11] […]

EP to Creekmore (n.d.)^[12]

L/JL 161

. . . ROCKY MT p. 180

after—men rose out of Xthonos : 

Agada, Ganna, silla 

            mt

and Mt Taishan^[13] etc . . . […] 

EP to JL (19 May 1947) 

L/JL 166

Call um Cantos 74-84 or wotever the numbers are & say nothing about any lacuna . . . They can be referred to on jacket (or wherever else you like) as Pisan cantos even in sub title if you insist […]

EP to JL (n.d.)^[14]

L/JL 197

LOOK at TATE or pity the pore blackman / 40 years time lag on Frobenius^[15] /

Lute of Gassir^[16] […]

^[1] “EP refers to stamp scrip in Cantos 41, 74, and 78” (L/SN 337).

^[2] “‘Koba,’ meaning ‘the bear’ or ‘the indomitable,’ was a boyhood nickname of Joseph Stalin … EP thought that if he was to meet with Stalin, he could persuade him of the value of Social Credit and stamp scrip, as he indicates in Canto 74” (L/DP 56): see lines 43-46.

^[3] “Professor Giampietro Domenico Pellegrini … minister of finance for the Salò Republic. EP, who met with him once to discuss economic matters, refers to his knowledge of government finances in Cantos 74 and 78” (L/DP 66). 

^[4] “This remark by John Adams, made in a letter to Benjamin Rush of 28 August 1811, is cited by EP in Cantos 71, 74, and 88” (L/DP 68). 

^[5] “This statement appears in chapter 4 (“The Export of Capital”) of Lenin’s Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism … EP repeats it in Canto 74” (L/DP 70): see lines 164-65.

^[6] Omar Pound and Robert Sproo gloss EP’s mention of “Confucius” and “Zone” as corresponding in tandem to EP’s prospective “two-part curriculum for the postwar period” – referenced in lines 92-93 in Canto 74 (L/DP 88).

^[7] “EP enclosed two extracts later to be published as part of The Pisan Cantos (1948). What he refers to here as “the bit begin[n]ing ‘teapot from another hotel’” consisted of five typed pages running from “with a teapot from another hotel” in Canto 74 (line 803) to the end of that canto” (L/DP 100).  

^[8] “Ernest Rhys … is recalled in Canto 74” (L/DP 106): see line 712. 

^[9] “Basil Bunting … is mentioned several times in The Pisan Cantos” (L/DP 116): see lines 241-242 in Canto 74. 

^[10] “EP enclosed twenty-nine typed pages from Canto 74, 76, and 77. The portion from Canto 74 ran from ‘The suave eyes, quiet, not scornful’ (line 12) to ‘Yaou chose Shun to longevity’ (line 586), and from ‘The Muses are daughters of memory’ (line 718) to ‘in 1912 explaining its mysteries to the piccolo’ (line 802)” (L/DP 176). 

^[11] See “εσσομένοισι” in canto 74 line 724 (L/JL 160). 

^[12] L/JL places this letter in May 1947 (L/JL 161). 

^[13] See “Taishan” in canto 74 lines 89, 140, 246. 

^[14] L/JL places this letter in Nov – Dec 1949 (L/JL 197). 

^[15] See “Frobenius” in canto 74 line 69.  

^[16] See “Gassir” in canto 74 lines 93, 198, 199 (L/JL 198).