CANTOS XXVIII-XXX

It is increasingly difficult to make the fragment of this long poem complete each in itself and would they be entirely so, they would be wrong for their purpose as parts. I have no desire either for needless mystery or for writing equally needless explanations. In the case of the present three cantos, I believe the thoughtful reader, if he will take the risk of guessing their probable function in the poem as a whole, will probably guess right. If he is unwilling to hazard such guess, he may as well go back and read Tennyson.

The two lines of provençal in Canto XXIX are from a poem of Sordello’s.

Ezra Pound. Note to Cantos  XXVIII-XXX. [1930]. P&P V: 203.

Note on colours in the table above: violet for active links to the companion page of a canto; green for active links to full-text canto with glosses.

CANTOS XXVIII-XXX 

CALENDAR OF COMPOSITION

Pound “blocked in” cantos XXVIII-XXX together, in September 1927, as he reported to his father. They were ready by January 1930, when Lincoln Kirstein solicited cantos for Hound and Horn and published them together in his magazine in April. They were republished as part of A Draft of XXX Cantos in August 1930, as part of the volume proposed by Nancy Cunard for the Hours Press in December 1929. The Calendar below shows very broad lineaments, so the time limits for composition are tentative. Canto XXVIII was probably written between September 1927 and March 1928; As Pound left Rapallo for Vienna in April 1928 and stayed until June, Canto XXIX was not begun immediately after XXVIII. It was ready by December 1929; canto XXX was probably written in December 1929-January 1930.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

Correspondence by Ezra Pound: (c) Mary de Rachewiltz and the Estate of Omar S. Pound. Reproduced by permission.

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

1923

From Dorothy Pound, 28 July 1923

Lilly Library, Pound Mss II. 

Dearest Mao

[…]

I have been reading the Cesare Borgia & shall send it to you later on.

[…]

I think I had better buy Lucretia Borgia by Gregorovius Woodward often puts it in notes. There is also a Cesare B. by Yriarte. What language is he? Shall I get that? I find the Borgia Pope Alex VI most interesting.

Note: At the time of the letter, Dorothy was in London whereas Pound in Paris was revising his early cantos for A Draft of XVI Cantos, a volume he was planning with William Bird and Henry Strater. The reading on the Borgias would be included into canto XXX.

To Dorothy Pound, 30 July 1923

Lilly Library, Pound Mss. II

Mao:

[…]

Criterion has come, Sigismundo very satisfactory, everything else in number is punk.

Yes, you might get the Gregorovius but not the Yriarte, at least not yet, he is too inexact, writes in french, did the big red book on Sidg.

[…]

Re Cantos cant spoil the sheep for a haporth  o’ tar.

[…]

Really must try to write to Thomas re/ Criterion. Don’t know that it worth while, or that I need worry, but ...

Note: The exchange between Ezra and Dorothy above is relevant for Canto XXX, where Pound makes use of information to be found in Ferdinand Gregorovius. Lucretia Borgia. New York: 1904. At the time of the letter, T. S. Eliot had just published Pound’s Malatesta Cantos (VIII-XI) in his literary journal The Criterion.

1927

To Homer Pound, 7-11 September 1927

L/HP 636

Dear Dad:

[...]

Canto 27. has gone toward the printer, who says the paper for book is sposed to be on way from Italy to London. 

Am blocking in cantos 28-30 but they wont affect the present volume.

1928

To Homer Pound, 21 March 1928, Rapallo

L/HP 652

Dear Dad:

[...]

If I had brains enough to write another canto I might be less annoyed by the god damned imbecility of nearly all the rest of humanity.

Note. In Canto XXVIII, Pound makes use of current news and includes human frailty and error in a running thread of poetic sottisier. 

1929

To Olga Rudge, 24 August 1929

YCAL 54, 8/192

Ziao

[…]

He dont think his Canto XXVIII very interesting by itself. sort of mortar between chunks; does she want a copy. or to wait till there’s more?

Note. Pound sent Olga cantos 28 on the 26th August and cantos 25-27 on the 27th. 

To Olga Rudge, 27 August 1929

YCAL 54, 8/193

Ziao

[…]

He is chooin’ on at his pome. 

To Olga Rudge, 30 August 1929

YCAL 54, 8/193

Ziao

[…]

IF you come on any notice of anything re/ cette chere Lucrece Borgia (the original), you might lemme know.

To Olga Rudge, 3 September 1929

YCAL 54, 8/194

Ziao

[…]

If you are going by Cassini’s you might see if he has anything on Lucrezia or on Bronzino, and let me know what and quanto.

There is a book by Gregorovius that wd. be useful. That however is prob. in the bibliothek and less likely to be in a libreria. have also ordered it from Hoepli or akd. price.

Note. As Olga was in Venice, Pound told her to visit Cassini, a Venetian bookseller. Dorothy had told Pound about Gregorovius and he ordered it from bookseller Hoepli in Milan.

To Olga Rudge, 4 September 1929

YCAL 54, 8/194

Ziao

[…]

Nothing from Hoepli, save wot I known d..n well namely that most of the books re/ L.B. are aht of print.

To Olga Rudge, 6 September 1929

YCAL 54, 8/194

[…]

have sent another canto to Possum fer critik; but he don’t pay no more attenshun than you do (if you got the one I sent)

Note. Possum is T. S. Eliot, whom Pound quoted in canto 29. Pound had paraphrased Fernand Léger in canto 16: he sought and received the painter’s approval before publication (See Calendar to canto XVI). We may assume that it was his practice to seek confirmation from persons he quoted in The Cantos, especially since Eliot’s confession at Excideuil was personal and made in confidence. See Eliot’s response below.

From T. S. Eliot, 7 December 1929

L/TSE IV: 698

Dear Ezra

[...]

(2) The Canto seems to me allright, I take it to be a transitional or connecting canto summing up or telescoping themes either in retrospect or anticipation; but not TOO difficult. No loss of vitality observable.

Note. The Canto Eliot indicates could be 29, where Eliot is referred to and quoted in ll.136-40. 

1930

To E. E. Cummings, 17 February, 1930 Rapallo

SL 227; P/C 17

Dear Cummings

[...]

If you have a photo of a Cigar Store Indian or can get one, it wd. be deeply appreciated. Our autochtonous sculpture is comparatively unknown in Yourup, though I suspect the c.(or segar) s.i. was possibly of Brit. or colonial origin. Van H. has got a lot of Berenice Abbott’s photos of N.Y. I don’t know just what. Still he hasn’t mentioned an Indian and B’s prob. too young to remember ’em.

Note. The cigar store indian appears in canto 28.

To E. E. Cummings, 25 March 1930 Rapallo

SL 227; P/C 19

Yr Eimminence:

One piece nicotine refined woodlady, 2 views, recd.

Cantos XXVIII-XXX were published in Hound and Horn in April 1930. 

See Cantos in Periodicals.

To Olga Rudge, [25 July 1930], Rapallo

YCAL 54, 9/221

Ziao

[…]

He has bought the Petrarch 1514 with the Donna mi prega in it.

And he has ordered the Soncino 1503 that comes into Canto XXX trying to regard as investment and not xtrastravagansee.

Nancy Cunard published A Draft of XXX Cantos

at her Hours Press in August 1930.

It was “an edition of two hundred and ten copies, including ten signed by the author. The signed copies cost five guineas each and the others £2. There were also two copies on vellum not for sale. The initials were designed by Dorothy Pound.”

(Noel Stock. Ezra Pound. A Life. London: Routledge, 1970. 289.)

1933

From Laurence Pollinger [Curtis Brown], 30 March 1933

YCAL 43, 41/1734

CANTOS early September 1933. [...] F[rank]. M[orley]’s rough notion of a programme is as follows. [...] Faber definitely want to do the XXX CANTOS if you agree to the offer. [...] They would like an open market in Canada if Farrar & Rinehart would let them in. [...] In connection with setting here he would personally like to leave out what I would call full stops and what you might call periods, and what he calls “bloody dots” after the very sensible contractions passim. F.M. means when for would[,] you write wd[,] Farrar prints it wd. with a full stop after it throughout. If you accept such a suggestion, or if you have any autographic alterations to make, please correct a copy for F.M. to print from. Also, and this is important, have you considered the Law of Libel everywhere? I haven’t a copy of book by me, neither has F.M., but he recollects the end of a stanza a referring to the father of Elsie Mackay (the girl who flew with Hinchcliffe) in terms which that wealthy and therefore I suppose, powerful old bird might resent, if he is still alive.

Note. The rich heiress Elsie Mackay attempted a transatlantic flight with Captain Walter Hinchcliffe but was unsuccessful. She appears at the end of canto 28 in the American edition of A Draft of XXX Cantos, but not in the Faber edition, as Eliot feared a libel suit.

From Frank Morley [Faber & Faber], 30 May 1933

YCAL 43, 35/1480

Now this is abaht [Draft of] XXX Cantos. Been a long time scrabbling over the corrected text, a long time because as reading I kept not thinking of the kind of printers reading I was supposed to be doing, i.e. looking for libels smut & whatnot. Pawing over the Cantos that way, treating them so disrespectfully as maybe, re-vealed nothing except the following small comments:

[...]

2. Elsie Mackay on p 140, end of Canto XXVIII [242ff]. We cant get away with that passage (last 5 lines of the Canto. The Inchcapes [James MacKay, Earl of Inchcape] are powerful in this country & I am pretty damn sure therd be a £10000 libel award as quick as you please. Damn nuisance & all but something gotta be devised out of it.

Note: The result of this intervention is that the British edition of The Cantos omitted the last lines of Canto XXVIII, ending the poem at line 241: “Nor for the code of Peoria.” This omission was reflected on subsequent editions based on the Faber text before 1975, including the contemporary text of Mondadori (I Canti, biblingual edition a cura di Mary de Rachewiltz, 1985, most recent reprint in 2012).