The Cantos

Pound's lifetime epic 'including history': China, Jefferson, usury, and the ruins of Europe in 120 cantos.

Specifications & Metrics

author

Ezra Pound

type

Modernist epic poem

era

Modernism (1915–1962)

language

English and many others

verse form

Free verse with musical structures

cantos count

120

Core Principles & Analysis

• Pound worked on it from 1915 until drafts stopped in 1962 — roughly 120 cantos.
• He called it 'a poem including history'.
• The Pisan Cantos, written in a wartime detention camp, won the 1949 Bollingen Prize amid protest.

Sources

• Wikipedia: The Cantos