MODERNIST FORM: POUND'S STYLE IN 'A DRAFT OF XXX CANTOS'

The early cantos of Ezra Pound are paradigmatic of Modernist poetry in general in that they possess the features of deletion and fragmentation, syntactic and semantic condensation, coupling, free rhythms, multiplicity of point-of-view, and the extensive use of intertexts. These devices are open to semiotic description and may be classified as microcontextual, thus lying on the levels of the line, verse paragraph and canto, or macrocontextual, thus standing in a "bracketing" relationship to microcontextual features.; The microcontextual feature "fragmentation," which in Pound originates during his Imagist period, occurs when deletion of crucial nouns and finite verbs arises in a normally "full" syntagm; "condensation" employs a portion of the syntagm for ambivalent syntactic and semantic ends. "Coupling" (a term devised by S. R. Levin) to a degree re-establishes coherence to the formally fragmented and semantically "over-loaded" Modernist text; this study outlines the relationships among condensation/coupling, ideogrammic method, montage, and spatial form. Finally, free verse in The Cantos, perhaps the work's most obvious feature, is the outcome of a number of factors including quantitative metrics and phrasal organization.; Macrocontextual features operate on a more global basis in the arena of what Michael Riffaterre terms "text production" from "matrices" by way of "models." In pre-twentieth-century poetry, matrices are unrealized sentences or phrases drawn from abstract concepts (traditionally grouped as the "concerns" of a poet); in The Cantos, however, Pound draws upon matrices established early on for later use in this lengthy work, or upon matrices established in a wealth of "intertexts," texts previously written or spoken by a wide variety of persons, from Homer to Flaubert, from Mussolini to the economist Keynes. Pound's extensive use of intertexts is also partly responsible for multiplicity of point-of-view which in turn contributes to the above-noted fragmentation of the text. The dilemmas caused by point-of-view, intertexts, and historicity are specifically discussed with reference to the Malatesta cantos (Cantos 8 through 11).; The study includes a glossary of terms and tables indicating percentage of fragmentation in A Draft.