The Cantos

poetry by Pound

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Article History

The Cantos, collection of poems by Ezra Pound, who began writing these more or less philosophical reveries in 1915. The first were published in Poetry magazine in 1917; through the decades, the writing of cantos gradually became Pound’s major poetic occupation, and the last were published in 1968. The complete edition of The Cantos (1970) consists of 117 sections.

In his early cantos Pound offered personal, lyrical reactions to such writers as Homer, Ovid, Dante, and Remy de Gourmont, as well as to sundry politicians and economists. The early verses include memories of his teenage trips to Europe. The Pisan Cantos (1948), written while Pound was incarcerated—first in a prison camp for war criminals and later in a hospital for the criminally insane—were among the most admired sections of the poem; they won a Bollingen Prize in 1949.

This article was most recently revised and updated by Kathleen Kuiper.