Pound's Epic Ambition

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Pound's Epic Ambition
Dante and the Modern World

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Stephen Sicari - Author

SUNY series, The Margins of Literature

N/A
Hardcover - 249 pages

Release Date: October 1991

ISBN10: 0-7914-0699-7
ISBN13: 978-0-7914-0699-1

Price: $32.95
Paperback - 249 pages

Release Date: September 1991

ISBN10: 0-7914-0700-4
ISBN13: 978-0-7914-0700-4

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Summary

"Sicari shows, canto by canto, how Pound uses not only the Odyssey of Homer and the Commedia of Dante but also the Aenead of Virgil as an organizing principal as well as a sub-base of meaning. An informed reader will see for the first time the unity, cohesion, and systematic growth of the poem to climaxes of light in the final cantos." -- Carroll Terrell, University of Maine at Orono

This book is both an introductory overview of The Cantos and a detailed analysis advancing the knowledge of even the most sophisticated specialist. Sicari's analysis gives a clear orientation to the often bewildering but ultimately rewarding world of this difficult epic poem and shows that beneath the surface of the poem is the classical figure of the epic wanderer whose journey provides the "plot" of the poem.

Non-specialists will appreciate Sicari's synthesis of a wide range of material. Sicari explores how Dante and the epic tradition informs The Cantos; those interested in the epic should find Sicari's study an important contribution to the field. Those studying modernism in general will see in Sicari's definition of the modern epic useful ways to study the other great achievements of high modernism, especially those of Yeats, Eliot, and Joyce. Those interested in the relation between literature and politics will find this book especially informative, for Sicari is one of the few critics on Pound who does not ignore Pound's politics, or simply castigate him for the unfortunate views he adopts and advocates. The analysis of Pound's fascism is a sub-theme that sheds new light on how politics enters a great modernist poem and affects its shape and intention.

Stephen Sicari is Assistant Professor in the Department of English at Adelphi University.

Table of Contents

Preface

Abbreviations

Introduction. The Epic Ambition: Reading Dante

1. The Wanderer as Exile: The Quest for Home

2. The Wanderer as Fascist: Mussolini, Confucius, and America

3. The Wanderer as Prophet: Aeneas and the Ideal City

4. The Wanderer as Historian: Writing Paradise

Conclusion. Palinode and Silence

Notes

Works Cited

Index

Related Subjects

Literary Criticism

24230/24405(CFS//FK)

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