Cintra Whitehead CONSTRUING EZRA POUND’S CANTOS Cintra Whitehead Ocala, Florida, USA PROLOGUE DEVELOPING A HYPOTHESIS This article was written several years ago, just When readers first come to Ezra Pound’s Can- before I became acquainted with George Kelly’s tos, especially if they have read no criticism of Psychology of Personal Constructs. I include it the work, they are likely to be perplexed about here because, first, I think that Ezra Pound1, like the themes, meaning, and purpose of the Cantos. George Kelly, believed that learning to discern One method for trying to understand these is for evil from good is the most important task in life. readers to begin immediately to form tentative Now wait a minute, readers might say. A man hypotheses about them and test these hypotheses who was imprisoned in a mental hospital be- against Pound’s ideas as they progress through cause of a charge of treason? A man accused of the Cantos. If they wait to form a hypothesis anti-semitism? Such a man was primarily con- until they have read all of the Cantos, they are cerned with morals and ethics? Of course. Like likely to be overwhelmed by the material, and Shakespeare’s King Lear, whom we have ob- probably will be unable to hold all of the com- served in the previous article in this volume plexities in their minds while they combine and Whitehead (2016 [1991]), Pound made some recombine elements of the work. Whenever a serious mistakes in his efforts to know good and hypothesis seems to be refuted, or seems inade- evil in particular and reality in general, but at quate to integrate newly introduced material, the least, as the Cantos indicate, he tried to recog- reader can form another hypothesis, perhaps at a nize the manifestations of good and evil higher level of abstraction, in order to handle the throughout history, and at least he was aware of new concepts or the reorganization of the mate- the importance of the enduring human struggle rial by the poet. Finally at the end of the first to know and deal with evil. The important thing reading of the Cantos readers will have a hy- is that we learn from the real poet’s and the fic- pothesis about the whole work which they can tional king’s errors of construction. compare with theories formed by other critics. It And, then, too, I believe readers of this article seems unwise to turn to the critics before a first will see how in my own thinking I was strug- reading and its resultant hypothesis lest one’s gling toward ideas about human thought which thinking about the Cantos be influenced by a Kelly had already developed, and why, when I psychological set provided by another’s percep- discovered him, I felt I had experienced an tions.2 epiphany. In my own reading of the Cantos, I began in canto 1 with the very narrow hypothesis, possi- bly universal to readers who come to the Cantos in total naiveté, that this is a traditional epic. It 1 Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (1885–1972) was an seems clear in canto 1 that this is the story of expatriate American poet and critic who was a major Ulysses told in a slightly different style but plain figure in the early modernist movement. His contri- bution to poetry began with his development of Im- 2 In his paper on Don Giovanni, discussed in the pre- agism, a movement derived from classical Chinese vious article on King Lear in this issue of Construc- and Japanese poetry, stressing clarity, precision and tive Criticism (Whitehead (2016 [1991]), Kelly talks economy of language. His best-known works in- of seeing with a “nude mind,” i.e., not seeing what clude Ripostes (1912), Hugh Selwyn Mauberley someone else tell us to see but what we see when we (1920) and the unfinished 120-section epic, The are on our own. Cantos (1917–69). (Wikipedia) (Eds.) 164 Personal Construct Theory & Practice, 13, 2016 Construing Ezra Pound’s Cantos enough in intent. The final lines of canto 1 and In Ezra Pound’s Hell the reader finds “politi- the opening lines of canto 2 forced me to reject cians,” “betrayers of language,” “those who lied this hypothesis and to be somewhat cautious for hire,” “...perverts who have set money-lust about forming a new one, for the elevated style before the pleasures of the senses,” “vice crusad- of canto 1, as if it were a dream that cannot be ers," “unamiable liars,” “slum owners,” “Usu- sustained by the dreamer, breaks into a sort of rers,” “panders to authority,” “pets-deloup ... confused mumbling of waking, and the puckish, obscuring the texts with philology,” “monopo- petulant, crabbed voice of Ezra Pound, as if fully lists,” “obstructors of knowledge,” “obstructors awake now and speaking for himself, proclaims, of distribution,” “cowardly inciters to violence,” “Hang it all Robert Browning, / there can be but “fabians,” “conservatives,” and “news owners.” the one “Sordello.” / But Sordello and my On the first page of canto 15 one finds for the Sordello?” first time in capital letters the word USURIA as Until the Hell Cantos (14 and 15), although I an element of Hell. Thus, half way through the tried, I could form no new hypothesis to explain Draft of XXX Cantos, it is possible to postulate a the introduction of such diverse personages and clear-cut dichotomy in Pound’s classification of subjects as Sigismundo Malatesta, Eleanor of people and events in history: that which is good Acquitaine, Pound’s own memories of Venice is friendly to art and nature; that which is evil and Verona, bankers’ meetings, and Confucius exploits art and nature. Art and nature for Pound (Kung). However, the contrast between the quiet seem to be identical at this point – at least art is beauty of canto 13 with its tone of approval of not the mimesis of nature but the expression (or Kung and his principles on the one hand and the even perhaps the suspiration) of nature. brilliant ugliness of Pound’s Hell – so reminis- However the idea of a simple dichotomy is cent of a painting by Hieronymus Bosch – on the disturbing. Certainly a poet of Pound’s sensitivi- other, led me to see Pound as dichotomizing ty and sophistication does not perceive sharp good vs. evil for didactic purposes. One might of black and white – surely he must see shades of course see only contrast for artistic effect, and grey. At the beginning of canto 16 it seems, in- perhaps my concept of good vs. evil was an deed, that Pound does see shades of grey, for oversimplification3. Still it gave me a way of outside “hell mouth” in Limbo – an area not Hell organizing my perceptions4 of the Cantos (I but certainly not Paradise – he describes the mad speak of the level of meaning, leaving considera- figure of William Blake and with him Peire Car- tions of poetics and poetic technique entirely dinal, Il Fiorentino, Sordello, and Augustine. For aside). I felt that by using the very high level Pound, these men all have admirable qualities abstraction good vs. evil, I might be able to see a but in some way have failed to be effective in pattern, then perhaps take a few steps back down life: Blake protested, but ineffectively (Pound, the ladder of abstraction to a more definite hy- 1968, 7176); Cardinal and Sordello also protest- pothesis or hypotheses about the meaning of the ed against inequity but through satire and not Cantos. directly, while Fiorentino “tried to whitewash Aristotle’s character,” and, although he freed his 3 Having read Kelly, I now know that it would be slaves, he did so only by testament after his more accurate to talk about a construct of good vs. death, thus offering an unfavorable comparison evil rather than of a concept. to Cunniza da Romano who, Pound has already 4 Again, the better word would be constructs rather toll us, freed her slaves while she was alive than perceptions. From this point on, throughout the (Pound, 1968, 102-08). paper, the word construct in square brackets follow- ing such words as percept(ion) or concept(ion) will remind the reader of Kelly's view that we construe VISUALIZING POUND’S CONSTRUCT OF (place a construction upon) things, people, and HELL events rather than perceive or conceive them. The bipolar nature of the construct as opposed to the uni- tary nature of the percept or concept makes it easier Until I had considered the beginning of canto 16 to understand the oppositional thinking of human- I had in mind a simple continuum for Pound’s kind. values similar to Osgood’s semantic differential. It seemed at first that for Pound good was identi- 165 Personal Construct Theory & Practice, 13, 2016 Cintra Whitehead cal with art and nature while evil was identical would seem to deserve a score of 6 on the con- with exploitation which for Pound was essential- tinuum. I wondered if there might not be a better ly the perversion of nature. way to visualize these concepts, and it finally occurred to me that I was oversimplifying and that there were really two dimensions: good vs. evil, and art/nature vs. exploitation which I was trying to represent in the above one dimensional schema. If I were to rotate one of these axes to the perpendicular, I might have a more flexible Fig. 1 model. I could then imagine a line Y-Z which would intersect at the mid-point of the axes and Along this continuum particular people and con- below which would lie those persons and things cepts [constructs] might be placed.