The Cantos

The Cantos are a major work of modernist poetry by American poet Ezra Pound. They were written over many years, 1917-1970. They are controversial because of Pound's support for Mussolini while he lived in Italy.

The Cantos Media

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  Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta "built a temple so full of pagan works" (Canto XI). Portrait by Piero della Francesca.

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  Venice: "Flat water before me, / and the trees growing in water, / Marble trunks out of stillness, / On past the palazzi, / in the stillness, The light now, not of the sun" (Canto XVII)

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  Thomas Jefferson, who was, in Pound's view, a new Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta.

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  Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo, who sought to end state debt and protected agricultural implements from sequestration for personal debt. (Portrait by Stefano Gaetano Neri.)

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  Confucius "cut 3000 odes to 300".

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  John Adams: "the man who at certain points /made us / at certain points / saved us" (Canto LXII).

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  Senator Thomas Hart Benton, who opposed the establishment of the Bank of the United States. His Thirty Years View is a key source for this section of The Cantos.

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  Sir Edward Coke: "the clearest mind ever in England" (Canto CVII).