'Between Kung and Eleusis': Ovid, anti-semitism, and the metamorphoses of Ezra Pound

This thesis is an investigation of the divine as a structural and ideological principle in The Cantos of Ezra Pound. Specifically, this thesis considers how the apparent space between the lyrical and the political sections of the Cantos may be problematized by considering 'Confucius' and 'Eleusis' (or 'Ovid') as principles of order and disorder, political efficacy and natural fecundity, which in fact are joined within the metaphoric system through which Pound develops representations of politics, aesthetics, and mythology.;Essentially, in cantos I-LI Pound's apparent Fascism and anti-Semitism obtain within an expanding conflation of politics, aesthetics, and mythology. As a result the Cantos is rewritten by increments as Pound adopts progressively more complex personae as heroic models. This progression terminates at canto LII with Pound's endorsement of Mussolini and configuration of the Jews within a Chain of Being surmounted by the differentiative and phallic logos of the sun.