How difficult is this to understand? Is the companion very useful?

>>9066773
Well, it can either be very difficult to understand if you take Pound seriously, or not seriously at all if you realize that he's essentially an over-academic meme lord hopped up on his own 20th century goodreads list and just enjoy him for the music of his pieces (which is stilted at times because muh Eastern poetry). Yes, the companion is always useful.

They're just words. If you can read a word you can understand the Cantos.

>>9066773
If you're a turbopleb and don't already know them, learn Greek, Latin, Occitan, Italian, French, German, and Chinese.

Then read the entire Western canon starting from the Greeks.

Then read the Eastern canon.

Then read lots of history, including the Renaissance, the US founding fathers, and Chinese history.

Then, publicly announce your support for your local fascist party. Get redpilled on the Jews. Read Nietzsche.

Then, and only then, will you truly be ready.

Shouldn't take more than a couple of decades.

File: nice try pseud.png (147KB, 958x1074px) Image search: [Google]

147KB, 958x1074px

>>9066811
>Greek, Latin, Occitan, Italian, French, German, and Chinese

>>9067218
really makes you think

bumb

>>9067218
This is nonsense

>>9067218
His parents must have been so proud.

>>9066773
harder than ulysses

>>9067218
Not criticizing him but... was Ezra Pound a junkie?

>>9066773
understanding isn't always the objective in poetry.
You're just expressing something using words. Take it how you will.

>>9066773
this is the biggest meme ever. Firstly, It's ridiculously hard. If you aren't extremely well read in the stuff Pound was talking about and if you don't speak a lot of the languages he learned, then a lot of it is lost already. You can try to compensate with a guide or something, but then it becomes a bit like reading a bilingual version of a text when you don't really speak one of the languages, reading the original to get "the music" of the text and the translation to actually "understand" it. But, this kind of ruins the experience of poetry in my opinion. Poetry is valuable because of the simultaneous meaning and music that it has, and to break it up sort of ruins the experience. And, in addition, it's not even that good. Some of the early stuff is good, but I would argue it isn't even the best that Pound himself has to offer. Just don't. It's not worth it if you're anything but a scholar on modernism.

t. scholar of modernism

>>9067218
a big meme

Pound was a modernist meme.

I tried it. Don't do it. Unless you're prepared to dedicate a ton of time becoming some sort of expert of this specific set of poems, you will get nothing out of poems like >>9067218. Just read the best-of and Pound's other poems.

>>9067218
lmao this guy really did it

>>9068853
See >>9068793

>>9066773
Theres some real good shit in it like the pisan cantos and some of the last cantos but also a lot of essentially incomprehensible shit like >>9067218. I would say you should read it (with a guide) if you're really interested, but I wouldn't try to read the whole thing all at once. If you want to read just the best parts, read the pisan cantos.

>>9068853
>Poetry is valuable because of the simultaneous meaning and music that it has, and to break it up sort of ruins the experience.

confirmed for pseud.

>>9068853
You're trying to hard.
By your logic, you'd need to fully understand every aspect of filmaking in order to legitimately appreciate modern film. Poetry is like film in the regard that rules are manipulable. Things don't need to be understood within the frame of popular rules to be appreciated. Expression relies on using a medium to project a feeling. While The Cantos is incomprehensible to most besides the writer (though I believe Pound couldn't comprehend a lot of what he wrote either), I still feel emotion when I read it.

>>9069007
>(though I believe Pound couldn't comprehend a lot of what he wrote either)

what makes you say that?

>>9069033
By comprehend I mean to create an understandable narrative within the frame of his rules. Pound didn't have rules, but I'm sure he knew what he was expressing using words.

>>9069064
ah yes I see what you mean and completely agree. the later fragments seem to reflect this. for example

I have brought the great ball of crystal;

Who can lift it?

Can you enter the great acorn of light?

But the beauty is not the madness

Tho' my errors and wrecks lie about me.

And I am not a demigod,

I cannot make it cohere.

is there anything unifying them all other than marketing?

>>9066773
Fascists just don't get art. Only good thing he ever did was help Joyce get his start.

>>9071504
You underestimate Pound's influence.