Pound's Epic Ambition: Dante and the Modern World (Suny Series, the Margins of Literature)

ISBN: 0791407004

Author: Sicari, Stephen

Condition: Used

Product Description This book is both an introductory overview of The Cantos and a detailed analysis advancing the knowledge of even the most sophisticated specialist. Sicaris analysis gives a clear orientation to the often bewildering but ultimately rewarding world of this difficult epic poem and shows that beneath the surface of the poem is the classical figure of the epic wanderer whose journey provides the plot of the poem.Non-specialists will appreciate Sicaris synthesis of a wide range of material. Sicari explores how Dante and the epic tradition informs The Cantos; those interested in the epic should find Sicaris study an important contribution to the field. Those studying modernism in general will see in Sicaris definition of the modern epic useful ways to study the other great achievements of high modernism, especially those of Yeats, Eliot, and Joyce. Those interested in the relation between literature and politics will find this book especially informative, for Sicari is one of the few critics on Pound who does not ignore Pounds politics, or simply castigate him for the unfortunate views he adopts and advocates. The analysis of Pounds fascism is a sub-theme that sheds new light on how politics enters a great modernist poem and affects its shape and intention. Review Sicari shows, canto by canto, how Pound uses not only the Odyssey of Homer and the Commedia of Dante but also the Aenead of Virgil as an organizing principal as well as a sub-base of meaning. An informed reader will see for the first time the unity, cohesion, and systematic growth of the poem to climaxes of light in the final cantos. - Carroll Terrell, University of Maine at Orono About the Author Stephen Sicari is Assistant Professor in the Department of English at Adelphi University.