List of cultural references in The Cantos
Encyclopedia
Ezra Pound
Ezra Weston Loomis Pound was an American expatriate poet and critic and a major figure in the early modernist movement in poetry...
's The Cantos
The Cantos
The Cantos by Ezra Pound is a long, incomplete poem in 120 sections, each of which is a canto. Most of it was written between 1915 and 1962, although much of the early work was abandoned and the early cantos, as finally published, date from 1922 onwards. It is a book-length work, widely considered...
, a long, incomplete poem in 120 sections, each of which is a canto
Canto
The canto is a principal form of division in a long poem, especially the epic. The word comes from Italian, meaning "song" or singing. Famous examples of epic poetry which employ the canto division are Lord Byron's Don Juan, Valmiki's Ramayana , Dante's The Divine Comedy , and Ezra Pound's The...
.
Modernist poetry
Modernist poetry refers to poetry written between 1890 and 1950 in the tradition of modernist literature in the English language, but the dates of the term depend upon a number of factors, including the nation of origin, the particular school in question, and the biases of the critic setting the...
of the twentieth century. As in Pound's prose writing, the themes of economics
Economics
Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...
, governance
Governance
Governance is the act of governing. It relates to decisions that define expectations, grant power, or verify performance. It consists of either a separate process or part of management or leadership processes...
and culture
Culture
Culture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...
are integral to its content.
The most striking feature of the text, to a casual browser, is the inclusion of Chinese character
Chinese character
Chinese characters are logograms used in the writing of Chinese and Japanese , less frequently Korean , formerly Vietnamese , or other languages...
s as well as quotations in European language
Language
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
s other than English. Recourse to scholarly commentaries is almost inevitable for a close reader
Close reading
Close reading describes, in literary criticism, the careful, sustained interpretation of a brief passage of text. Such a reading places great emphasis on the particular over the general, paying close attention to individual words, syntax, and the order in which sentences and ideas unfold as they...
. The range of allusion to historical events and other works of literature is very broad, and abrupt changes occur with the minimum of stage directions.
This list serves as a collection of links to information on a wide range of these references with clear indications of the cantos in which they appear. It also gives relevant citations to Pound's other writings, especially his prose, and translations of non-English words and phrases where appropriate. Where authors are quoted or referred to, but not named, the reference is listed under their names and the quoted words or phrases are given after the relevant canto number. Individual canto numbers are given in bold for ease of reference.
A
- AcoetesAcoetesAcoetes was the name of two men in Greek and Roman mythology. The first Acoetes is known for helping the god Bacchus. Another, lesser-known Acoetes was father to Laocoon, who warned about the Trojan Horse.-Bacchic myth:...
- Acoetes is the narrator of the tale from OvidOvidPublius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...
's Metamorphoses retold in Canto II. Acoetes is the pilot of the pirate ship that kidnaps a youngster who turns out to be the god DionysusDionysusDionysus was the god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness and ecstasy in Greek mythology. His name in Linear B tablets shows he was worshipped from c. 1500—1100 BC by Mycenean Greeks: other traces of Dionysian-type cult have been found in ancient Minoan Crete...
and who transforms the ship into a rock and the sailors into fish. Acoetes warns his fellows about the wrong they are doing, but they don't heed him, being "mad for a little slave money". - Abd al Melik - The first CaliphCaliphThe Caliph is the head of state in a Caliphate, and the title for the ruler of the Islamic Ummah, an Islamic community ruled by the Shari'ah. It is a transcribed version of the Arabic word which means "successor" or "representative"...
to strike Islamic coinCoinA coin is a piece of hard material that is standardized in weight, is produced in large quantities in order to facilitate trade, and primarily can be used as a legal tender token for commerce in the designated country, region, or territory....
age - Canto XCVII - John AdamsJohn AdamsJohn Adams was an American lawyer, statesman, diplomat and political theorist. A leading champion of independence in 1776, he was the second President of the United States...
- 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 XXXI - XXXIV, L - "the revolution was in the minds of the people" , LXII - LXXI- Novanglus - Pen-name Adams used for essays written in 1775 to argue against the British Parliament's right to tax or legislate for the American colonies. Canto LXII
- John Quincy AdamsJohn Quincy AdamsJohn Quincy Adams was the sixth President of the United States . He served as an American diplomat, Senator, and Congressional representative. He was a member of the Federalist, Democratic-Republican, National Republican, and later Anti-Masonic and Whig parties. Adams was the son of former...
- Son of John Adams - Canto XLVIII - Charles Francis AdamsCharles Francis Adams, Sr.Charles Francis Adams, Sr. was an American lawyer, politician, diplomat and writer. He was the grandson of President John Adams and Abigail Adams and the son of President John Quincy Adams and Louisa Adams....
- Son of John Quincy Adams - Canto XLVIII - Samuel AdamsSamuel AdamsSamuel Adams was an American statesman, political philosopher, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. As a politician in colonial Massachusetts, Adams was a leader of the movement that became the American Revolution, and was one of the architects of the principles of American...
– Cousin of John Adams – Adams Cantos - AdonisAdonisAdonis , in Greek mythology, the god of beauty and desire, is a figure with Northwest Semitic antecedents, where he is a central figure in various mystery religions. The Greek , Adōnis is a variation of the Semitic word Adonai, "lord", which is also one of the names used to refer to God in the Old...
- Canto XVIIL - AegisthusAegisthusIn Greek mythology, Aegisthus was the son of Thyestes and of Thyestes' daughter, Pelopia....
- Canto XC - AeschylusAeschylusAeschylus was the first of the three ancient Greek tragedians whose work has survived, the others being Sophocles and Euripides, and is often described as the father of tragedy. His name derives from the Greek word aiskhos , meaning "shame"...
– Cantos II, VII: Puns on the name of Helen of Troy as "destroyer of men" ("Eliandros") and "destroyer of cities" ("Elanpolis") from his play Agamemnon used by Pound. In his 1920 essay Translators of Greek: Early Translators of Homer, Pound criticises Robert Browning's translation of the passage containing these puns. – Canto LXXXII: Swinburn on.
Louis Agassiz
Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz was a Swiss paleontologist, glaciologist, geologist and a prominent innovator in the study of the Earth's natural history. He grew up in Switzerland and became a professor of natural history at University of Neuchâtel...
– Naturalist. He is cited approvingly in Pound's ABC of Reading
ABC of Reading
ABC of Reading is a book by Ezra Pound published in 1934. In it, Pound sets out an approach to the appreciation and understanding of literature ....
(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
Olivia Rossetti Agresti
Olivia Rossetti Agresti was a British activist, author, editor, and interpreter. A member of one of England's most prominent artistic and literary families, her unconventional political trajectory began with anarchism, continued with the League of Nations, and ended with Italian fascism...
- Cantos LXXVI, LXXVIII
Rodolphus Agricola
Rodolphus Agricola was a pre-Erasmian humanist of the northern Low Countries, famous for his supple Latin and one of the first north of the Alps to know Greek well...
– Canto LXXXIX: quoted on the roles of writing: "ut doceat, ut moveat, ut delectet" ("to teach, to move, to delight").
Albigensian Crusade
The Albigensian Crusade or Cathar Crusade was a 20-year military campaign initiated by the Catholic Church to eliminate Catharism in Languedoc...
- Canto XXXIII
Alcmene
In Greek mythology, Alcmene or Alcmena was the mother of Heracles.-Background:Alcmene was born to Electryon, the son of Perseus and Andromeda, and king of Tiryns and Mycenae or Medea in Argolis. Her mother was Anaxo, daughter of Alcaeus and Astydamia, daughter of Pelops and Hippodameia...
- Mother of Hercules
Hercules
Hercules is the Roman name for Greek demigod Heracles, son of Zeus , and the mortal Alcmene...
- Canto XC
Al-Ghazali
Abu Hāmed Mohammad ibn Mohammad al-Ghazzālī , known as Algazel to the western medieval world, born and died in Tus, in the Khorasan province of Persia was a Persian Muslim theologian, jurist, philosopher, and mystic....
– Canto XCIII
Amphion
There are several characters named Amphion in Greek mythology:* Amphion, son of Zeus and Antiope, and twin brother of Zethus . Together they are famous for building Thebes. Amphion married Niobe, and killed himself after the loss of his wife and children at the hands of Apollo and Artemis...
- Canto LXXXIII: Mythical founder of music. - Canto XC
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
translation ("The women say to me 'you are old'")
John Penrose Angold
John Penrose Angold was a British poet and translator who died while serving with the RAF during World War II. A Collected Poems appeared in 1952. His death is lamented in Ezra Pound's Pisan Cantos....
- Poet and friend of Pound who died in World War II - Canto LXXXIV
Mencius
Mencius was a Chinese philosopher who was arguably the most famous Confucian after Confucius himself.-Life:Mencius, also known by his birth name Meng Ke or Ko, was born in the State of Zou, now forming the territory of the county-level city of Zoucheng , Shandong province, only thirty kilometres ...
)
Gabriele D'Annunzio
Gabriele D'Annunzio or d'Annunzio was an Italian poet, journalist, novelist, and dramatist...
- Italian poet - Canto XCIII
Anselm of Canterbury
Anselm of Canterbury , also called of Aosta for his birthplace, and of Bec for his home monastery, was a Benedictine monk, a philosopher, and a prelate of the church who held the office of Archbishop of Canterbury from 1093 to 1109...
- 11th century philosopher and inventor of the ontological argument
Ontological argument
The ontological argument for the existence of God is an a priori argument for the existence of God. The ontological argument was first proposed by the eleventh-century monk Anselm of Canterbury, who defined God as the greatest possible being we can conceive...
for the existence of God who wrote poems in rhymed prose
Rhymed prose
Rhymed prose is a literary form and literary genre, written in unmetrical rhymes. This form has been known in many different cultures. In some cases the rhymed prose is a distinctive, well-defined style of writing...
. 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
Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...
- Cantos XXXV, XLVIII, L, LII, LXII, LXIII, LXXIV, XCI
Antoninus Pius
Antoninus Pius , also known as Antoninus, was Roman Emperor from 138 to 161. He was a member of the Nerva-Antonine dynasty and the Aurelii. He did not possess the sobriquet "Pius" until after his accession to the throne...
- Canto LXXXVII: Law of the sea (Lex Rhodia), Canto LXXXVIII: Lending money at 4%, Cantos XCVII, XCVIII
Aphrodite
Aphrodite is the Greek goddess of love, beauty, pleasure, and procreation.Her Roman equivalent is the goddess .Historically, her cult in Greece was imported from, or influenced by, the cult of Astarte in Phoenicia....
( also called Cythera, Kuthera Kupris and Venus
Venus (mythology)
Venus is a Roman goddess principally associated with love, beauty, sex,sexual seduction and fertility, who played a key role in many Roman religious festivals and myths...
) - Cantos I, LXXIV, LXXVI, LXXVII, LXXIX, LXXX, LXXXI, XC, XCI.
- Terracina – Seaside town between Rome and NaplesNaplesNaples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
which was formerly the location of a temple to Venus (or possibly Jupiter). In his 1930 essay Credo, Pound wrote "Given the material means I would replace the statue of Venus on the cliffs of Terracina." – Cantos XXXIX, LXXIV, XCI.
Apollonius of Tyana
Apollonius of Tyana was a Greek Neopythagorean philosopher from the town of Tyana in the Roman province of Cappadocia in Asia Minor. Little is certainly known about him...
– Philosopher and 'lost' alternative to Christianity. Pound was particularly taken with this dictum that the universe is alive. – Cantos XCI, XCII
Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas, O.P. , also Thomas of Aquin or Aquino, was an Italian Dominican priest of the Catholic Church, and an immensely influential philosopher and theologian in the tradition of scholasticism, known as Doctor Angelicus, Doctor Communis, or Doctor Universalis...
: Canto C
Anubis
Anubis is the Greek name for a jackal-headed god associated with mummification and the afterlife in ancient Egyptian religion. In the ancient Egyptian language, Anubis is known as Inpu . According to the Akkadian transcription in the Amarna letters, Anubis' name was vocalized as Anapa...
- Egyptian god of the dead - Canto XCII
Aristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
- Canto XCIV
Artemis
Artemis was one of the most widely venerated of the Ancient Greek deities. Her Roman equivalent is Diana. Some scholars believe that the name and indeed the goddess herself was originally pre-Greek. Homer refers to her as Artemis Agrotera, Potnia Theron: "Artemis of the wildland, Mistress of Animals"...
- Canto CX
Augustine of Hippo
Augustine of Hippo , also known as Augustine, St. Augustine, St. Austin, St. Augoustinos, Blessed Augustine, or St. Augustine the Blessed, was Bishop of Hippo Regius . He was a Latin-speaking philosopher and theologian who lived in the Roman Africa Province...
- Canto XCIV
Avicenna
Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Sīnā , commonly known as Ibn Sīnā or by his Latinized name Avicenna, was a Persian polymath, who wrote almost 450 treatises on a wide range of subjects, of which around 240 have survived...
– Canto XCII
B
- F.W. Baller - Translator of the Sacred Edict - Canto XCVIII
- Edward BancroftEdward BancroftEdward Bancroft was an American physician and double-agent spy during the American Revolution.He worked as a spy for Benjamin Franklin in Britain before the Revolution, and also while serving as secretary to the American Commission in Paris...
- Double agent in the service of the British - Canto LXV - Bank of EnglandBank of EnglandThe Bank of England is the central bank of the United Kingdom and the model on which most modern central banks have been based. Established in 1694, it is the second oldest central bank in the world...
- Canto XVIL - John Hollis Bankhead II - U.S. Senator who met Pound in 1939 - Canto LXXXIV
- Josef Bard - Hungarian-born writer and friend of Pound - Canto LXXXI
- Béla BartókBéla BartókBéla Viktor János Bartók was a Hungarian composer and pianist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century and is regarded, along with Liszt, as Hungary's greatest composer...
- 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 A. BeardCharles A. BeardCharles Austin Beard was, with Frederick Jackson Turner, one of the most influential American historians of the first half of the 20th century. He published hundreds of monographs, textbooks and interpretive studies in both history and political science...
Historian of Revolutionary America - Canto LXXXIV - Aubrey BeardsleyAubrey BeardsleyAubrey Vincent Beardsley was an English illustrator and author. His drawings, done in black ink and influenced by the style of Japanese woodcuts, emphasized the grotesque, the decadent, and the erotic. He was a leading figure in the Aesthetic movement which also included Oscar Wilde and James A....
- 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 - Sister of Aubrey Beardsley and renowned beauty. - Canto LXXXII
- Cesare Beccaria - Italian author of On Crimes and Punishments, which had a great influence on the American Constitution, the Bill of RightsBill of rightsA bill of rights is a list of the most important rights of the citizens of a country. The purpose of these bills is to protect those rights against infringement. The term "bill of rights" originates from England, where it referred to the Bill of Rights 1689. Bills of rights may be entrenched or...
and the U.S. judicial system. - Canto LXIV - Jonathan BelcherJonathan BelcherJonathan Belcher was colonial governor of the British provinces of Massachusetts Bay, New Hampshire, and New Jersey.-Early life:Jonathan Belcher was born in Cambridge, Province of Massachusetts Bay, in 1682...
- 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
- BelisariusBelisariusFlavius Belisarius was a general of the Byzantine Empire. He was instrumental to Emperor Justinian's ambitious project of reconquering much of the Mediterranean territory of the former Western Roman Empire, which had been lost less than a century previously....
- Byzantine general - Canto C - Gertrude BellGertrude BellGertrude Margaret Lowthian Bell, CBE was an English writer, traveller, political officer, administrator, and archaeologist who explored, mapped, and became highly influential to British imperial policy-making due to her extensive travels in Greater Syria, Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, and Arabia. Along...
- Explorer - Canto LII - Giovanni BelliniGiovanni BelliniGiovanni Bellini was an Italian Renaissance painter, probably the best known of the Bellini family of Venetian painters. His father was Jacopo Bellini, his brother was Gentile Bellini, and his brother-in-law was Andrea Mantegna. He is considered to have revolutionized Venetian painting, moving it...
- Canto XVL. - Julien BendaJulien BendaJulien Benda was a French philosopher and novelist. He remains famous for his essay The Betrayal of the Intellectuals.- Life :...
- Author of La trahison des clercs, the English translation of which was by Pound's friend Richard Aldington. - Canto XCI - Thomas Lovell BeddoesThomas Lovell BeddoesThomas Lovell Beddoes was an English poet, dramatist and physician.- Biography :Born in Clifton, Bristol, England, he was the son of Dr. Thomas Beddoes, a friend of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Anna, sister of Maria Edgeworth. He was educated at Charterhouse and Pembroke College, Oxford...
- Cantos LXXX, XCV - Thomas Hart BentonThomas Hart Benton (senator)Thomas Hart Benton , nicknamed "Old Bullion", was a U.S. Senator from Missouri and a staunch advocate of westward expansion of the United States. He served in the Senate from 1821 to 1851, becoming the first member of that body to serve five terms...
- 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 BerchtoldBlessed BerchtoldBlessed Berchtold was Benedictine Abbot of Engelberg Abbey in Switzerland.Before becoming abbot he was a monk at Engelberg and a favorite disciple of the learned abbot, Blessed Frowin. When Frowin was on the point of dying he advised his monks to elect Berchtold as his successor...
- Canto LXXXVII - Albert Jeremiah Beveridge - Canto LXXXI
- Nicholas BiddleNicholas Biddle (banker)Nicholas Biddle was an American financier who served as the president of the Second Bank of the United States.-Ancestry and early life:...
- Canto XXXVII - Laurence BinyonLaurence BinyonRobert Laurence Binyon was an English poet, dramatist and art scholar. His most famous work, For the Fallen, is well known for being used in Remembrance Sunday services....
- Poet and friend of Pound in his early London days. Pound advised him with his translation of the Divine Comedy and published a review of the first part in 1934 under the title Hell. - Cantos LXXX, LXXXIII - Otto von BismarckOtto von BismarckOtto Eduard Leopold, Prince of Bismarck, Duke of Lauenburg , simply known as Otto von Bismarck, was a Prussian-German statesman whose actions unified Germany, made it a major player in world affairs, and created a balance of power that kept Europe at peace after 1871.As Minister President of...
- Cantos LXXXVI, C - Wilfred Scawen Blunt - Cantos LXXXI, LXXXII
- Book of the PrefectBook of the PrefectThe Book of the Prefect or Eparch is a Byzantine commercial manual or guide addressed to the eparch of Constantinople...
(or Eparch) - Canto XCVI - William Edgar BorahWilliam Edgar BorahWilliam Edgar Borah was a prominent Republican attorney and longtime United States Senator from Idaho noted for his oratorical skills and isolationist views. One of his nicknames later in life was "The Lion of Idaho."...
- U.S. Senator who met Pound in 1939 - Cantos LXXXIV, LXXXVI - Bertran de BornBertran de BornBertran de Born was a baron from the Limousin in France, and one of the major Occitan troubadours of the twelfth century.-Life and works:...
- 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, LXXXIV - Boston MassacreBoston MassacreThe Boston Massacre, called the Boston Riot by the British, was an incident on March 5, 1770, in which British Army soldiers killed five civilian men. British troops had been stationed in Boston, capital of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, since 1768 in order to protect and support...
- Canto LXIV - Sandro BotticelliSandro BotticelliAlessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi, better known as Sandro Botticelli was an Italian painter of the Early Renaissance...
- Canto XVL: His painting La Calunnia mentioned. - James BowdoinJames BowdoinJames Bowdoin II was an American political and intellectual leader from Boston, Massachusetts during the American Revolution. He served in both branches of the Massachusetts General Court in the colonial era and was president of the state's constitutional convention...
- 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 HampshireNew HampshireNew Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state was named after the southern English county of Hampshire. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Canadian...
maritime court during the revolution - Canto LXIV - Constantin BrâncuşiConstantin BrancusiConstantin Brâncuşi was a Romanian-born sculptor who made his career in France. As a child he displayed an aptitude for carving wooden farm tools. Formal studies took him first to Bucharest, then to Munich, then to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris...
- 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 Bracton - 13th 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 BrowningRobert BrowningRobert Browning was an English poet and playwright whose mastery of dramatic verse, especially dramatic monologues, made him one of the foremost Victorian poets.-Early years:...
- Cantos II, LXXX - Henri Gaudier-BrzeskaHenri Gaudier-BrzeskaHenri Gaudier-Brzeska was a French sculptor who developed a rough hewn, primitive style of direct carving....
- Cantos LXXVIII, LXXX - Basil BuntingBasil BuntingBasil Cheesman Bunting was a significant British modernist poet whose reputation was established with the publication of Briggflatts in 1966. He had a lifelong interest in music that led him to emphasise the sonic qualities of poetry, particularly the importance of reading poetry aloud...
- Cantos LXXIV, LXXVII, LXXXI - Martin van BurenMartin Van BurenMartin Van Buren was the eighth President of the United States . Before his presidency, he was the eighth Vice President and the tenth Secretary of State, under Andrew Jackson ....
- U.S. politician whose Autobiography was an important source for Pound's cantos on the Bank wars. - Cantos XXXVII, LXXVIII, C - Aaron BurrAaron BurrAaron Burr, Jr. was an important political figure in the early history of the United States of America. After serving as a Continental Army officer in the Revolutionary War, Burr became a successful lawyer and politician...
- Vice-President under Jefferson, Burr killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel. - Canto LXVI - Mather BylesMather BylesMather Byles , was a clergyman active in British North America.He was descended, on his mother's side, from John Cotton and Richard Mather. He graduated at Harvard University in 1725, and in 1733 became pastor of the Hollis Street Church , Boston...
- Clergyman who lost his parish in Boston and was almost repatriated to Britain because of his loyalty to the Crown. - Canto LXIV - Byzantine EmpireByzantine EmpireThe Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...
- Canto XCV
C
- Guillaume de Cabestang - Troubadour poet. According to legend, his heart was fed to his married lover by her husband. She then threw herself from a cliff to her death. - Canto IV
- CadmusCadmusCadmus or Kadmos , in Greek mythology was a Phoenician prince, the son of king Agenor and queen Telephassa of Tyre and the brother of Phoenix, Cilix and Europa. He was originally sent by his royal parents to seek out and escort his sister Europa back to Tyre after she was abducted from the shores...
- Grandfather of Pentheus and Dionysus; founder of Thebes - Canto II - League of Cambrai - Canto LI
- Piere Cardinal - Troubadour poet - Canto XCVII
- Carolingian EmpireCarolingian EmpireCarolingian Empire is a historiographical term which has been used to refer to the realm of the Franks under the Carolingian dynasty in the Early Middle Ages. This dynasty is seen as the founders of France and Germany, and its beginning date is based on the crowning of Charlemagne, or Charles the...
- Canto XCVI - Kit CarsonKit CarsonChristopher Houston "Kit" Carson was an American frontiersman and Indian fighter. Carson left home in rural present-day Missouri at age 16 and became a Mountain man and trapper in the West. Carson explored the west to California, and north through the Rocky Mountains. He lived among and married...
– Served as Fremont's guide. – Canto LXXXIX - CastaliaCastaliaCastalia , in Greek mythology, was a nymph whom Apollo transformed into a fountain at Delphi, at the base of Mount Parnassos, or at Mount Helicon. Castalia could inspire the genius of poetry to those who drank her waters or listened to their quiet sound; the sacred water was also used to clean the...
- A spring sacred to the Muses. - Cantos XC, XCIII - CatharCatharCatharism was a name given to a Christian religious sect with dualistic and gnostic elements that appeared in the Languedoc region of France and other parts of Europe in the 11th century and flourished in the 12th and 13th centuries...
heresy, also known as Albigensians - passim - John CatronJohn CatronJohn Catron was an American jurist who served as a US Supreme Court justice from 1837 to 1865.-Early life:Little is known of Catron's early life, but he served in the War of 1812 under Andrew Jackson...
– Jacksonian judge and chief justice from 1830 till 1836. – Canto LXXXIX - CatullusCatullusGaius Valerius Catullus was a Latin poet of the Republican period. His surviving works are still read widely, and continue to influence poetry and other forms of art.-Biography:...
- Cantos IV and V: Arunculeia is the name of the bride in the Epithalamion Carmen 61 - Canto V: "vesper adest" is from another epithalamion Carmen 62 - Canto XX: "quasi tinnula" ("as if ringing") echoes "voce carmina tinnula" ("singing in a ringing voice") from Carmen 61 - Canto XXVIII "voce tinnula" echoes Carmen 61 again. - Guido CavalcantiGuido CavalcantiGuido Cavalcanti was a Florentine poet, as well as an intellectual influence on his best friend, Dante. His poems in their original Italian are available on Wikisource .-Historical background:...
- 13th century Italian poet and friend of Dante, who condemned his father 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 EpicurusEpicurusEpicurus was an ancient Greek philosopher and the founder of the school of philosophy called Epicureanism.Only a few fragments and letters remain of Epicurus's 300 written works...
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 MagnusAlbertus MagnusAlbertus Magnus, O.P. , also known as Albert the Great and Albert of Cologne, is a Catholic saint. He was a German Dominican friar and a bishop, who achieved fame for his comprehensive knowledge of and advocacy for the peaceful coexistence of science and religion. Those such as James A. Weisheipl...
to the renaissance' meant the freedom of thought, the contempt, or at least a moderated respect, for stupid authority." - Cantos IV and XX: an allusion to and a quotations from the poem Una figura della Donna mia, which refers daringly to the resemblance between Cavalcanti's beloved and the image of the Madonna in a Florentine church. - Canto XXXVI: a translation of Donna mi prega. - Canto LXXIII: a lengthy speech (in Italian) by Guido's ghost. - Canto XCI: "I send to Pinella ... a river", from the poem Ciascuna fresca e dolce fontanella. - Cavour – Prime mover in the 19th century unification of Italy - Canto LXI
- Ceres - Canto LXXXI
- CharlemagneCharlemagneCharlemagne was King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor of the Romans from 800 to his death in 814. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800...
- - Carolingian ruler - Canto XCVI - Charles the BaldCharles the BaldCharles the Bald , Holy Roman Emperor and King of West Francia , was the youngest son of the Emperor Louis the Pious by his second wife Judith.-Struggle against his brothers:He was born on 13 June 823 in Frankfurt, when his elder...
(Charles le Chauve) - Canto LXXXIII - History of ChinaHistory of ChinaChinese civilization originated in various regional centers along both the Yellow River and the Yangtze River valleys in the Neolithic era, but the Yellow River is said to be the Cradle of Chinese Civilization. With thousands of years of continuous history, China is one of the world's oldest...
- Cantos LII - LXI - Winston ChurchillWinston ChurchillSir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
- Cantos LXXII, LXXIII, LXXIV, LXXXVII - CirceCirceIn Greek mythology, Circe is a minor goddess of magic , described in Homer's Odyssey as "The loveliest of all immortals", living on the island of Aeaea, famous for her part in the adventures of Odysseus.By most accounts, Circe was the daughter of Helios, the god of the sun, and Perse, an Oceanid...
- Cantos I, XVIIL: on her island - Canto XXXIX Greek quotations describe her - Chou KingClassic of HistoryThe Classic of History is a compilation of documentary records related to events in ancient history of China. It is also commonly known as the Shàngshū , or simply Shū...
- See next entry - Classic of HistoryClassic of HistoryThe Classic of History is a compilation of documentary records related to events in ancient history of China. It is also commonly known as the Shàngshū , or simply Shū...
- Section: Rock Drill where Pound calls it the Chou King - Henry ClayHenry ClayHenry Clay, Sr. , was a lawyer, politician and skilled orator who represented Kentucky separately in both the Senate and in the House of Representatives...
– 19th century U.S. politician – Canto LXXXVIII - Augustin Smith ClaytonAugustin Smith ClaytonAugustin Smith Clayton was a jurist and politician from the American state of Georgia.Clayton was born in Fredericksburg, Virginia, attended the Richmond Academy in Augusta, Georgia, and graduated with the inaugural class of Franklin College at the University of Georgia in Athens...
– 19th century U.S. politician – Canto LXXXVIII - CleopatraCleopatra VII of EgyptCleopatra VII Philopator was the last pharaoh of Ancient Egypt.She was a member of the Ptolemaic dynasty, a family of Greek origin that ruled Egypt after Alexander the Great's death during the Hellenistic period...
wrote on currency - Cantos LXXXV, LXXXVI - Jean CocteauJean CocteauJean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau was a French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, playwright, artist and filmmaker. His circle of associates, friends and lovers included Kenneth Anger, Pablo Picasso, Jean Hugo, Jean Marais, Henri Bernstein, Marlene Dietrich, Coco Chanel, Erik Satie, María...
- Cantos LXXVII, LXXX - Sir Edward CokeEdward CokeSir Edward Coke SL PC was an English barrister, judge and politician considered to be the greatest jurist of the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras. Born into a middle class family, Coke was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge before leaving to study at the Inner Temple, where he was called to the...
– 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
- Padraic ColumPadraic ColumPadraic Colum was an Irish poet, novelist, dramatist, biographer, playwright, children's author and collector of folklore. He was one of the leading figures of the Celtic Revival.-Early life:...
- Canto LXXX: His "O woman shapely as a swan" (from a poem called Drover) quoted. Pound praised this poem in his 1918 essay A Retrospect. - ConfuciusConfuciusConfucius , literally "Master Kong", was a Chinese thinker and social philosopher of the Spring and Autumn Period....
– 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 AnalectsAnalects of ConfuciusThe Analects, or Lunyu , also known as the Analects of Confucius, are considered a record of the words and acts of the central Chinese thinker and philosopher Confucius and his disciples, as well as the discussions they held....
, the Book of OdesShi JingThe Classic of Poetry , translated variously as the Book of Songs, the Book of Odes, and often known simply as its original name The Odes, is the earliest existing collection of Chinese poems and songs. It comprises 305 poems and songs, with many range from the 10th to the 7th centuries BC...
, the Great DigestGreat LearningThe Great Learning was one of the "Four Books" in Confucianism. The Great Learning had come from a chapter in the Classic of Rites which formed one of the Five Classics. It consists of a short main text attributed to the teachings of Confucius and then ten commentary chapters accredited to one...
and the Unwobbling PivotDoctrine of the MeanThe Doctrine of the Mean , is both a concept and one of the books of Confucian teachings. The composition of the text is attributed to Zisi the only grandson of Confucius, and it came from a chapter in the Classic of Rites...
. 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 - Also in Canto LI: Ideogram at end is Confucian "rectification of names", Canto LII: Li KiClassic of RitesThe Classic of Rites , also known as the Book of Rites, Book of Customs, the Record of Rites, was one of the Chinese Five Classics of the Confucian canon. It described the social forms, governmental system, and ancient/ceremonial rites of the Zhou Dynasty...
, Canto LIII: Cut 3,000 odes to 300.- The four Tuan, or foundations (benevolence, rectitude, manners and knowledge) – Cantos LXXXV, LXXXIX
- Congress of ViennaCongress of ViennaThe Congress of Vienna was a conference of ambassadors of European states chaired by Klemens Wenzel von Metternich, and held in Vienna from September, 1814 to June, 1815. The objective of the Congress was to settle the many issues arising from the French Revolutionary Wars, the Napoleonic Wars,...
– Canto LXXXVI: Example of politicians working to avoid war. - Séraphin CouvreurSéraphin CouvreurSéraphin Couvreur was a French Jesuit missionary to China, sinologist and creator of the EFEO Chinese transcription in 1902...
(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 SibylCumaean SibylThe ageless Cumaean Sibyl was the priestess presiding over the Apollonian oracle at Cumae, a Greek colony located near Naples, Italy.The word sibyl comes from the ancient Greek word sibylla, meaning prophetess. There were many Sibyls in different locations throughout the ancient world...
- Cantos LXIV, XC - Cunizza da RomanoCunizza da RomanoCunizza da Romano was an Italian noblewoman, the third daughter of Ezzelino II da Romano and Adelaide di Mangona, and sister to Ezzelino III and Alberico da Romano....
(1198–1279) - Mistress of poet SordelloSordelloSordello da Goito or Sordel de Goit was a 13th-century Lombard troubadour, born in the municipality of Goito in the province of Mantua...
, sister of Ezzelino III da RomanoEzzelino III da RomanoEzzelino III da Romano was an Italian feudal lord in the March of Treviso who was a close ally of the emperor Frederick II and ruled Verona, Vicenza and Padua for almost two decades...
. She is one of the most important heroines of The Cantos, a type of the poet's sexual and spiritual muse. She "freed her slaves" (Canto VI) in her will, a document which she dictated in Florence "in the house of the Cavalcanti / anno 1265" (Canto XXIX). Pound imagined that Guido CavalcantiGuido CavalcantiGuido Cavalcanti was a Florentine poet, as well as an intellectual influence on his best friend, Dante. His poems in their original Italian are available on Wikisource .-Historical background:...
knew of this and mentioned it to his friend DanteDANTEDelivery of Advanced Network Technology to Europe is a not-for-profit organisation that plans, builds and operates the international networks that interconnect the various national research and education networks in Europe and surrounding regions...
who therefore pardoned her profligacy and placed her in the Heaven of Venus (Paradiso IX): "The light of this star o’ercame me" (Canto XXIX). This passage is cited in Italian in Canto XCII: "fui chiamat’ / e qui refulgo". Canto XC associates her with John Randolph of RoanokeJohn Randolph of RoanokeJohn Randolph , known as John Randolph of Roanoke, was a planter and a Congressman from Virginia, serving in the House of Representatives , the Senate , and also as Minister to Russia...
("liberavit masnatos"). - Thomas CushingThomas CushingThomas Cushing III was an American lawyer and statesman from Boston, Massachusetts. He was a loyalist for Massachusetts in the Continental Congress from 1774 to 1776, and the first Lt. Commander of the state from 1780 to 1788...
– American politician who opposed independence – Canto LXII
D
- DafneDaphneDaphne was a female minor nature deity. Pursued by Apollo, she fled and was chased. Daphne begged the gods for help, who then transformed her into Laurel.-Overview:...
- A nymph who was turned into a shrub to escape the lustful pursuit of Apollo. Also, DafneDafneDafne is the earliest known work that, by modern standards, could be considered an opera. It was composed by Jacopo Peri in 1597, with a libretto by Ottavio Rinuccini.-History:...
was an attempt to revive Greek theater that resulted in the creation of opera - Canto II - Arnaut DanielArnaut DanielArnaut Daniel de Riberac was an Occitan troubadour of the 12th century, praised by Dante as "il miglior fabbro" and called "Grand Master of Love" by Petrarch...
- 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 VII: the line "e qu'el remir [contra'l lum de la lampa]" ("and look at her [against the light of the lamp])" from the poem Douz braitz e critz quoted. Canto XX: "noigandres" ("banishes ennui") - Canto XCI: The line "pensar de lieis m'es repaus" ("it rests me to think of her") from En breu brizara'l temps braus quoted. In the 1911/12 series of essays I gather the limbs of Osiris, Pound writes of this line: "You cannot get statement simpler than that, or clearer, or les rhetorical". - Cantos XXIX, XCVII - Dante AlighieriDante AlighieriDurante degli Alighieri, mononymously referred to as Dante , was an Italian poet, prose writer, literary theorist, moral philosopher, and political thinker. He is best known for the monumental epic poem La commedia, later named La divina commedia ...
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 ComedyThe Divine ComedyThe Divine Comedy is an epic poem written by Dante Alighieri between 1308 and his death in 1321. It is widely considered the preeminent work of Italian literature, and is seen as one of the greatest works of world literature...
- 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 VII: (Description of Sordello from Purgatorio VI applied to Henry James) - 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 XXXIX (Paradiso XIX quoted "che sovra Senna induce, falseggiando la moneta" ("is bringing upon the Seine by falsifying the coin") - Canto XCVIII: divine light - Canto XCIII (Paradiso: Canto VIII quoted "non fosse cive" ("if he were not a citizen") -Canto C on "letizia" ("gladness")
- La Vita NuovaLa Vita NuovaLa Vita Nuova is a medieval text written by Dante Alighieri in 1295. It is an expression of the medieval genre of courtly love in a prosimetrum style, a combination of both prose and verse...
: Canto LXXVII "[Ego tamquam] centrum circuli" ("[I am] the centre of a circle") quoted. The entire passage is quoted in the 1911/12 series of essays I gather the limbs of Osiris. - 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)
- The Divine Comedy
- Georgius Dartona Renaissance humanistHumanismHumanism is an approach in study, philosophy, world view or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. In philosophy and social science, humanism is a perspective which affirms some notion of human nature, and is contrasted with anti-humanism....
. Pound used his versions of the Homeric HymnsHomeric HymnsThe Homeric Hymns are a collection of thirty-three anonymous Ancient Greek hymns celebrating individual gods. The hymns are "Homeric" in the sense that they employ the same epic meter—dactylic hexameter—as the Iliad and Odyssey, use many similar formulas and are couched in the same dialect...
as a source. - Cantos I, LXXIX - Silas DeaneSilas DeaneSilas Deane was an American merchant, politician and diplomat. Originally a supporter of American independence Deane served as a delegate to the Continental Congress and then as the United States' first foreign diplomat when he travelled to France to lobby the French government for aid...
– U.S. agent in France – Canto LXV
- Declaration of Independence (United States) – Canto LXV
- Alexander del MarAlexander del MarAlexander del Mar, also Alex Delmar , was an American political economist, historian, numismatist and author.In business affairs he was frequently referred to in contemporary reports and newspapers as Delmar; however, many of his published works appeared under the name of del Mar. He sometimes...
– 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 - Edgar DegasEdgar DegasEdgar Degas[p] , born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas, was a French artist famous for his work in painting, sculpture, printmaking and drawing. He is regarded as one of the founders of Impressionism although he rejected the term, and preferred to be called a realist...
- Cantos LXXIV, LXXX, CIV - DemeterDemeterIn Greek mythology, Demeter is the goddess of the harvest, who presided over grains, the fertility of the earth, and the seasons . Her common surnames are Sito as the giver of food or corn/grain and Thesmophoros as a mark of the civilized existence of agricultural society...
- Canto XCVIII - Diana – Latin goddess of hunting, equivalent of Greek Athene. – Canto XCI: LayamonLayamonLayamon or Laghamon (ˈlaɣamon; in American English often modernised as ; ), occasionally written Lawman, was a poet of the early 13th century and author of the Brut, a notable English poem of the 12th century that was the first English language work to discuss the legends of Arthur and the...
's hymn to Diana is quoted. - DionysusDionysusDionysus was the god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness and ecstasy in Greek mythology. His name in Linear B tablets shows he was worshipped from c. 1500—1100 BC by Mycenean Greeks: other traces of Dionysian-type cult have been found in ancient Minoan Crete...
(also called Iacchos and Zagreus) - Cantos II, XVII, LXXVII, LXXIX, CV - DirceDirceDirce was the wife of Lycus in Greek mythology, and aunt to Antiope whom Zeus impregnated. Antiope fled in shame to King Epopeus of Sicyon, but was brought back by Lycus through force, giving birth to the twins Amphion and Zethus on the way...
- Canto LXXXII - DisraeliBenjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of BeaconsfieldBenjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield, KG, PC, FRS, was a British Prime Minister, parliamentarian, Conservative statesman and literary figure. Starting from comparatively humble origins, he served in government for three decades, twice as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom...
– Canto LXXXIX: The right of search and the Anglo-American War of 1812 to 1814. - Andreas DivusAndreas DivusAndreas Divus was a Renaissance scholar, about whose life little is known; in Italian he is called Andrea Divo giustinopolitano or di Capodistria, i.e. surnamed Justinopolitanus in Latin and implying an origin at Koper, now in Slovenia, which was named at different times Aegida, Justinopolis and...
- Renaissance scholar whose Latin translation of Book XI of Homer's OdysseyOdysseyThe Odyssey is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is, in part, a sequel to the Iliad, the other work ascribed to Homer. The poem is fundamental to the modern Western canon, and is the second—the Iliad being the first—extant work of Western literature...
forms the basis of Canto I. A section of Pound's 1920 essay Translators of Greek: Early Translators of Homer is devoted to Divus and contains the relevant Latin text. - Canto I - Arnold DolmetschArnold DolmetschArnold Dolmetsch , was a French-born musician and instrument maker who spent much of his working life in England and established an instrument-making workshop in Haslemere, Surrey...
- Canto LXXXI - Charles DoughtyCharles Montagu DoughtyCharles Montagu Doughty was an English poet, writer, and traveller born in Theberton Hall, Saxmundham, Suffolk and educated at private schools in Laleham and Elstree, and at a school for the royal navy, Portsmouth...
- Canto LXXXIII - C. H. DouglasC. H. DouglasMajor C. H. Douglas MIMechE, MIEE, , was a British engineer and pioneer of the Social Credit economic reform movement.-Education and engineering career:...
- Cantos XXII, XCVII, C - Gavin DouglasGavin DouglasGavin Douglas was a Scottish bishop, makar and translator. Although he had an important political career, it is for his poetry that he is now chiefly remembered. His principal pioneering achievement was the Eneados, a full and faithful vernacular translation of the Aeneid of Virgil and the first...
- 16th century Scottish poet and translator of Virgil's Aeneid. In his essay Notes on Elizabethan Classicists (1917), Pound calls him a great poet and quotes the passage referred to in The Cantos. - Canto LXXVIII: "the city quarhr of nobil fame" is a misremembered quotation from the opening lines of the Aeneid, where it refers to Rome. - John DowlandJohn DowlandJohn Dowland was an English Renaissance composer, singer, and lutenist. He is best known today for his melancholy songs such as "Come, heavy sleep" , "Come again", "Flow my tears", "I saw my Lady weepe" and "In darkness let me dwell", but his instrumental music has undergone a major revival, and has...
- Canto LXXXI - DryadDryadDryads are tree nymphs in Greek mythology. In Greek drys signifies 'oak,' from an Indo-European root *derew- 'tree' or 'wood'. Thus Dryads are specifically the nymphs of oak trees, though the term has come to be used for all tree nymphs in general...
(DryasDryasDryas is the name of nine characters in Greek mythology1. Dryas was the son of King Lycurgus, king of the Edoni in Thrace. He was killed when Lycurgus went insane and mistook him for a mature trunk of ivy, a plant holy to the god Dionysus, whose cult Lycurgus was attempting to extirpate.Resisting...
) - Cantos III, LXXXIII: a nymph associated with trees. Ezra and Dorothy Pound referred to H.D.H.D.H.D. was an American poet, novelist and memoirist known for her association with the early 20th century avant-garde Imagist group of poets such as Ezra Pound and Richard Aldington...
as "Dryas" in their letters.
E
- Peggy Eaton - Wife of Andrew Jackson's Secretary of War John Eaton. A scandal surrounding her past led to Martin Van Buren becoming Jackson's Vice-President. - Canto XXXVII
- EcbatanaEcbatanaEcbatana is supposed to be the capital of Astyages , which was taken by the Persian emperor Cyrus the Great in the sixth year of Nabonidus...
- Cantos IV, LXXIV - Eleanor of AquitaineEleanor of AquitaineEleanor of Aquitaine was one of the wealthiest and most powerful women in Western Europe during the High Middle Ages. As well as being Duchess of Aquitaine in her own right, she was queen consort of France and of England...
- Cantos II, VII - ElectraElectraIn Greek mythology, Electra was an Argive princess and daughter of King Agamemnon and Queen Clytemnestra. She and her brother Orestes plotted revenge against their mother Clytemnestra and stepfather Aegisthus for the murder of their father Agamemnon...
- Canto XC - Eleusinian MysteriesEleusinian MysteriesThe Eleusinian Mysteries were initiation ceremonies held every year for the cult of Demeter and Persephone based at Eleusis in ancient Greece. Of all the mysteries celebrated in ancient times, these were held to be the ones of greatest importance...
- passim - T. S. EliotT. S. EliotThomas Stearns "T. S." Eliot OM was a playwright, literary critic, and arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century. Although he was born an American he moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 and was naturalised as a British subject in 1927 at age 39.The poem that made his...
(Possum, the Rev. Eliot) - Canto VIII: reference to The Waste LandThe Waste LandThe Waste Land[A] is a 434-line[B] modernist poem by T. S. Eliot published in 1922. It has been called "one of the most important poems of the 20th century." Despite the poem's obscurity—its shifts between satire and prophecy, its abrupt and unannounced changes of speaker, location and time, its...
, Canto XXIX: Views on religion contrasted with Pound's, Cantos LXXIV, LXXX, XCVIII - Queen Elizabeth IElizabeth I of EnglandElizabeth I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana, or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty...
Translated Ovid - Canto LXXXV - Oliver EllsworthOliver EllsworthOliver Ellsworth was an American lawyer and politician, a revolutionary against British rule, a drafter of the United States Constitution, and the third Chief Justice of the United States. While at the Federal Convention, Ellsworth moved to strike the word National from the motion made by Edmund...
- 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 - Canto LXXXIII
- EpictetusEpictetusEpictetus was a Greek sage and Stoic philosopher. He was born a slave at Hierapolis, Phrygia , and lived in Rome until banishment when he went to Nicopolis in northwestern Greece where he lived the rest of his life. His teachings were noted down and published by his pupil Arrian in his Discourses...
- Canto LXXI: Hymn to Cleanthes is the source of the Greek text quoted at the end of the canto. - Johannes Scotus EriugenaJohannes Scotus EriugenaJohannes Scotus Eriugena was an Irish theologian, Neoplatonist philosopher, and poet. He is known for having translated and made commentaries upon the work of Pseudo-Dionysius.-Name:...
(Erigena in Pound's spelling) Pound valued him for his neoplatonic view that all things that 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/Borso/Etc. d'EsteEsteThe House of Este is a European princely dynasty. It is split into two branches; the elder is known as the House of Welf-Este or House of Welf historically rendered in English, Guelf or Guelph...
- Cantos XX, XXIV, LXXXII - Ezzelino III da RomanoEzzelino III da RomanoEzzelino III da Romano was an Italian feudal lord in the March of Treviso who was a close ally of the emperor Frederick II and ruled Verona, Vicenza and Padua for almost two decades...
- 13th-century Ghibelline lord of northeast Italy, said to be a bloodthirsty tyrant by his enemies, viewed more favorably by later historians. He was the brother of Cunizza da RomanoCunizza da RomanoCunizza da Romano was an Italian noblewoman, the third daughter of Ezzelino II da Romano and Adelaide di Mangona, and sister to Ezzelino III and Alberico da Romano....
, and appears in Canto LXXII as a furious ghost (and a persona of the irascible Pound): "A single falsehood does more damage in this damned world than all my outbursts".
F
- FascismFascismFascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
- Although Pound never joined the Fascist Party, he clearly admired Mussolini's brand of the ideology. The word itself does not appear in The Cantos, but the political philosophy it stands for can be readily detected in the poem, especially in the sections written during the 1930s. - FaunusFaunusIn ancient Roman religion and myth, Faunus was the horned god of the forest, plains and fields; when he made cattle fertile he was called Inuus. He came to be equated in literature with the Greek god Pan....
- God of fields and forests - Canto XC - Desmond FitzGeraldDesmond FitzGerald (politician)Desmond FitzGerald was an Irish revolutionary, poet, publicist and Cumann na nGaedheal politician.-Early life:...
– Irish-born Imagist poet who fought in the Easter RisingEaster RisingThe Easter Rising was an insurrection staged in Ireland during Easter Week, 1916. The Rising was mounted by Irish republicans with the aims of ending British rule in Ireland and establishing the Irish Republic at a time when the British Empire was heavily engaged in the First World War...
of 1916 and later served in the government of the Irish Free StateIrish Free StateThe Irish Free State was the state established as a Dominion on 6 December 1922 under the Anglo-Irish Treaty, signed by the British government and Irish representatives exactly twelve months beforehand...
– Cantos XCII, XCV - Flamen DialisFlamen DialisIn ancient Roman religion, the Flamen Dialis was the high priest of Jupiter. There were 15 flamines, of which three were flamines maiores, serving the three gods of the Archaic Triad...
– Roman priest of Jupiter – Canto XCVI - Gustave FlaubertGustave FlaubertGustave Flaubert was a French writer who is counted among the greatest Western novelists. He is known especially for his first published novel, Madame Bovary , and for his scrupulous devotion to his art and style.-Early life and education:Flaubert was born on December 12, 1821, in Rouen,...
- Canto LXXXII - Folquet de Marseille - Troubadour turned bishop who was involved in the suppression of the Cathars - Canto XCII
- Ford Madox FordFord Madox FordFord Madox Ford was an English novelist, poet, critic and editor whose journals, The English Review and The Transatlantic Review, were instrumental in the development of early 20th-century English literature...
- Canto LXXXII - Cantos XCVIII, C: buy a dictionary and learn the meanings of words - Piero della FrancescaPiero della FrancescaPiero della Francesca was a painter of the Early Renaissance. As testified by Giorgio Vasari in his Lives of the Artists, to contemporaries he was also known as a mathematician and geometer. Nowadays Piero della Francesca is chiefly appreciated for his art. His painting was characterized by its...
- Canto VIII: the master painter - FortunaFortuna (mythology)Fortuna was the goddess of fortune and personification of luck in Roman religion. She might bring good luck or bad: she could be represented as veiled and blind, as in modern depictions of Justice, and came to represent life's capriciousness...
– Canto XCVII - Benjamin FranklinBenjamin FranklinDr. Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat...
Cantos LXII – LXXI In Canto LXIII, the LatinLatinLatin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
sentence "Eripuit caelo fulmen, mox sceptra tyrannis." (" He snatched the thunderbolt from heaven, the sceptre from tyrants.") is the inscription on Jean-Antoine HoudonJean-Antoine HoudonJean-Antoine Houdon was a French neoclassical sculptor. Houdon is famous for his portrait busts and statues of philosophers, inventors and political figures of the Enlightenment...
's bust of Franklin. - John Charles Fremont – Explorer and Union general during American Civil War. – Canto LXXXIX
- Sigmund FreudSigmund FreudSigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...
– Canto XCI - Leo FrobeniusLeo FrobeniusLeo Viktor Frobenius was an ethnologist and archaeologist and a major figure in German ethnography.-Life:He was born in Berlin as the son of a Prussian officer and died in Biganzolo, Lago Maggiore, Piedmont, Italy...
- Cantos XXXVIII, LXXIV, LXXXIX - Buckminster FullerBuckminster FullerRichard Buckminster “Bucky” Fuller was an American systems theorist, author, designer, inventor, futurist and second president of Mensa International, the high IQ society....
(Buckie) – Canto XCVII
G
- Galileo GalileiGalileo GalileiGalileo Galilei , was an Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who played a major role in the Scientific Revolution. His achievements include improvements to the telescope and consequent astronomical observations and support for Copernicanism...
- Canto LXXXV - Giovanni GentileGiovanni GentileGiovanni Gentile was an Italian neo-Hegelian Idealist philosopher, a peer of Benedetto Croce. He described himself as 'the philosopher of Fascism', and ghostwrote A Doctrine of Fascism for Benito Mussolini. He also devised his own system of philosophy, Actual Idealism.- Life and thought :Giovanni...
- Canto LXXXIX - Jean François Gerbillon (1654 - 1707 - French Jesuit missionaryMissionaryA missionary is a member of a religious group sent into an area to do evangelism or ministries of service, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care and economic development. The word "mission" originates from 1598 when the Jesuits sent members abroad, derived from the Latin...
to China who provided scientific advice to the emperor and wrote topographic accounts of the country. - Canto LIX. - Geryone - Canto LI
- Silvio GesellSilvio GesellSilvio Gesell was a German merchant, theoretical economist, social activist, anarchist and founder of Freiwirtschaft.-Life:...
– Cantos LXXIV, LXXX - Moses GillMoses GillMoses Gill was a Massachusetts politician who briefly served as Acting Governor of the state.-Life:He was a merchant living in Boston, until 1767, when he removed to Princeton, Massachusetts. In 1759 he married Sarah Prince, daughter to pastor Thomas Prince of Boston's Old South Church...
– Served as Acting Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts 1799–1800 – Canto LXV - Gold standardGold standardThe gold standard is a monetary system in which the standard economic unit of account is a fixed mass of gold. There are distinct kinds of gold standard...
- Goddeschalk - Canto XCIII
- Arthur GoldingArthur GoldingArthur Golding was an English translator of more than 30 works from Latin into English. While primarily remembered today for his translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses because of its influence on Shakespeare's works, in his own time he was most famous for his translation of Caesar's Commentaries, and...
– Canto II: The phrase "Schoeney's daughter" is lifted from a passage in Golding's translation of the Metamorphoses which is quoted in Pound's 1917 essay Notes on Elizabethan Classicists. - Rémy de GourmontRemy de GourmontRemy de Gourmont was a French Symbolist poet, novelist, and influential critic. He was widely read in his era, and an important influence on Blaise Cendrars...
– French SymbolistSymbolism (arts)Symbolism was a late nineteenth-century art movement of French, Russian and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts. In literature, the style had its beginnings with the publication Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire...
. Pound translated his The Natural Philosophy of Love and published an essay on him in 1920. – Canto LXXXVII - Jeremiah GridleyJeremiah GridleyJeremiah Gridley or Jeremy Gridley was a lawyer, editor, state legislator, and attorney general in Boston, Massachusetts, in the 18th century...
– 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 - Francesco Maria GrimaldiFrancesco Maria GrimaldiFrancesco Maria Grimaldi was an Italian Jesuit priest, mathematician and physicist who taught at the Jesuit college in Bologna....
(1618–1663) - Italian scientist and Jesuit best known for his work in the fields of astronomyAstronomyAstronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...
and the physicsPhysicsPhysics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
of light. - Canto LX - Robert GrossetesteRobert GrossetesteRobert Grosseteste or Grossetete was an English statesman, scholastic philosopher, theologian and Bishop of Lincoln. He was born of humble parents at Stradbroke in Suffolk. A.C...
- 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. - GuildGuildA guild is an association of craftsmen in a particular trade. The earliest types of guild were formed as confraternities of workers. They were organized in a manner something between a trade union, a cartel, and a secret society...
– Cantos XCVI, XCVII
H
- Alexander HamiltonAlexander HamiltonAlexander Hamilton was a Founding Father, soldier, economist, political philosopher, one of America's first constitutional lawyers and the first United States Secretary of the Treasury...
- For Pound, the great villain of U.S. history. - Cantos XXXVII, LXXII, LXIX. - James Hamilton Jr.James Hamilton Jr.James Hamilton, Jr. was an American lawyer and politician. He represented South Carolina in the U.S. Congress and served as its 53rd Governor ....
– 19th century U.S. politician – Canto LXXXVIII - Hanno the NavigatorHanno the NavigatorHanno the Navigator was a Carthaginian explorer c. 500 BC, best known for his naval exploration of the African coast...
- Canto XL - John HancockJohn HancockJohn Hancock was a merchant, statesman, and prominent Patriot of the American Revolution. He served as president of the Second Continental Congress and was the first and third Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts...
– American patriot who signed the Declaration of Independence and was involved in the aftermath of the Boston Massacre – Canto LXIV - HathorHathorHathor , is an Ancient Egyptian goddess who personified the principles of love, beauty, music, motherhood and joy. She was one of the most important and popular deities throughout the history of Ancient Egypt...
Egyptian sky goddess in the form of a cow. Identified with Aphrodite by the Greeks. - Canto XXXIX - HebeHebe (mythology)In Greek mythology, Hēbē is the goddess of youth . She is the daughter of Zeus and Hera. Hebe was the cupbearer for the gods and goddesses of Mount Olympus, serving their nectar and ambrosia, until she was married to Heracles ; her successor was the young Trojan prince Ganymede...
- Goddess of youth identified by her attribute "kalliastragallos" ("with fine ankles") - Cantos CIX, CX - Helen of Troy – Cantos VII, XCVIII
- Philippe HenriotPhilippe HenriotPhilippe Henriot was a French politician.Moving to the far right after beginnings in Roman Catholic conservatism in the Republican Federation, Henriot was elected to the Third Republic's Chamber of Deputies for the Gironde département in 1932 and 1936...
– Cantos LXXXIV, LXXXIX - Patrick HenryPatrick HenryPatrick Henry was an orator and politician who led the movement for independence in Virginia in the 1770s. A Founding Father, he served as the first and sixth post-colonial Governor of Virginia from 1776 to 1779 and subsequently, from 1784 to 1786...
– U.S. statesman who is famous for his "Give me liberty or give me death" speech. – Canto LXV - HeraclitusHeraclitusHeraclitus of Ephesus was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, a native of the Greek city Ephesus, Ionia, on the coast of Asia Minor. He was of distinguished parentage. Little is known about his early life and education, but he regarded himself as self-taught and a pioneer of wisdom...
(panta rei [everything flows] quoted) - Canto LXXXIII - Christian Wolfgang HerdtrichChristian Wolfgang HerdtrichChristian Wolfgang Herdtrich was an Austrian Jesuit missionary in China.-Life:He entered the Austrian province of the Society of Jesus on 27 October 1641, and in 1656 was chosen for the Chinese mission. For two years he laboured on the island of Celebes, and after 1660 was in the Chinese provinces...
(1625–1684) – Austrian Jesuit missionaryMissionaryA missionary is a member of a religious group sent into an area to do evangelism or ministries of service, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care and economic development. The word "mission" originates from 1598 when the Jesuits sent members abroad, derived from the Latin...
to China who served as a mathematician at the imperial court and was amongst the earliest EuropeanEuropean ethnic groupsThe ethnic groups in Europe are the various ethnic groups that reside in the nations of Europe. European ethnology is the field of anthropology focusing on Europe....
translators of Confucius. - Canto LX - HesperusHesperusIn Greek mythology, Hesperus is the Evening Star, the planet Venus in the evening. He is the son of the dawn goddess Eos and is the brother of Eosphorus , the Morning Star. Hesperus' Roman equivalent is Vesper...
- The Evening Star - Canto II - Maurice HewlettMaurice HewlettMaurice Henry Hewlett , was an English historical novelist, poet and essayist. He was born at Weybridge, the eldest son of Henry Gay Hewlett, of Shaw Hall, Addington, Kent. He was educated at the London International College, Spring Grove, Isleworth, and was called to the bar in 1891. He gave up...
– Poet and friend of Pound's in his early days in London. – Canto XCII - John Heydon – 17th 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 HillhouseJames HillhouseJames Hillhouse was an American lawyer, real estate developer, and politician from New Haven, Connecticut. He represented Connecticut in both the U.S. House and Senate...
– Clergyman and judge who served as a major in the American Revolution – Canto LXVIII - Leo VI the WiseLeo VI the WiseLeo VI, surnamed the Wise or the Philosopher , was Byzantine emperor from 886 to 912. The second ruler of the Macedonian dynasty , he was very well-read, leading to his surname...
– Byzantine emperor - Canto XCVI - Leopold von HoeschLeopold von HoeschLeopold von Hoesch was a career German diplomat. Hoesch began his political career in France as the chargé d'affaires in 1923. Following the recall of the German Ambassador in 1923 after the Ruhr crisis, Hoesch was appointed acting head of the German Embassy in Paris. While in Paris, Hoesch...
– German Ambassador to London during the rise of Hitler – Canto LXXXVI - HomerHomerIn the Western classical tradition Homer , is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.When he lived is...
- 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- OdysseyOdysseyThe Odyssey is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is, in part, a sequel to the Iliad, the other work ascribed to Homer. The poem is fundamental to the modern Western canon, and is the second—the Iliad being the first—extant work of Western literature...
- Canto I: Translation of trip to Hades - Canto XX: Quoted "Ligur' aoide" ("sweet song") on the sirens, "neson amumona" ("blameless island") on ThrinaciaThrinaciaThrinakia , also Trinacria or Thrinacie, mentioned in Book 11 of Homer's Odyssey, is the island home of Helios's cattle, guarded by his eldest daughter, Lampetia...
. - Canto LXXXIX: Quoted "δ'ἀνθρώπων ἴδεν" ("he knew many men" [of Odysseus]) - Cantos XCI, XCIII, XCV, XCVI, XCVIII: Quoted and/or referred to regarding Leucothoe rescuing Odysseus by giving him her veil/kredemnon ("my bikini is worth your raft") - Canto XCVIII: Quoted on NestorNestor (mythology)In Greek mythology, Nestor of Gerenia was the son of Neleus and Chloris and the King of Pylos. He became king after Heracles killed Neleus and all of Nestor's siblings... - IliadIliadThe Iliad is an epic poem in dactylic hexameters, traditionally attributed to Homer. Set during the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles...
- Cantos II, VII: Translation of part of Book III in which the old men of Troy discuss Helen. In his 1920 essay Translators of Greek: Early Translators of Homer, Pound criticises the translations of Alexander PopeAlexander PopeAlexander Pope was an 18th-century English poet, best known for his satirical verse and for his translation of Homer. He is the third-most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, after Shakespeare and Tennyson...
and George ChapmanGeorge ChapmanGeorge Chapman was an English dramatist, translator, and poet. He was a classical scholar, and his work shows the influence of Stoicism. Chapman has been identified as the Rival Poet of Shakespeare's Sonnets by William Minto, and as an anticipator of the Metaphysical Poets...
for failing to capture the quality of "actually speaking" in their versions of this passage.
- Odyssey
- William HooperWilliam HooperWilliam Hooper was an American lawyer, politician, and a member of the Continental Congress representing North Carolina from 1774 through 1777...
(of North Carolina) - American patriot who signed the Declaration of Independence – Canto LXV - Alexander von HumboldtAlexander von HumboldtFriedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander Freiherr von Humboldt was a German naturalist and explorer, and the younger brother of the Prussian minister, philosopher and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt...
– Naturalist and friend of Louis Agassiz – Cantos LXXXIX, XCVII - Samuel HuntingdonSamuel Huntington (statesman)Samuel Huntington was a jurist, statesman, and Patriot in the American Revolution from Connecticut. As a delegate to the Continental Congress, he signed the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation...
- American patriot who signed the Declaration of Independence – Canto LXIX - Robert Maynard HutchinsRobert HutchinsRobert Maynard Hutchins , was an educational philosopher, dean of Yale Law School , and president and chancellor of the University of Chicago. He was the husband of novelist Maude Hutchins...
– Canto XCI - Thomas Hutchinson - Canto LXIV
- HyksosHyksosThe Hyksos were an Asiatic people who took over the eastern Nile Delta during the twelfth dynasty, initiating the Second Intermediate Period of ancient Egypt....
– Canto XCIII
I
- IleuthyeriaEleutheriaEleutheria is an ancient and modern Greek term for, and personification of, liberty. Eleutheria personified had a brief career on coins of Alexandria.I.F...
- Ancient Greek concept and personification of liberty - Canto II - Samuel Delucenna Ingham – 19th century U.S. politician – Canto LXXXVIII
- Iong ChengYongzheng EmperorThe Yongzheng Emperor , born Yinzhen , was the fifth emperor of the Manchu Qing Dynasty and the third Qing emperor from 1722 to 1735. A hard-working ruler, Yongzheng's main goal was to create an effective government at minimal expense. Like his father, the Kangxi Emperor, Yongzheng used military...
- Son of K'ang Hsi who wrote a commentary on the Sacred Edict - Cantos LXI, XCIX - Itys - Canto IV
J
- Andrew JacksonAndrew JacksonAndrew Jackson was the seventh President of the United States . Based in frontier Tennessee, Jackson was a politician and army general who defeated the Creek Indians at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend , and the British at the Battle of New Orleans...
- President of the U.S. who opposed establishment of the Bank of the United States. - Cantos LXXXVIII, LXXXIX, C - Henry JamesHenry JamesHenry James, OM was an American-born writer, regarded as one of the key figures of 19th-century literary realism. He was the son of Henry James, Sr., a clergyman, and the brother of philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James....
- In his 1918 essay Henry James (written as the introduction to a James special issue of the Little Review that Pound edited to mark the novelist's death), Pound describes James as a "hater of tyranny…against oppression, against all the sordid petty personal crushing oppression, the domination of modern life". - Canto VII: James' conversation remembered in terms reminiscent of the 1918 essay. The phrase "gli occhi onesti e tarde" ("with dignified and slow eyes") echoes DanteDANTEDelivery of Advanced Network Technology to Europe is a not-for-profit organisation that plans, builds and operates the international networks that interconnect the various national research and education networks in Europe and surrounding regions...
's description of SordelloSordelloSordello da Goito or Sordel de Goit was a 13th-century Lombard troubadour, born in the municipality of Goito in the province of Mantua...
in Purgatorio VI and is used in the canto, the essay, and Pound's 1918 short poem Moeurs Contemporaines. - Cantos LXXIV, LXXIX - John JayJohn JayJohn Jay was an American politician, statesman, revolutionary, diplomat, a Founding Father of the United States, and the first Chief Justice of the United States ....
– one of the ministers involved in treaty negotiations with Britain and France. – Canto LXV - Thomas JeffersonThomas JeffersonThomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...
- Cantos XXXI - XXXIV and LXII - LXXI - John JenkinsJohn Jenkins (composer)John Jenkins , English composer, was born in Maidstone, Kent, and died at Kimberley, Norfolk.Little is known of his early life. The son of Henry Jenkins, a carpenter who occasionally made musical instruments, he may have been the "Jack Jenkins" employed in the household of Anne, Countess of Warwick...
- Canto LXXXI - Ben JonsonBen JonsonBenjamin Jonson was an English Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor. A contemporary of William Shakespeare, he is best known for his satirical plays, particularly Volpone, The Alchemist, and Bartholomew Fair, which are considered his best, and his lyric poems...
- 17th century English poet. - The line "Or Swansdown ever" from his Have you seen but a whyte Lilie grow is also quoted in his 1918 essay The Hard and Soft in French Poetry. - Canto LXXIV. - James JoyceJames JoyceJames Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...
- Canto LXXIV, LXXVII - Julia DomnaJulia DomnaJulia Domna was a member of the Severan dynasty of the Roman Empire. Empress and wife of Roman Emperor Lucius Septimius Severus and mother of Emperors Geta and Caracalla, Julia was among the most important women ever to exercise power behind the throne in the Roman Empire.- Family background...
- Wife of Septimus Severus - Canto XCIV - Justinian code – Canto LXXXVII: Viewed as imperfect - Cantos C, CXVI
K
- Kublai KhanKublai KhanKublai Khan , born Kublai and also known by the temple name Shizu , was the fifth Great Khan of the Mongol Empire from 1260 to 1294 and the founder of the Yuan Dynasty in China...
- In his 1920 essay Kublai Khan and his Currency, Pound expresses his views on paper money as a means of controlling credit to the detriment of the public and quotes the passages from The Travels of Marco Polo that he uses in The Cantos - Canto XVIII - King KatiKatiKati is a town made up of 37 communes in Mali's Koulikoro Region, about 15 km from Bamako, Mali's capital. It has a population of approximately 40,000 inhabitants.-Economy:...
– Canto XCIII - Sir William KeithWilliam Keith (Colonial Governor)Sir William Keith, Bt was a lieutenant-governor of colonial Pennsylvania and Delaware.Keith was born in Boddam Castle near Peterhead, Scotland to Sir William Keith, Baronet, of Ludquhairn, Scotland and Lady Jean Keith. He was baptised on 16 February 1680. As eldest son, he stood to inherit the...
- Lieutenant-governor of Pennsylvania and Delaware – Canto LXXI - William Rufus de Vane King – Jacksonian senator and Minister to France 1844-1846 – Canto LXXXIX
- Rudyard KiplingRudyard KiplingJoseph Rudyard Kipling was an English poet, short-story writer, and novelist chiefly remembered for his celebration of British imperialism, tales and poems of British soldiers in India, and his tales for children. Kipling received the 1907 Nobel Prize for Literature...
- Canto LXXXII - Kuanon - Japanese goddess of mercy - Cantos LXXIV, XC, CX
L
- Jules LaforgueJules LaforgueJules Laforgue was an innovative Franco-Uruguayan poet, often referred to as a Symbolist poet. Critics and commentators have also pointed to Impressionism as a direct influence and his poetry has been called "part-symbolist, part-impressionist".-Life:...
- French poet - Canto XCVI - Marie LaurencinMarie LaurencinMarie Laurencin was a French painter and printmaker. -Biography:Laurencin was born in Paris, where she was raised by her mother and lived much of her life. At 18, she studied porcelain painting in Sèvres...
- Canto LXXX - Henry LaurensHenry LaurensHenry Laurens was an American merchant and rice planter from South Carolina who became a political leader during the Revolutionary War. A delegate to the Second Continental Congress, Laurens succeeded John Hancock as President of the Congress...
– First president of the Congress of Carolina who was captured by the British while sailing to Holland in 1780 to negotiate a loan, he was held prisoner in the Tower of LondonTower of LondonHer Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress, more commonly known as the Tower of London, is a historic castle on the north bank of the River Thames in central London, England. It lies within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, separated from the eastern edge of the City of London by the open space...
for 14 months. – Canto LXVIII - John LawJohn Law (economist)John Law was a Scottish economist who believed that money was only a means of exchange that did not constitute wealth in itself and that national wealth depended on trade...
- Scottish economist and sometime Comptroler of the Finances of France. Like Pound, he believed that money was only a means of exchange that did not constitute wealth in itself. - Canto CXIV - Henry LawesHenry LawesHenry Lawes was an English musician and composer.He was born at Dinton in Wiltshire, and received his musical education from John Cooper, better known under his Italian pseudonym Giovanni Coperario, a famous composer of the day...
- Canto LXXXI - LayamonLayamonLayamon or Laghamon (ˈlaɣamon; in American English often modernised as ; ), occasionally written Lawman, was a poet of the early 13th century and author of the Brut, a notable English poem of the 12th century that was the first English language work to discuss the legends of Arthur and the...
– 11th century English poet. – Canto XCI: His Brut quoted, especially the hymn to the goddess Diana. - League of Cambrai - Canto LI
- Fernand LégerFernand LégerJoseph Fernand Henri Léger was a French painter, sculptor, and filmmaker. In his early works he created a personal form of Cubism which he gradually modified into a more figurative, populist style...
- Canto XVI: On World War I - Lenin - Canto C
- Pietro LeopoldoLeopold II, Holy Roman EmperorLeopold II , born Peter Leopold Joseph Anton Joachim Pius Gotthard, was Holy Roman Emperor and King of Hungary and Bohemia from 1790 to 1792, Archduke of Austria and Grand Duke of Tuscany from 1765 to 1790. He was a son of Emperor Francis I and his wife, Empress Maria Theresa...
, Grand Duke of TuscanyTuscanyTuscany is a region in Italy. It has an area of about 23,000 square kilometres and a population of about 3.75 million inhabitants. The regional capital is Florence ....
and founder of the Monte de Paschi. - Cantos XLIV, L, LII - LeucotheaLeucotheaIn Greek mythology, Leucothea , "white goddess") was one of the aspects under which an ancient sea goddess was recognized, in this case as a transformed nymph....
- See Homer above - Sinclair LewisSinclair LewisHarry Sinclair Lewis was an American novelist, short-story writer, and playwright. In 1930, he became the first writer from the United States to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, "for his vigorous and graphic art of description and his ability to create, with wit and humor, new types of...
- Cantos LXXXIV, CXV - Wyndham LewisWyndham LewisPercy Wyndham Lewis was an English painter and author . He was a co-founder of the Vorticist movement in art, and edited the literary magazine of the Vorticists, BLAST...
- Cantos LXXX, XCVIII, XCVI (admiration for Byzantium) - LinnaeusCarolus LinnaeusCarl Linnaeus , also known after his ennoblement as , was a Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist, who laid the foundations for the modern scheme of binomial nomenclature. He is known as the father of modern taxonomy, and is also considered one of the fathers of modern ecology...
- The "Father of TaxonomyTaxonomyTaxonomy is the science of identifying and naming species, and arranging them into a classification. The field of taxonomy, sometimes referred to as "biological taxonomy", revolves around the description and use of taxonomic units, known as taxa...
" - Cantos CXIII, CXV, CXVI - LombardsLombardsThe Lombards , also referred to as Longobards, were a Germanic tribe of Scandinavian origin, who from 568 to 774 ruled a Kingdom in Italy...
- Canto XCVI - Ambrogio LorenzettiAmbrogio LorenzettiAmbrogio Lorenzetti was an Italian painter of the Sienese school. He was active between approximately 1317 to 1348. His elder brother was the painter Pietro Lorenzetti....
- Canto XVL - Lyaeus - Epithet for Dionysus, "He who unties" - Canto II
- Lycurgus - Legendary ruler of SpartaSpartaSparta or Lacedaemon, was a prominent city-state in ancient Greece, situated on the banks of the River Eurotas in Laconia, in south-eastern Peloponnese. It emerged as a political entity around the 10th century BC, when the invading Dorians subjugated the local, non-Dorian population. From c...
– Cantos LXVIII, LXXXVIII
M
- Nathaniel MaconNathaniel MaconNathaniel Macon was a spokesman for the Old Republican faction of the Democratic-Republican Party that wanted to strictly limit the United States federal government. Macon was born near Warrenton, North Carolina, and attended the College of New Jersey and served briefly in the American...
– U.S. politician who was unsuccessful candidate for vice president of the United States in 1825. – Canto LXXXIX - Joseph-Anna-Marie de Moyriac de MaillaJoseph-Anna-Marie de Moyriac de MaillaJoseph-Anne-Marie de Moyriac de Mailla was a French Jesuit missionary to China.-Biography:...
- Jesuit historian whose work served as the basis for the China Cantos LII - LXI. - Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta - Condottiero and patron of the arts who is the first great culture hero to appear in The Cantos Cantos VIII - XI, Canto XXI
- 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
- Jacques MaritainJacques MaritainJacques Maritain was a French Catholic philosopher. Raised as a Protestant, he converted to Catholicism in 1906. An author of more than 60 books, he helped to revive St. Thomas Aquinas for modern times and is a prominent drafter of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights...
- Cantos LXXVII, LXXX, XCI - Charles MartelCharles MartelCharles Martel , also known as Charles the Hammer, was a Frankish military and political leader, who served as Mayor of the Palace under the Merovingian kings and ruled de facto during an interregnum at the end of his life, using the title Duke and Prince of the Franks. In 739 he was offered the...
- Carolingian ruler - Canto XCVI - Charles Elkin MathewsCharles Elkin MathewsCharles Elkin Mathews Charles Elkin Mathews Charles Elkin Mathews (1851 – 10 November 1921 was a British publisher and bookseller who played an important role in the literary life of late 19th and early 20th century London....
- Cantos LXXXII, C - John MasefieldJohn MasefieldJohn Edward Masefield, OM, was an English poet and writer, and Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom from 1930 until his death in 1967...
- Canto LXXXII - Thomas McKeanThomas McKeanThomas McKean was an American lawyer and politician from New Castle, in New Castle County, Delaware and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. During the American Revolution he was a delegate to the Continental Congress where he signed the United States Declaration of Independence and the Articles of...
- American patriot who signed the Declaration of Independence – Canto LXXI - Lorenzo de Medici - Pound admired his poetry - Canto LXXVIII
- Medici bankMedici bankThe Medici Bank was a financial institution created by the Medici family in Italy during the 15th century. It was the largest and most respected bank in Europe during its prime. There are some estimates that the Medici family was, for a period of time, the wealthiest family in Europe...
- 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, L - MenciusMenciusMencius was a Chinese philosopher who was arguably the most famous Confucian after Confucius himself.-Life:Mencius, also known by his birth name Meng Ke or Ko, was born in the State of Zou, now forming the territory of the county-level city of Zoucheng , Shandong province, only thirty kilometres ...
- Canto LXXVII: The archer and the bullseye, Cantos LXXVIII, LXXXII: Quoted on the Spring and Autumn - LXXXIII: "the nine fields", equity in government - Abbas MirzaAbbas MirzaPrince, Field-Marshal Abbas Mirza born Amol city , was a Qajar crown prince of Persia. He developed a reputation as a military commander during wars with Russia and the Ottoman Empire, as an early modernizer of Persia's armed forces and institutions, and for his death before his father, Fath Ali...
- (c. 1783-1833), prince of Persia who was famed for the simplicity of his lifestyle. – Canto LXXXIX - Jacques de MolayJacques de MolayJacques de Molay was the 23rd and last Grand Master of the Knights Templar, leading the Order from 20 April 1292 until it was dissolved by order of Pope Clement V in 1312...
Last Grand Master of the Templars who was executed for heresy and other charges. – Cantos LXXXVII, XC - Money supplyMoney supplyIn economics, the money supply or money stock, is the total amount of money available in an economy at a specific time. There are several ways to define "money," but standard measures usually include currency in circulation and demand deposits .Money supply data are recorded and published, usually...
- passim - Monte dei Paschi di SienaMonte dei Paschi di SienaBanca Monte dei Paschi di Siena S.p.A. is the oldest surviving bank in the world. Founded in 1472 by the Magistrate of the city state of Siena, Italy, as a mount of piety, it has been operating ever since. Today it consists of approximately 3,000 branches, 33,000 employees and 4.5 million...
- Not-for-profit Sienese bank funded by natural productivity and much admired by Pound - Cantos XLI, XLII, XLIII. - Federico da MontefeltroFederico da MontefeltroFederico da Montefeltro, also known as Federico III da Montefeltro , was one of the most successful condottieri of the Italian Renaissance, and lord of Urbino from 1444 until his death...
(Feddy) -Fought for the papacy against Sigismondo Malatesta and later switched sides when the pope tried to take control of the Malatesta seat at RiminiRiminiRimini is a medium-sized city of 142,579 inhabitants in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy, and capital city of the Province of Rimini. It is located on the Adriatic Sea, on the coast between the rivers Marecchia and Ausa...
- Cantos VIII - XI - Simon de Montfort, 5th Earl of LeicesterSimon de Montfort, 5th Earl of LeicesterSimon IV de Montfort, Seigneur de Montfort-l'Amaury, 5th Earl of Leicester , also known as Simon de Montfort the elder, was a French nobleman who took part in the Fourth Crusade and was a prominent leader of the Albigensian Crusade...
- Canto LXXXIII - MontsegurMontségurThe Château de Montségur is a former fortress near Montségur, a commune in the Ariège department in southwestern France. Its ruins are the site of a razed stronghold of the Cathars. The present fortress on the site, though described as one of the "Cathar castles," is actually of a later period...
- Scene of final stages of the Albigensian Crusade - Cantos XXIII, XLCIII - MoonMoonThe Moon is Earth's only known natural satellite,There are a number of near-Earth asteroids including 3753 Cruithne that are co-orbital with Earth: their orbits bring them close to Earth for periods of time but then alter in the long term . These are quasi-satellites and not true moons. For more...
– 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 RufusMusonius RufusGaius Musonius Rufus, was a Roman Stoic philosopher of the 1st century AD. He taught philosophy in Rome during the reign of Nero, as consequence of which he was sent into exile in 65 AD, only returning to Rome under Galba...
– Canto XCIV - Benito MussoliniBenito MussoliniBenito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....
- Italian Fascist dictator admired by Pound. - Cantos XXXIII, XIL (found Pound's XXX Cantos "diverting"), LXXIV, LXXVIII, Notes for CXVII et seq.
N
- Napoleon Bonaparte - Cantos XCVII, C, CXI
- Napoleon III - Canto LXXXV: Example of a bad ruler
- NeoplatonismNeoplatonismNeoplatonism , is the modern term for a school of religious and mystical philosophy that took shape in the 3rd century AD, based on the teachings of Plato and earlier Platonists, with its earliest contributor believed to be Plotinus, and his teacher Ammonius Saccas...
- Jules Nicole – Translator of the Book of the Prefect (or Eparch)
- Frederick North, Lord NorthFrederick North, Lord NorthFrederick North, 2nd Earl of Guilford, KG, PC , more often known by his courtesy title, Lord North, which he used from 1752 until 1790, was Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1770 to 1782. He led Great Britain through most of the American War of Independence...
– British Prime Minister during the American Revolution – Canto LXXII
O
- Ocellus LucanusOcellus LucanusOcellus Lucanus, a Pythagorean philosopher, born in Lucania in the 5th century BC, was perhaps a pupil of Pythagoras himself.Stobaeus Ocellus Lucanus, a Pythagorean philosopher, born in Lucania in the 5th century BC, was perhaps a pupil of Pythagoras himself.Stobaeus Ocellus Lucanus, a Pythagorean...
– Canto LXXXVII " all things have neither a beginning nor an end'" – Canto LXXXVII - Cantos XCI, XCIII, XCVIII: "to build light". - OdysseusOdysseusOdysseus or Ulysses was a legendary Greek king of Ithaca and the hero of Homer's epic poem the Odyssey. Odysseus also plays a key role in Homer's Iliad and other works in the Epic Cycle....
- passim (see Homer) - Andrew OliverAndrew OliverAndrew Oliver was a merchant and public official in the Province of Massachusetts Bay. Born in Boston, he was the son of Daniel Oliver, a merchant, and Elizabeth Belcher Oliver, daughter of Governor Jonathan Belcher. Andrew had two brothers: Daniel Oliver and Peter Oliver...
- Canto LXIV - A. R. Orage - Editor of the New Age and friend of Pound - Cantos XCVIII, CXI
- James OtisJames Otis, Jr.James Otis, Jr. was a lawyer in colonial Massachusetts, a member of the Massachusetts provincial assembly, and an early advocate of the political views that led to the American Revolution. The phrase "Taxation without Representation is Tyranny" is usually attributed to him...
- Cantos LXII - LXXI - OvidOvidPublius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...
- 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. - Cantos IV, VII, XVII, XX, LXXXV- SulmonaSulmonathumb|150px|Celestine V's hermitage and the remains of the Shrine of Hercules Curinus.thumb|150px|Palazzo SS. Annunziata and Museo Civicothumb|150px|Church of SS...
- His birthplace - Canto CXV - MetamorphosesMetamorphoses (poem)Metamorphoses is a Latin narrative poem in fifteen books by the Roman poet Ovid describing the history of the world from its creation to the deification of Julius Caesar within a loose mythico-historical framework. Completed in AD 8, it is recognized as a masterpiece of Golden Age Latin literature...
- Canto II: Atalanta ("Schoeney's daughter'"), Dionysus and the pirates - Canto XC: Stories of ArethusaArethusa (mythology)For other uses, see ArethusaArethusa means "the waterer". In Greek mythology, she was a nymph and daughter of Nereus , and later became a fountain on the island of Ortygia in Syracuse, Sicily....
and Alpheus, Baucis and PhilemonBaucis and PhilemonIn Ovid's moralizing fable , which stands on the periphery of Greek mythology and Roman mythology, Baucis and Philemon were an old married couple in the region of Tyana, which Ovid places in Phrygia, and the only ones in their town to welcome disguised gods Zeus and Hermes , thus embodying the... - FastiFastiIn ancient Rome, the fasti were chronological or calendar-based lists, or other diachronic records or plans of official and religiously sanctioned events...
'Cantos XCIII, XCVIII: "Est deus in nobis: agitante calescimus illo" ("There is a God in us, and we glow when he stirs us") quoted partially in each canto. The full quotation is given in Pound's 1956 Quotations from Richard of St Victor where it is set beside Richard's "Ignis quidquid in nobis est" ("There is a certain fire within us").
- Sulmona
P
- Giovanni Pacelli (Pope Pius XII) - Canto LXXIII.
- Lord Palmerston - Canto LXXXIX: The right of search and the Anglo-American War of 1812 to 1814.
- PandectsPandectsThe Digest, also known as the Pandects , is a name given to a compendium or digest of Roman law compiled by order of the emperor Justinian I in the 6th century .The Digest was one part of the Corpus Juris Civilis, the body of civil law issued under Justinian I...
– Canto XCIV - William PattersonWilliam Paterson (banker)Sir William Paterson was a Scottish trader and banker.- Early life :...
- 17th century ScottishScotlandScotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
entrepreneurEntrepreneurAn entrepreneur is an owner or manager of a business enterprise who makes money through risk and initiative.The term was originally a loanword from French and was first defined by the Irish-French economist Richard Cantillon. Entrepreneur in English is a term applied to a person who is willing to...
who first proposed the establishment of the Bank of EnglandBank of EnglandThe Bank of England is the central bank of the United Kingdom and the model on which most modern central banks have been based. Established in 1694, it is the second oldest central bank in the world...
- Canto XVIL. - Paulus the deacon - Historian of the Lombards was born in 725 - Canto XCVII
- John PennJohn Penn (governor)John Penn was the last governor of colonial Pennsylvania, serving in that office from 1763 to 1771 and from 1773 to 1776...
– U.S. politician – Canto LXVII - PentheusPentheusIn Greek mythology, Pentheus was a king of Thebes, son of the strongest of the Spartes, Echion, and of Agave, daughter of Cadmus, the founder of Thebes, and the goddess Harmonia....
- Banned the worship of Dionysus in Thebes; grandson of Cadmus; mortal cousin of Dionysus - Canto II - Thomas Pereyra (Pereira in Pound's spelling) (1645–1708) - French Jesuit missionary and companion of Jean François Gerbillon. - Canto LIX.
- PersephonePersephoneIn Greek mythology, Persephone , also called Kore , is the daughter of Zeus and the harvest-goddess Demeter, and queen of the underworld; she was abducted by Hades, the god-king of the underworld....
- Cantos LXXXIII, XCIII (via Dante reference at end of canto) - PetroniusPetroniusGaius Petronius Arbiter was a Roman courtier during the reign of Nero. He is generally believed to be the author of the Satyricon, a satirical novel believed to have been written during the Neronian age.-Life:...
- Canto LXIV: His SatyriconSatyriconSatyricon is a Latin work of fiction in a mixture of prose and poetry. It is believed to have been written by Gaius Petronius, though the manuscript tradition identifies the author as a certain Titus Petronius...
quoted. - PhilostratusPhilostratusPhilostratus or Lucius Flavius Philostratus , , called "the Athenian", was a Greek sophist of the Roman imperial period. His father was a minor sophist of the same name. He was born probably around 172, and is said by the Suda to have been living in the reign of emperor Philip the Arab . His death...
- Canto XCIV: His life of Apollonius extensively quoted, Canto XCVIII: "out of Egypt, medicine" quoted in Greek - Francis PicabiaFrancis PicabiaFrancis Picabia was a French painter, poet, and typographist, associated with both the Dada and Surrealist art movements.- Early life :...
- Quoted on the futility of the First World War - Canto XCVII - Piero della FrancescaPiero della FrancescaPiero della Francesca was a painter of the Early Renaissance. As testified by Giorgio Vasari in his Lives of the Artists, to contemporaries he was also known as a mathematician and geometer. Nowadays Piero della Francesca is chiefly appreciated for his art. His painting was characterized by its...
- Canto VIII - Charles Cotesworth PinckneyCharles Cotesworth PinckneyCharles Cotesworth “C. C.” Pinckney , was an early American statesman of South Carolina, Revolutionary War veteran, and delegate to the Constitutional Convention. He was twice nominated by the Federalist Party as their presidential candidate, but he did not win either election.-Early life and...
– American politician and military leader during the Revolution who supported the union of the states. – Canto LXIII - PindarPindarPindar , was an Ancient Greek lyric poet. Of the canonical nine lyric poets of ancient Greece, his work is the best preserved. Quintilian described him as "by far the greatest of the nine lyric poets, in virtue of his inspired magnificence, the beauty of his thoughts and figures, the rich...
- Canto IV (opening line), Canto LXXXIII (hudor [water]) - Thomas PinckneyThomas PinckneyThomas Pinckney was an early American statesman, diplomat and veteran of both the American Revolutionary War and the War of 1812.-Early life in the military:...
- Pippin III (Pippin the Short) - Carolingian ruler - Canto XCVI
- Luigi PirandelloLuigi PirandelloLuigi Pirandello was an Italian dramatist, novelist, and short story writer awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1934, for his "bold and brilliant renovation of the drama and the stage." Pirandello's works include novels, hundreds of short stories, and about 40 plays, some of which are written...
– Canto XCV - Victor PlarrVictor PlarrVictor Gustave Plarr was an English poet; he is probably best known for the poem Epitaphium Citharistriae....
Cantos LXXIV, C - George Gemistos Plethon - Cantos VIII, LXXXIII
- PlotinusPlotinusPlotinus was a major philosopher of the ancient world. In his system of theory there are the three principles: the One, the Intellect, and the Soul. His teacher was Ammonius Saccas and he is of the Platonic tradition...
- Cantos XV, XCVIII, C - Poema de Mio Cid - Medieval Spanish poem discussed by Pound in his 1910 book The Spirit of Romance - Cantos III, XX ("And the King said:/'God what a woman!/My God what a woman'" and surrounding fragments)
- James K. PolkJames K. PolkJames Knox Polk was the 11th President of the United States . Polk was born in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. He later lived in and represented Tennessee. A Democrat, Polk served as the 17th Speaker of the House of Representatives and the 12th Governor of Tennessee...
– Jacksonian president of the U.S. – Cantos LXXXVII, C - Dorothy PoundDorothy ShakespearDorothy Shakespear was an English artist, the daughter of novelist Olivia Shakespear, and the wife of the poet Ezra Pound. She was a member of the Vorticism movement, and had her work published in the literary magazine BLAST.Dorothy met Ezra Pound in 1909; after a long courtship the two were...
- Pound's wife - One of those who "do not cook" Cantos LIV, LXXXI - Propertius - quoted in Canto VII "quoscumque smaragdos, quosve dedit flavo lumine, chrysolithos" ("whatever emeralds, or yellow-glowing topazes"), Canto XX "Possum ego naturae non meminisse tuae" ("your nature cannot be forgotten"); also "Qui son Properzio ed Ovidio" ("It is Propetian and Ovidian")
- ProteusProteusIn Greek mythology, Proteus is an early sea-god, one of several deities whom Homer calls the "Old Man of the Sea", whose name suggests the "first" , as protogonos is the "primordial" or the "firstborn". He became the son of Poseidon in the Olympian theogony In Greek mythology, Proteus (Πρωτεύς)...
- A Greek sea-god with the power of prophecy and the ability to change shape - Canto II - Provençal literatureProvençal literatureOccitan literature — still sometimes called Provençal literature — is a body of texts written in Occitan in what is nowadays the South of France. It originated in the poetry of the 11th- and 12th-century troubadours, and inspired the rise of vernacular literature throughout medieval...
, - passim - Michael PsellosMichael PsellosMichael Psellos or Psellus was a Byzantine monk, writer, philosopher, politician and historian...
– ByzantineByzantine EmpireThe Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...
NeoplatonistNeoplatonismNeoplatonism , is the modern term for a school of religious and mystical philosophy that took shape in the 3rd century AD, based on the teachings of Plato and earlier Platonists, with its earliest contributor believed to be Plotinus, and his teacher Ammonius Saccas...
– Cantos XXIII, C - Raphael PumpellyRaphael PumpellyRaphael Pumpelly was an American geologist and explorer.-Early life and ancestors:He was born on September 8, 1837 in Oswego, New York, into a family with deep New England roots that trace back to Thomas Welles , who arrived in Massachusetts in 1635 and was the only man in Connecticut's history to...
- American explorer who made the first extensive survey of the Gobi desertGobi DesertThe Gobi is a large desert region in Asia. It covers parts of northern and northwestern China, and of southern Mongolia. The desert basins of the Gobi are bounded by the Altai Mountains and the grasslands and steppes of Mongolia on the north, by the Hexi Corridor and Tibetan Plateau to the...
,as a result of which he developed a theory of secular rock disintegration. He was influenced by Louis AgassizLouis AgassizJean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz was a Swiss paleontologist, glaciologist, geologist and a prominent innovator in the study of the Earth's natural history. He grew up in Switzerland and became a professor of natural history at University of Neuchâtel...
. - Canto XCIII
R
- John Randolph of RoanokeJohn Randolph of RoanokeJohn Randolph , known as John Randolph of Roanoke, was a planter and a Congressman from Virginia, serving in the House of Representatives , the Senate , and also as Minister to Russia...
– 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
- RenaissanceRenaissanceThe Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
- passim - RheaRhea (mythology)Rhea was the Titaness daughter of Uranus, the sky, and Gaia, the earth, in Greek mythology. She was known as "the mother of gods". In earlier traditions, she was strongly associated with Gaia and Cybele, the Great Goddess, and was later seen by the classical Greeks as the mother of the Olympian...
– Mother of Zeus, who is generally depicted between two lions or on a chariot pulled by lions. Canto XCI - Richard of St. VictorRichard of St. VictorRichard of Saint Victor is known today as one of the most influential religious thinkers of his time. He was a prominent mystical theologian, and was prior of the famous Augustinian Abbey of Saint Victor in Paris from 1162 until his death in 1173....
- In his 1910 book The Spirit of Romance, Pound wrote "the keenly intellectual mysticism of Richard of St. Victor fascinates me". In 1956, he selected and translated Quotations from Richard of St Victor- Canto LXXXV: On contemplation as active intellect - Canto XC: "ubi amor, ibi oculuc est" ("where love is, there is the eye") and "quam in nobis divinae reperietur imago" ("of which an image of the divine is found in us") (slightly misquoting a passage given in the Quotations) - Cantos XCII, XCIV - Joseph F. Rock - American botanist and explorer who described and filmed many Chinese and Tibetan rituals - Canto CX
- Roman EmpireRoman EmpireThe Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
– Canto XCVI - Franklin D. Roosevelt - Cantos LXXXV, XCVII
- Rothschild familyRothschild familyThe Rothschild family , known as The House of Rothschild, or more simply as the Rothschilds, is a Jewish-German family that established European banking and finance houses starting in the late 18th century...
- Jewish bankers - Canto LII - Walter Rummel - Musician who worked with Pound on recovering settings of Troubadour songs. - Canto LXXX
- Benjamin RushBenjamin RushBenjamin Rush was a Founding Father of the United States. Rush lived in the state of Pennsylvania and was a physician, writer, educator, humanitarian and a Christian Universalist, as well as the founder of Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania....
– Signatory of the Declaration of Independence – Cantos XCIV, XCVII
S
- Sacred Edict - Maxims on good government by the Chinese emperor K'ang Hsi. Thrones
- George SantayanaGeorge SantayanaGeorge Santayana was a philosopher, essayist, poet, and novelist. A lifelong Spanish citizen, Santayana was raised and educated in the United States and identified himself as an American. He wrote in English and is generally considered an American man of letters...
- Canto LXXXI - Canto C: Fellow admirer of Mussolini; Pound also referred to his ontological theory - John Singer SargentJohn Singer SargentJohn Singer Sargent was an American artist, considered the "leading portrait painter of his generation" for his evocations of Edwardian era luxury. During his career, he created roughly 900 oil paintings and more than 2,000 watercolors, as well as countless sketches and charcoal drawings...
- Canto LXXXI - SapphoSapphoSappho was an Ancient Greek poet, born on the island of Lesbos. Later Greeks included her in the list of nine lyric poets. Her birth was sometime between 630 and 612 BC, and it is said that she died around 570 BC, but little is known for certain about her life...
- In his 1928 essay, How to Read, Pound lists Sappho among the "inventors", or poets who were responsible for introducing something to the art that had never been done before. Cantos III - VII, LXXIV, LXXVI, LXXX. - Hjalmar SchachtHjalmar SchachtDr. Hjalmar Horace Greeley Schacht was a German economist, banker, liberal politician, and co-founder of the German Democratic Party. He served as the Currency Commissioner and President of the Reichsbank under the Weimar Republic...
- Canto LII - SchoeneySchoeneusIn Greek mythology, Schoeneus was the name of several individuals:#Schoeneus was a Boeotian king, the son of Athamas and Themisto. He was the father of Atalanta by Clymene.#Schoeneus was the son of Autonous and Hippodamia...
– Father of AtalantaAtalantaAtalanta is a character in Greek mythology.-Legend:Atalanta was the daughter of Iasus , a Boeotian or an Arcadian princess . She is often described as a goddess. Apollodorus is the only one who gives an account of Atalanta’s birth and upbringing...
. The phrase "Schoeney's daughter" is lifted from a passage in Arthur GoldingArthur GoldingArthur Golding was an English translator of more than 30 works from Latin into English. While primarily remembered today for his translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses because of its influence on Shakespeare's works, in his own time he was most famous for his translation of Caesar's Commentaries, and...
's translation of the Metamorphoses which is quoted in Pound's 1917 essay Notes on Elizabethan Classicists. – Canto II - Jacopo Sellaio - Italian artist whose Venus Pound admired. - Cantos LXXX, XCIII
- Septimus Severus - Canto XCIV
- William ShakespeareWilliam ShakespeareWilliam Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
- Discussed distributive justice. - Canto XCIII - William ShirleyWilliam ShirleyWilliam Shirley was a British colonial administrator who served twice as Governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay and as Governor of the Bahamas in the 1760s...
- colonial governor of Massachusetts 1741–1745 and 1754–1759. Canto LXXVII - SirenSirenIn Greek mythology, the Sirens were three dangerous mermaid like creatures, portrayed as seductresses who lured nearby sailors with their enchanting music and voices to shipwreck on the rocky coast of their island. Roman poets placed them on an island called Sirenum scopuli...
s - Canto XC - John SkeltonJohn SkeltonJohn Skelton, also known as John Shelton , possibly born in Diss, Norfolk, was an English poet.-Education:...
- Canto C - Adam SmithAdam SmithAdam Smith was a Scottish social philosopher and a pioneer of political economy. One of the key figures of the Scottish Enlightenment, Smith is the author of The Theory of Moral Sentiments and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations...
- Economist - Canto XL: on trade organisations as a conspiracy against the public. - Hieronymus Soncinus - Renaissance printer based in the town of FanoFanoFano is a town and comune of the province of Pesaro and Urbino in the Marche region of Italy. It is a beach resort 12 km southeast of Pesaro, located where the Via Flaminia reaches the Adriatic Sea...
. He printed the works of PetrarchPetrarchFrancesco Petrarca , known in English as Petrarch, was an Italian scholar, poet and one of the earliest humanists. Petrarch is often called the "Father of Humanism"...
. - Canto XXX - Song of Roland - Canto XX: "tant mare fustes/so unlucky were you" quoted from verse XXVII of the French romance
- SordelloSordelloSordello da Goito or Sordel de Goit was a 13th-century Lombard troubadour, born in the municipality of Goito in the province of Mantua...
- Troubadour poet and subject of Robert Browning's long poem of that name. He appears in Dante's Purgatorio. - Canto II - Canto VII: Dante's description of him applied to Henry James - Canto XXXVI - Joseph StalinJoseph StalinJoseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
- Canto LXXXIV - Stamp Act 1765Stamp Act 1765The Stamp Act 1765 was a direct tax imposed by the British Parliament specifically on the colonies of British America. The act required that many printed materials in the colonies be produced on stamped paper produced in London, carrying an embossed revenue stamp...
- Canto LXIV - Lincoln SteffensLincoln Steffens-Biography:Steffens was born April 6, 1866, in San Francisco. He grew up in a wealthy family and attended a military academy. He studied in France and Germany after graduating from the University of California....
- Cantos XVI, LXXXIV - Mount Sumeru - Buddhist holy mountain - Canto CX
- SunSunThe Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields...
(frequently as HeliosHeliosHelios was the personification of the Sun in Greek mythology. Homer often calls him simply Titan or Hyperion, while Hesiod and the Homeric Hymn separate him as a son of the Titans Hyperion and Theia or Euryphaessa and brother of the goddesses Selene, the moon, and Eos, the dawn...
) – Either directly or via mythological exemplifications (usually gods), the sun represents light in its active, political, or social aspect in The Cantos. – passim - Emanuel SwedenborgEmanuel Swedenborgwas a Swedish scientist, philosopher, and theologian. He has been termed a Christian mystic by some sources, including the Encyclopædia Britannica online version, and the Encyclopedia of Religion , which starts its article with the description that he was a "Swedish scientist and mystic." Others...
- Canto XCIV: "of society" - Algernon Charles SwinburneAlgernon Charles SwinburneAlgernon Charles Swinburne was an English poet, playwright, novelist, and critic. He invented the roundel form, wrote several novels, and contributed to the famous Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica...
- Canto LXXXII - Arthur SymonsArthur SymonsArthur William Symons , was a British poet, critic and magazine editor.-Life:Born in Milford Haven, Wales, of Cornish parents, Symons was educated privately, spending much of his time in France and Italy...
- Canto LXXX
T
- Talleyrand – Canto LXXXI: Curbing Bismarck's ambitions at the Congress of Vienna, Canto CXI: and Napoleon
- Tammuz - Canto XVIIL
- F. W. TancredF. W. TancredFrancis Willoughby Tancred was an English poet associated with the Poets' Club, a group of writers, established by T. E. Hulme, who were the forerunners of the Imagist movement. They carried out practical studies on Chinese poetry and haiku. Tancred's own influence on the genre has been relatively...
- Canto LXXXII - John TaylorJohn Taylor of CarolineJohn Taylor usually called John Taylor of Caroline was a politician and writer. He served in the Virginia House of Delegates and in the United States Senate . He wrote several books on politics and agriculture...
( of Caroline) Served as a colonel under Patrick Henry – Canto LXVII - TerracinaTerracinaTerracina is a town and comune of the province of Latina - , Italy, 76 km SE of Rome by rail .-Ancient times:...
– Seaside town between Rome and NaplesNaplesNaples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
which was formerly the location of a temple to Venus (or possibly Jupiter). In his 1930 essay Credo, Pound wrote "Given the material means I would replace the statue of Venus on the cliffs of Terracina." – Cantos XXXIX, LXXIV, XCI. - Thales of Miletus – Pound was interested in his exploitation of a monopoly of the olive presses having predicted a bumper harvest, a story related by AristotleAristotleAristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
. – Canto LXXXVIII - TheocritusTheocritusTheocritus , the creator of ancient Greek bucolic poetry, flourished in the 3rd century BC.-Life:Little is known of Theocritus beyond what can be inferred from his writings. We must, however, handle these with some caution, since some of the poems commonly attributed to him have little claim to...
- Canto LXXXI - Adolphe ThiersAdolphe ThiersMarie Joseph Louis Adolphe Thiers was a French politician and historian. was a prime minister under King Louis-Philippe of France. Following the overthrow of the Second Empire he again came to prominence as the French leader who suppressed the revolutionary Paris Commune of 1871...
- 19th century French statesman, journalist, and historian of the French RevolutionFrench RevolutionThe French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
. - Canto XCIX - TiresiasTiresiasIn Greek mythology, Tiresias was a blind prophet of Thebes, famous for clairvoyance and for being transformed into a woman for seven years. He was the son of the shepherd Everes and the nymph Chariclo; Tiresias participated fully in seven generations at Thebes, beginning as advisor to Cadmus...
- Cantos I, LXXXIII - TitianTitianTiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio (c. 1488/1490 – 27 August 1576 better known as Titian was an Italian painter, the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, near...
- Canto XXV - Toba SojoToba Sojo, also known as , was a Japanese astronomer, an artist-monk, and the son of Minamoto-no-Takakuni.Although he is frequently credited as the artist of the famous picture scroll Chōjū-giga, there is no conclusive proof of this claim.- References :...
- 11th century Japanese artist - Canto CX - Alexis de TocquevilleAlexis de TocquevilleAlexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville was a French political thinker and historian best known for his Democracy in America and The Old Regime and the Revolution . In both of these works, he explored the effects of the rising equality of social conditions on the individual and the state in...
- Canto LXXXVIII - Charles-Thomas Maillard De TournonCharles-Thomas Maillard De TournonCharles-Thomas Maillard De Tournon was a papal legate and cardinal to the East Indies and China.-Biography:...
(1668–1710) – SavoySavoySavoy is a region of France. It comprises roughly the territory of the Western Alps situated between Lake Geneva in the north and Monaco and the Mediterranean coast in the south....
ard who served as Papal legatePapal legateA papal legate – from the Latin, authentic Roman title Legatus – is a personal representative of the pope to foreign nations, or to some part of the Catholic Church. He is empowered on matters of Catholic Faith and for the settlement of ecclesiastical matters....
to India and ended his life as a prisoner in MacauMacauMacau , also spelled Macao , is, along with Hong Kong, one of the two special administrative regions of the People's Republic of China...
for attempting to abolish the Confucian rites. Canto LX - TroubadourTroubadourA troubadour was a composer and performer of Old Occitan lyric poetry during the High Middle Ages . Since the word "troubadour" is etymologically masculine, a female troubadour is usually called a trobairitz....
s - Cantos IV, VI, VII, XX, XXIX - Samuel TuckerSamuel TuckerSamuel Tucker was an officer in the Continental Navy and the United States Navy.-Military Career:Born in Marblehead, Massachusetts, Tucker began his naval career in the spring of 1760 as a cabin boy in the warship, King George. He subsequently rose to command of a merchant ship in July 1774...
– Captain of the ship that brought John Adams to France in 1778. – Canto LXV - John TylerJohn TylerJohn Tyler was the tenth President of the United States . A native of Virginia, Tyler served as a state legislator, governor, U.S. representative, and U.S. senator before being elected Vice President . He was the first to succeed to the office of President following the death of a predecessor...
- 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 - TyroTyroIn Greek mythology, Tyro was the daughter of Salmoneus and married Cretheus, but loved Enipeus. She gave birth to Pelias and Neleus, the twin sons of Poseidon. With Cretheus she had Aeson, Pheres, and Amythaon....
- Mythological figure who had two sons, NeleusNeleusNeleus was the son of Poseidon and Tyro and brother of Pelias. Tyro was married to Cretheus but loved Enipeus, a river god. She pursued Enipeus, who refused her advances. One day, Poseidon, filled with lust for Tyro, disguised himself as Enipeus and from their union was born Pelias and Neleus,...
and PeliasPeliasPelias was king of Iolcus in Greek mythology, the son of Tyro and Poseidon. His wife is recorded as either Anaxibia, daughter of Bias, or Phylomache, daughter of Amphion. He was the father of Acastus, Pisidice, Alcestis, Pelopia, Hippothoe, Asteropia, and Antinoe.Tyro was married to Cretheus...
by PoseidonPoseidonPoseidon was the god of the sea, and, as "Earth-Shaker," of the earthquakes in Greek mythology. The name of the sea-god Nethuns in Etruscan was adopted in Latin for Neptune in Roman mythology: both were sea gods analogous to Poseidon...
- Cantos II, XC
U
- Messier UndertreeToyotomi Hideyoshiwas a daimyo warrior, general and politician of the Sengoku period. He unified the political factions of Japan. He succeeded his former liege lord, Oda Nobunaga, and brought an end to the Sengoku period. The period of his rule is often called the Momoyama period, named after Hideyoshi's castle...
/Toyotomi Hideyoshi - Cantos LVI, LVIII - United States Federalist Party
- Count Usedom - Canto C
- UsuryUsuryUsury Originally, when the charging of interest was still banned by Christian churches, usury simply meant the charging of interest at any rate . In countries where the charging of interest became acceptable, the term came to be used for interest above the rate allowed by law...
- passim, especially Canto XLV (With usura), which is a litany on the evils of usury and its impact on culture and the arts, Canto XLVI: with reference to the Bank of England, Cantos XLVIII, LI. - Nicolò da Uzzano - Opponent of the Medici - Canto XLI
V
- Roberto ValturioRoberto ValturioRoberto Valturio was an Italian engineer and writer born in Rimini. He was the author of the military treatise De Re militari .-References:...
, d. 1489 - Italian engineer and scholar, author of De Re Militari (1472), active at the court of Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta - Cantos IX, XI, XXVI, LIV, LVII - Arthur Hendrick Vandenberg U.S. Senator - Canto LXXXIV
- Benedetto VarchiBenedetto VarchiBenedetto Varchi was an Italian humanist, a historian and poet.-Biography:Born in Florence to a family that had originated at Montevarchi, he frequented the neoplatonic academy that Bernardo Rucellai organized in his garden, the Orti Oricellari; there, in spite of the fact that Rucellai was...
- Italian poet and historian of Florence - Canto LXXXVII - Vegetation cults - Canto XLVII
- VelázquezDiego VelázquezDiego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez was a Spanish painter who was the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV. He was an individualistic artist of the contemporary Baroque period, important as a portrait artist...
- Canto LXXX - VeniceVeniceVenice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
- Canto XVII (as a stone forest growing out of the water) - Canto XXV (extracts from the Book of the Council Major) - Cantos XXVI, XXXV (trade) - Canto LI (League of Cambrai) - Cantos LXXVI, LXXVIII (Church of San Zeno: see Arnaut Daniel above) - Canto CXVI (Torcello) - Bernart de VentadornBernart de VentadornBernart de Ventadorn , also known as Bernard de Ventadour or Bernat del Ventadorn, was a prominent troubador of the classical age of troubadour poetry. Now thought of as "the Master Singer" he developed the cançons into a more formalized style which allowed for sudden turns...
- Troubadour poet. - Canto VI: In connection with Eblis - Cantos XX, XCII: "And if I see her not/no sight is worth the beauty/of my thought." - Canto XCIII: "Tristan l'amador" passage quoted - Charles Gravier, comte de VergennesCharles Gravier, comte de VergennesCharles Gravier, comte de Vergennes was a French statesman and diplomat. He served as Foreign Minister from 1774 during the reign of Louis XVI, notably during the American War of Independence....
- Cantos LXV, LXVIII - Victor Emmanuel II of ItalyVictor Emmanuel II of ItalyVictor Emanuel II was king of Sardinia from 1849 and, on 17 March 1861, he assumed the title King of Italy to become the first king of a united Italy since the 6th century, a title he held until his death in 1878...
(1820–1878) - He was the first king of a united Italy, a title he held from 1861 to 1878. Canto LXI - François VillonFrançois VillonFrançois Villon was a French poet, thief, and vagabond. He is perhaps best known for his Testaments and his Ballade des Pendus, written while in prison...
- 15th century French poet who Pound admired. In his 1928 essay, How to Read, Pound lists Villion among the "inventors", or poets who were responsible for introducing something to the art that had never been done before. - Canto XCVII - Leone Vivante (1887–1970) - Jewish-Italian philosopher, who lived in Villa Solaia, Siena; author of Notes on the Originality of Thought (1927); English Poetry and Its Contribution to the Knowledge of a Creative Principle (1950, with a preface by T. S. EliotT. S. EliotThomas Stearns "T. S." Eliot OM was a playwright, literary critic, and arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century. Although he was born an American he moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 and was naturalised as a British subject in 1927 at age 39.The poem that made his...
) - Canto LII - VoltaireVoltaireFrançois-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire , was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, free trade and separation of church and state...
- Canto XCIII
W
- Edward WadsworthEdward WadsworthEdward Alexander Wadsworth was an English artist, most famous for his close association with Vorticism. He painted, often in tempera, coastal views, abstracts, portraits and still-life...
- VorticistVorticismVorticism, an offshoot of Cubism, was a short-lived modernist movement in British art and poetry of the early 20th century. It was based in London but international in make-up and ambition.-Origins:...
painter. - CXI - Captain Joseph Wadsworth - Hero of the Charter OakCharter OakThe Charter Oak was an unusually large white oak tree growing, from around the 12th or 13th century until 1856, on what the English colonists named Wyllys Hyll, in Hartford, Connecticut, USA...
incident - Canto XCVII - Edmund WallerEdmund WallerEdmund Waller, FRS was an English poet and politician who sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1624 and 1679.- Early life :...
- Canto LXXXI - Wanjina - Australian rain god. He made things by naming them, but made too many, thereby creating clutter and his father sewed up his mouth to stop him. As a result, he symbolises one deprived of free speech for Pound. - Canto LXXIV where he is echoed by the ChineseChinese languageThe Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
phrase "Ouan Jin", a "man without education". - Mercy Warren – American writer and sister of James Otis. She was a close friend of Abigail AdamsAbigail AdamsAbigail Adams was the wife of John Adams, who was the second President of the United States, and the mother of John Quincy Adams, the sixth...
, wife of John. - Canto LXX - Christian Wechel - publisher in 1538 of Andreas DivusAndreas DivusAndreas Divus was a Renaissance scholar, about whose life little is known; in Italian he is called Andrea Divo giustinopolitano or di Capodistria, i.e. surnamed Justinopolitanus in Latin and implying an origin at Koper, now in Slovenia, which was named at different times Aegida, Justinopolis and...
's Latin translation of the OdysseyOdysseyThe Odyssey is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is, in part, a sequel to the Iliad, the other work ascribed to Homer. The poem is fundamental to the modern Western canon, and is the second—the Iliad being the first—extant work of Western literature...
- Canto I. Wechel also published a celebrated edition of Roberto ValturioRoberto ValturioRoberto Valturio was an Italian engineer and writer born in Rimini. He was the author of the military treatise De Re militari .-References:...
's De Re Militari (1532), a copy of which is on view in the Chester Beatty LibraryChester Beatty LibraryThe Chester Beatty Library was established in Dublin, Ireland in 1950, to house the collections of mining magnate, Sir Alfred Chester Beatty. The present library, on the grounds of Dublin Castle, opened on February 7, 2000, the 125th anniversary of Sir Alfred's birth and was named European Museum...
. In "Andreas Divus" (1918, reprinted as "Translators of Greek" in Literary Essays), Pound wrote that he bought Wechel's Homeric volume in Paris in "1906, 1908, or 1910". - Harry Dexter WhiteHarry Dexter WhiteHarry Dexter White was an American economist, and senior U.S. Treasury department official, participating in the Bretton Woods conference...
- U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt's economist and founder of the International Monetary FundInternational Monetary FundThe International Monetary Fund is an organization of 187 countries, working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty around the world...
- Canto LXXXV - Walt WhitmanWalt WhitmanWalter "Walt" Whitman was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse...
- Canto LXXXII - John WilliamsJohn WilliamsJohn Towner Williams is an American composer, conductor, and pianist. In a career spanning almost six decades, he has composed some of the most recognizable film scores in the history of motion pictures, including the Star Wars saga, Jaws, Superman, the Indiana Jones films, E.T...
– U.S. politician and judge – Canto LXV - William Carlos WilliamsWilliam Carlos WilliamsWilliam Carlos Williams was an American poet closely associated with modernism and Imagism. He was also a pediatrician and general practitioner of medicine, having graduated from the University of Pennsylvania...
- Canto LXXVIII - Wendell WillkieWendell WillkieWendell Lewis Willkie was a corporate lawyer in the United States and a dark horse who became the Republican Party nominee for the president in 1940. A member of the liberal wing of the GOP, he crusaded against those domestic policies of the New Deal that he thought were inefficient and...
- Canto LXXVII - Oliver Wolcott Signer of the Declaration of Independence – Adams Cantos
- W.E. Woodward – American historian who promoted a secular view of George Washington – Canto LXXXVI
- William WordsworthWilliam WordsworthWilliam Wordsworth was a major English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with the 1798 joint publication Lyrical Ballads....
- Canto LXXXIII - Writ of AssistanceWrit of AssistanceA writ of assistance is a written order issued by a court instructing a law enforcement official, such as a sheriff, to perform a certain task. Historically, several types of writs have been called "writs of assistance". Most often, a writ of assistance is "used to enforce an order for the...
- Canto LXIII - George WytheGeorge WytheGeorge Wythe was an American lawyer, a judge, a prominent law professor and "Virginia's foremost classical scholar." He was a teacher and mentor of Thomas Jefferson. Wythe's signature is positioned at the head of the list of seven Virginia signatories on the United States Declaration of Independence...
- American patriot who signed the Declaration of Independence and law professor whose students included Thomas Jefferson and Henry Clay – Canto LXV
Y
- William Butler YeatsWilliam Butler YeatsWilliam Butler Yeats was an Irish poet and playwright, and one of the foremost figures of 20th century literature. A pillar of both the Irish and British literary establishments, in his later years he served as an Irish Senator for two terms...
- Pisan Cantos passim - Cantos XCVI (admiration for Byzantium), XCVIII, CXIII, CXIV
Z
- ZeusZeusIn the ancient Greek religion, Zeus was the "Father of Gods and men" who ruled the Olympians of Mount Olympus as a father ruled the family. He was the god of sky and thunder in Greek mythology. His Roman counterpart is Jupiter and his Etruscan counterpart is Tinia.Zeus was the child of Cronus...
- Cantos LXXI, XC - John Joachim ZublyJohn Joachim ZublyReverend John Joachim Zubly , born Hans Joachim Züblin, was a Swiss-born American pastor, planter, and statesman during the American Revolution. Although a delegate for Georgia to the Continental Congress in 1775, he resisted independence from Great Britain and became a Loyalist.-Early life and...
– Swiss-born preacher who, during the American War of Independence, betrayed the plans of the popular party to the British. – Canto LXV