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List of cultural references in The Cantos

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This is a list of Wikipedia articles on people, places, events, etc. that feature in Ezra Pound's long poem The Cantos.

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A

  • Abd al Melik - The first Caliph to strike Islamic coinage - Canto XCVII
  • John Adams - Second President of the United States; the man who at certain points/made us/at certain points/saved us (Canto LXII) and one of Pound's great political heroes. - Cantos LXII - LXXI and passim
  • John Quincy Adams
  • Samuel Adams – Cousin of John Adams – Adams Cantos
  • Aegisthus - Canto XC
  • Aeschylus - Canto LXXXII
  • Louis Agassiz – Naturalist. He is cited approvingly in Pound's ABC of Reading (1934) for his insistence that students should actually look closely at specimens before writing about them as exemplifying the proper METHOD for studying...that is, careful first-hand examination of the matter, and continual COMPARISON. – Cantos LXXXIX, XCIII, C, CXIII
  • Agricola – Canto LXXXIX: quoted on the roles of writing: ut doceat, ut moveat, ut delectet (to teach, to move, to delight).
  • Alcmene - Mother of Hercules - Canto XC
  • Alexander the Great - Cantos LXXXV, LXXVI, CXIV: Enlightened rule exemplified by the fact that he paid his soldiers' debts.
  • Algazel – Canto XCIII
  • St. Ambrose – Canto LXXXVIII: Against monopolists, Canto C
  • Amphion - Mythical founder of music. - Canto XC
  • Anacreon - Fragment 7 quoted in German translation (The women say to me 'you are old' ) Canto LXXXIII
  • John Penrose Angold - Poet and friend of Pound who died in World War II - Canto LXXXIV
  • Annals of Spring and Autumn - Cantos LXXVIII, LXXXII (there are no righteous wars)
  • Meyer Anselm - Banker - Canto LXXIV
  • St. Anselm of Canterbury - 11th century philosopher and inventor of the ontological argument for the existence of God who wrote poems in rhymed prose. Appealed to Pound because of his emphasis on the role of reason in religion and his envisioning of the divine essence as light. In a 1962 interview, Pound points to Anselm's clash with William Rufus over his investiture as part of the history of the struggle for individual rights. Pound also claims that Anselm's writings influenced Cavalcanti and Villon. – Cantos CI, CV
  • Anti-Semitism - Cantos XXXV, XLVIII, L, LII, LXII, LXIII, LXXIV, XCI
  • Emperor Antoninus Pius - Canto LXXXVII: Law of the sea (Lex Rhodia) – Canto LXXXVIII: Lending money at 4%, Cantos XCVII, XCVIII
  • Aphrodite - passim
  • Apollonius of Tyana – Philosopher and 'lost' alternative to Christianity. Pound was particularly taken with this dictum that the universe is alive. – Cantos XCI, XCII
  • Thomas Aquinas: Canto C
  • Anubis - Egyptian god of the dead - Canto XCII
  • Aristotle - Canto XCIV
  • Artemis - Canto CX
  • Athelstan – Early English king who helped introduce guilds in that country. – Canto XCVII
  • St. Augustine - Canto XCIV
  • Avicenna – Canto XCII

B

  • F.W. Baller – Translator of the Sacred Edict – Canto XCVIII
  • Edward Bancroft – Double agent in the service of the British – Canto LXV
  • Bank - passim
  • John Hollis Bankhead II - U.S. Senator who met Pound in 1939 - Canto LXXXIV
  • Joseph Bard - Canto LXXXI
  • Béla Bartók Pound admired his music and compared Bartók's Fifth Quartet with The Cantos as showing “the defects inherent in a record of struggle.”- Canto LXXXIV
  • Charles Beard Historian of Revolutionary America - Canto LXXXIV
  • Aubrey Beardsley - In his 1913 essay The Serious Artist, Pound discusses two types of art; The cult of beauty and the cult of ugliness. He compares the former with medical cure and the latter with medical diagnosis, and goes on to write Villon, Baudelaire, Corbiere, Beardsley are diagnosis. - beauty is difficult: Cantos LXXIV, LXXX
  • Mabel Beardsley - Canto LXXXII
  • Cesare Beccaria – Italian author of On Crimes and Punishments, which had a great influence on the American Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the U.S. judicial system. – Canto LXIV
  • Jonathan Belcher – colonial governor of Massachusetts and New Hampshire from 1730-1741, governor of New Jersey from 1746 to 1757 Canto LXIV
  • Belgium – Canto LXXXVI: In the context of the Congress of Vienna
  • Belisarius - Byzantine general - Canto C
  • Julien Benda – Author of La trahison des clercs, the English translation of which was by Pound's friend Richard Aldington. – Canto XCI
  • Thomas Lovell Beddoes - Cantos LXXX, XCV
  • Thomas Hart Benton - U.S. senator who opposed the establishment of the Bank of the United States. His Thirty Years View is a key source for the Rock Drill section of The Cantos. – Cantos LXXXV – XCV
  • Blessed Berchtold - Canto LXXXVII
  • Albert Jeremiah Beveridge - Canto LXXXI
  • Laurence Binyon - Poet and friend of Pound in his early London days. Pound advised him with his translation of the Divine Comedy and published a review f the first part in 1934 under the title Hell. - Cantos LXXX and LXXXIII
  • Otto von Bismarck - Cantos LXXXVI, C
  • Wilfred Scawen Blunt - Cantos LXXXI, LXXXII
  • Book of the Prefect (or Eparch) - Canto XCVI
  • William Edgar Borah - U.S. Senator who met Pound in 1939 - Cantos LXXXIV, LXXXVI
  • Bertran de Born - Troubadour: his lament Si tuit li dolh ehl planh el marrimen was translated by Pound as Planh for the Young English King and is quoted in Cantos LXXX and LXXXIV
  • Boston Massacre - Canto LXIV
  • James Bowdoin – American patriot, scientist and poet – Canto LXII
  • Claude Gernade Bowers - Canto LXXXI
  • Brendan Bracken - Canto LXXVI
  • Joshua Brackett – Doctor and patriot who served as a judge in the New Hampshire maritime court during the revolution – Canto LXIV
  • Constantin Brancusi - Canto LXXXV: Mental state of the artist at work - Cantos LXXXVI, XCVII: I can start something any day, but finish...
  • William Brattle – Information he provided to the British led to the Boston Massacre – Canto LXVI
  • Henry Bracton13th century British lawyer who wrote on constitutional law, stressing that the king is subject to law. His thinking influenced the American Founding Fathers. – Canto LXVII
  • Robert Browning - Cantos II, LXXX
  • Henri Gaudier-Brzeska - Cantos LXXVIII, LXXX
  • Basil Bunting - Cantos LXXIV, LXXVII, LXXXI
  • Martin van Buren - U.S. politician whose Autobiography was an important source for Pound's cantos on the Bank wars. - Cantos LXXVIII, C
  • Aaron Burr – Vice-President under Jefferson, Burr killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel. – Canto LXVI
  • Mather Byles – Clergyman who lost his parish in Boston and was almost repatriated to Britain because of his loyalty to the Crown. – Canto LXIV
  • Byzantine Empire - Canto XCV

C

  • Piere Cardinal - Troubadour poet - Canto XCVII
  • Carolingian Empire - Canto XCVI
  • Kit Carson – Served as Fremont's guide. – Canto LXXXIX
  • Castalia - A spring sacred to the Muses. - Cantos XC, XCIII
  • Cathar heresy, also known as Albigensians - passim
  • John Catron – Jacksonian judge and chief justice from 1830 till 1836. – Canto LXXXIX
  • Catullus - Canto XX
  • Guido Cavalcanti - 13th century Italian poet and friend of Dante', who later condemned him to hell in the Divine Comedy. In his 1928 essay, How to Read, Pound lists Cavalcanti among the inventors, or poets who were responsible for introducing something to the art that had never been done before. In an essay published in 1934 and written between 1911 and 1931, Pound wrote Guido is called a 'natural philosopher', I think an 'atheist' , and certainly an 'Epicurean', not that anyone had then any clear idea or has now any very definite notion of what Epicurus taught. But a natural philosopher was a much less safe person than a 'moral philosopher'. It is not so much what Guido says in [Donna mi pregha], as the familiarity that he shows with dangerous thinking; natural demonstration and the proof by experience or (?) experiment... we may perhaps consider Guido as one of that 'tenuous line who from Albertus Magnus]] to the renaissance' meant the freedom of thought, the contempt, or at least a moderated respect, for stupid authority. - Cantos XXXVI (a translation of Donna mi pregha), XCI.
  • Cavour – Prime mover in the 19th century unification of Italy - Canto 61
  • Ceres - Canto LXXXI
  • Charlemagne - - Carolingian ruler - Canto XCVI
  • Charles the Bald (Charles le Chauve) - Canto LXXXIII
  • History of China - passim
  • Chou King- See next entry
  • Classic of History - Section: Rock Drill where Pound calls it the Chou King
  • Henry Clay – 19th century U.S. politician – Canto LXXXVIII
  • Augustin Smith Clayton – 19th century U.S. politician – Canto LXXXVIII
  • Cleopatra wrote on currency - Cantos LXXXV and LXXXVI
  • Jean Cocteau - Cantos LXXVII, LXXX
  • Sir Edward Coke – Late 16th to early 17th century British jurist whose writings on the English common law were the definitive legal texts for some 300 years. – Cantos LXIII, LXIV, LXVI, XCIV, and CVII- CIX
  • Horace Cole - Cantos LXXX, LXXXI
  • Confucius – Also called Kung, Kung-fu-tseu and Chung at various points in the poem. Pound saw himself as a committed follower of the Chinese philosopher and translated the Analects, the Book of Odes, the Great Digest and the Unwobbling Pivot. Under the various version of his name, Confucius appears in The Cantos at least 76 times. The first and most comprehensive of these appearances is in Canto XIII
    • The four Tuan, or foundations (benevolence, rectitude, manners and knowledge) – Cantos LXXXV, LXXXIX
  • Congress of Vienna – Canto LXXXVI: Example of politicians working to avoid war.
  • Séraphin Couvreur (January 14, 1856 - ?) – French Jesuit missionary to China. His edition of the Chou King, with French and Latin translations, was used by Pound in the Rock Drill section (Cantos LXXXV – XCV).
  • Credit - passim
  • Cumaean Sibyl - Cantos LXIV, XC
  • Thomas Cushing – American politician who opposed independence – Canto LXII

D

  • Arnaut Daniel - Troubadour poet. Pound translated most of his surviving work and agreed with Dante's high estimation of him. In his 1910 book The Spirit of Romance, Pound wrote The Twelfth Century, or, more exactly, that century whose center is the year 1200, has left us two perfect gifts: the church of San Zeno in Verona, and the canzoni of Arnaut Daniel In his 1928 essay, How to Read, Pound lists Arnaut among the inventors, or poets who were responsible for introducing something to the art that had never been done before. - Canto XCVII
  • Dante Alighieri Italian poet whose Divine Comedy, a long allegorical poem in three parts (Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso) and 100 cantos describing the poet's journey through hell, purgatory and paradise was a major model for Pound's long poem. In his 1928 essay, How to Read, Pound lists Dante among the inventors, or poets who were responsible for introducing something to the art that had never been done before. Cantos LXXXV - Canto XCIII: Discussed distributive justice -
    • The Divine Comedy
      • Inferno: Canto CX (Lines on the doomed lovers Paolo and Francesca quoted) - Canto CXI (Inferno XVII source for Geryon. In the essay Hell, his 1934 review of Laurence Binyon's translation of the Inferno, Pound wrote Deep hell is reached via Geryon [fraud] of the marvelous patterned hide, and for ten cantos thereafter the damned are all of them tamned for money.)
      • Purgatorio: Canto LXXXIV (Purgatorio XXVI lines on Arnaut Daniel misquoted) - Canto XCIII (Purgatorio XXVIII quoted extensively at end) - Canto XCVII (Purgatorio XXVI on Arnaut Daniel)
      • Paradiso: Cantos VII, XCIII, CIX: (Paradiso II on Dante's 'dinghy') - Canto XCVIII: divine light - Canto XCIII (Paradiso: Canto VIII quoted non fosse cive/if he were not a citizen) -Canto C on gladness (letizia)
    • Il Convito - Canto XCI: che il terzo ciel movete (who moves the third heaven) quoted - Canto XXV compagnevole animale (man is a companionable animal) quoted
    • Other works - Canto CXVI (Canzone Al poco giorno e al gran cerchio d’ombra quoted)
  • Silas Deane – U.S. agent in France – Canto LXV
  • Declaration of Independence – Canto LXV
  • Alexander del Mar – Economic historian whose History of Monetary Systems was a major source for Pound's later writings. Del Mar was Jewish and opposed economic anti-Semitism strongly in his writings. – Cantos LXXXIX, XCVI, XCVIII, XCIV
  • Demeter - Canto XCVIII
  • Diana – Latin goddess of hunting, equivalent of Greek Athene. – Canto XCI: Layamon's hymn to Diana is quoted.
  • Dionysus - passim, esp hymn in Canto LXXIX
  • Dirce - Canto LXXXII
  • Disraeli – Canto LXXXIX: The right of search and the Anglo-American War of 1812 to 1814.
  • Andreas Divus - Canto I
  • Arnold Dolmetsch - Canto LXXXI
  • Charles Doughty - Canto LXXXIII
  • C. H. Douglas - Cantos XXII, XCVII, C
  • John Dowland - Canto LXXXI
  • Dryad (Pound's name for both H.D. and Olga Rudge) - Canto LXXXIII

E

  • Ecbatana - Canto LXXIV
  • Eleanor of Aquitaine - Canto II
  • Electra - Canto XC
  • Eleusinian Mysteries - passim
  • T.S. Eliot (Possum, the Rev, Eliot) - Cantos LXXIV, LXXX, XCVIII
  • Queen Elizabeth I Translated Ovid - Canto LXXXV
  • Oliver Ellsworth - Judge who served on mission to France under Adams – Adams Cantos
  • John Endicott – colonial governor of Massachusetts in 1644, 1649, and from 1650 till 1665, with the exception of 1654 - Canto LXIV
  • Joseph Ennemoser (Ennemosor (sic) historian of magic) - LXXXIII
  • Epictetus Canto LXXI: Hymn to Cleanthes quoted.
  • John Scotus Eriugena (Erigena in Pound's spelling) Pound valued him for his neoplatonic view that all things that are are light, his persecution as a heretic long after his death, and the Greek tags in his "excellent" verses - Cantos XXXVI, LXXIV, LXXXIII, LXXXV, LXXXVII, LXXXVIII, XC, XCII
  • Nicolo d'Este - Canto LXXXII

F

G

  • Galileo Galilei - Canto LXXXV
  • Moses Gill – Served as Acting Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts 1799 – 1800 – Canto LXV
  • Gold standard
  • Goddeschalk - Canto XCIII
  • Rémy de Gourmont – French Symbolist. Pound translated his The Natural Philosophy of Love – Canto LXXXVII
  • Jeremiah Gridley – Boston-born lawyer who was involved in the Writs of Assistance case and later espoused the patriot cause in the War of Independence. – Canto LXIV
  • Robert Grosseteste - 13th century philosopher who argued that light is the first corporeal form from which all other forms are derived and that God is pure Light (in a different, non-corporeal sense). Latin tags from his De luce (On light) and De Iride (On rainbows) that appear in The Cantos appear in more extensive quotations in Pound's 1934 essay Cavalcanti - Canto LXXXIII plura diafana (many transparencies from De Iride), Canto CX Lux enim (Light of its nature [pours itself into every part] from De luce)
  • Guild – Cantos XCVI, XCVII

H

  • Alexander Hamilton - For Pound, the great villian of U.S. history. - Cantos XXXVII, LXXII, LXIX.
  • James Hamilton Jr. – 19th century U.S. politician – Canto LXXXVIII
  • Hanno the Navigator - Canto XL
  • John Hancock – American patriot who signed the Declaration of Independence and was involved in the aftermath of the Boston Massacre – Canto LXIV
  • Hebe - Goddess of youth identified by her attribute kalliastragallos (with fine ankles) - Cantos CIX, CX
  • Helen of Troy – Canto XCVIII
  • Patrick Henry – U.S. statesman who is famous for his Give me liberty or give me death speech. – Canto LXV
  • Heraclitus (panta rei [everything flows] quoted) - Canto LXXXIII
  • Maurice Hewlett – Poet and friend of Pound's in his early days in London. – Canto XCII
  • John Heydon17th century mystic, self-styled secretary of nature, and author of the Holy Guide (1662), which Pound read in Stone Cottage with Yeats and then borrowed from Yeats' widow when writing the Rock Drill cantos. His idea of signatures in nature that mean that, for example, every oak leaf is recognisably an oak leaf and not a holly leaf, is important in the Cantos. He also wrote on form and, in Gaudier-Brzeska: A Memoir, Pound wrote: A clavicord or a statue or a poem, wrought out of ages of knowledge, out of fine perception and skill, that some other man, that a hundred other men, in moments of weariness can wake beautiful sound with little effort, that they can be carried out of the realm of annoyance into the realm of truth, into the world unchanging, the world of fine animal life, the world of pure form. And John Heydon, long before our present day theorists, had written of the joys of pure form . . . inorganic, geometrical form, in his "Holy Guide". – Cantos XCI. XCII
  • James Hillhouse – Clergyman and judge who served as a major in the American Revolution – Canto LXVIII
  • Leo VI – Byzantine emperor - Canto XCVI
  • Leopold von Hoesch – German Ambassador to London during the rise of Hitler – Canto LXXXVI
  • Homer - In his 1928 essay, How to Read, Pound lists Homer among the inventors, or poets who were responsible for introducing something to the art that had never been done before. - passim
    • Odyssey - Canto I: Translation of trip to Hades, Canto LXXXIX: Quoted d antropon iden (he knew many men [of Odysessus]) - Cantos XCI, XCIII, XCV, XCVI, XCVIII: Quoted and/or re Leucothoe's rescuing Odysseus by giving him her veil/kredemnon (my bikini is worth more than yr raft) - Canto XCVIII: Quoted on Nestor
  • William Hooper (of North Carolina) - American patriot who signed the Declaration of Independence – Canto LXV
  • Alexander von Humboldt – Naturalist and friend of Louis Agassiz – Cantos LXXXIX, XCVII
  • Samuel Huntingdon - American patriot who signed the Declaration of Independence – Canto LXIX
  • Thomas Hutchinson - Canto LXIV
  • Hyksos – Canto XCIII

I

  • Samuel Delucenna Ingham – 19th century U.S. politician – Canto LXXXVIII
  • Iong Cheng - Son of K'ang Hsi who wrote a commentary on the Sacred Edict - Cantos LXI, XCIX

J

  • Andrew Jackson - President of the U.S. who opposed establishment of the Bank of the United States. - Cantos LXXXVIII, LXXXIX, C
  • Henry James, Cantos LXXIV, LXXIX
  • John Jay – one of the ministers involved in treaty negotiations with Britain and France. – Canto LXV
  • Thomas Jefferson - Cantos XXXI - XXXIV and LXII - LXXI
  • John Jenkins - Canto LXXXI
  • James Joyce - Canto LXXIV, LXXVII
  • Julia Domna - Wife of Septimus Severus - Canto XCIV
  • Justinian code – Canto LXXXVII: Viewed as imperfect - Canto C, CXVI

K

L

M

  • Nathaniel Macon – U.S. politician who was unsuccessful candidate for vice president of the United States in 1825. – Canto LXXXIX
  • Sigismondo Malatesta - Cantos VIII - XI and passim
  • Maria Theresia - Archduchess of Austria and queen of Hungary and Bohemia (1740-80), her thalers are perhaps the most famous silver coin in the world and were important in trade with the Levant. – Cantos LXXXVI, LXXXIX
  • Charles Martel - Carolingian ruler - Canto XCVI
  • Charles Elkin Mathews - Cantos LXXXII, C
  • John Masefield - Canto LXXXII
  • Thomas McKean - American patriot who signed the Declaration of Independence – Canto LXKI
  • Lorenzo de Medici - Pound admired his poetry - Canto LXXVIII
  • Medici bank - In his 1934 essay Date Line, Pound wrote: Wherever you find a Medici, you find a loan at low interest, often at half that of their contemporaries. - Cantos XXI, XIL
  • Mencius (the nine fields, equity in government) - LXXXIII
  • Abbas Mirza - (c. 1783-1833), prince of Persia who was famed for the simplicity of his lifestyle. – Canto LXXXIX
  • Jacques de Molay Last Grand Master of the Templars who was executed for heresy and other charges. – Cantos LXXXVII, XC
  • Money supply - passim
  • Federico da Montefeltro - Cantos VIII - XI
  • Simon de Montfort, 5th Earl of Leicester - Canto LXXXIII
  • Moon – Either directly or via mythological exemplifications (usually goddesses), the moon represents light in its creative or mystical aspect in The Cantos. – passim
  • Dwight L. Morrow – Sometime U.S. ambassador to Mexico. – Canto LXXXVI
  • Mozart - Cantos XXVI, LXXIX, CXIII, CXV
  • Musonius Rufus – Canto XCIV
  • Benito Mussolini - Italian Fascist dictator admired by Pound. - Cantos XXXIII, LXXIV, LXXVIII, Notes for CXVII et seq.

N

O

  • Ocellus Lucanus – – Canto LXXXVII all things have neither a beginning nor an end – Canto LXXXVII, - Cantos XCI, XCIII, XCVIII: to build light
  • Odysseus - passim (see Homer)
  • Andrew Oliver - Canto LXIV
  • A. R. Orage - Editor of the New Age and friend of Pound - Cantos XCVIII, CXI
  • James Otis - Cantos LXII - LXXI
  • Ovid - In his 1928 essay, How to Read, Pound lists Ovid among the inventors, or poets who were responsible for introducing something to the art that had never been done before. - passim

P

R

  • John Randolph of Roanoke – 19th century U.S. politician and leader of opposition to the Bank of the United States - Cantos LXXXVII, LXXXIX, XC
  • Charles, comte de Rémusat - Canto C
  • Renaissance - passim
  • Rhea – Mother of Zeus, who is generally depicted between two lions or on a chariot pulled by lions. Canto XCI
  • Richard of St. Victor - In his 1910 book The Spirit of Romance, Pound wrote the keenly intellectual mysticism of Richard of St. Victor fascinates me. - Canto LXXXV: On contemplation as active intellect - Canto XC: ubi amor, ibi oculuc est (where love is, there is the eye) - XCII - Canto XCIV
  • Joseph F. Rock - American botanist and explorer who described and filmed many Chinese and Tibetan rituals - Canto CX
  • Roman Empire – Canto XCVI
  • Franklin D. Roosevelt - Cantos LXXXV, XCVII
  • Walter Rummel - Musician who worked with Pound on recovering settings of Troubadour songs. - Canto LXXX
  • Benjamin Rush – Signatory of the Declaration of Independence – Cantos XCIV, XCVII

S

T

  • Talleyrand – Canto LXXXI: Curbing Bismarck's ambitions at the Congress of Vienna, Canto CXI: and Napoleon
  • F.W. Tancred - Canto LXXXII
  • John Taylor ( of Caroline) Served as a colonel under Patrick Henry – Canto LXVII
  • Thales of Miletus – Pound was interested in his exploitation of a monopoly of the olive presses having predicted a bumper harvest, as story related by Aristotle. – Canto LXXXVIII
  • Theocritus - Canto LXXXI
  • Adolphe Thiers - 19th century French statesman, journalist, and historian of the French Revolution. - Canto XCIX
  • Tiresias - Cantos I, LXXXIII
  • Toba Sojo - 11th century Japanese artist - Canto CX
  • Alexis de Tocqueville - Canto LXXXVIII
  • Troubador - passim
  • Samuel Tucker – Captain of the ship that brought John Adams to France in 1778. – Canto LXV
  • John Tyler - He was the first Vice President to be elevated to the office of President by the death of his predecessor. Tyler vetoed Henry Clay's bill to establish a National Bank. – Cantos LXXXVII, C
  • Tyro - Mythological figure who had two sons, Neleus and Pelias by Poseidon - Canto XC

U

V

W

X

Y

  • William Butler Yeats - Pisan Cantos passim - Cantos XCVI (admiration for Byzantium), XCVIII, CXIII, CXIV

Z

  • Zeus - Canto XC
  • John Joachim Zubly – Swiss-born preacher who, during the American War of Independence, betrayed the plans of the popular party to the British. – Canto LXV