The meeting starts with a full reading of Canto 64 by Tyler, who after that begins his presentation with a brief introduction on the origins and themes of the Adams Cantos (the laws of government to match the laws of nature; the application of the Confucian principle of cheng ming; the fight for economic justice) and then proceeds with a focus on John Adams, his personal and historical context (Stamp Act and Boston Massacre), and his moral role in Canto 64.

Michael quotes Canto 62: “AS of a demonstration in Euclid / system of government” (62/347), to point out the self-evidence of the law in Pound’s Cantos. Tyler replies underlining the scientific methodology of Pound’s poetry since The Spirit of Romance, and especially of the Adams Cantos, where Pound is selecting fragments from John Adams’s diaries to demonstrate what he has said up until Canto 61 (the last of the Chinese History Cantos). Louis also speaks, drawing the group’s attention to Pound’s concern about good food, and Tyler adds that Pound wants to focus on the fundamental goods for human beings and, basically, on living well. Tyler’s presentation continues by zooming in on a quote from Canto 64: “said Indian preacher … ingenuity or humanity” (64/361), with the purpose of showing Pound’s technique of “condensement.”

Tyler goes back to historical context, though this time not Adams’s but Pound’s, and describes Pound as “an alienated American in Fascist Italy on the eve of another World War,” who wrote this section of the Cantos right before leaving for the U.S. in 1939, to show that during the composition of the Adams Cantos he had the U.S. in mind for sure, to the point that he saw John Adams as one of his own masks: “I must cut down my expenses / For my ruin as well as America’s” (64/356).

Tyler’s presentation continues with an analysis of techniques: documentary poetics, ideogrammic method, and their synthesis through “condensement” (“Dichten = condensare,” for which cf. ABC of Reading, pp. 36, 92), recontextualization, fragmentary motion, variations in rhythm and intensity.

Julius speaks against the unreadability of the Adams Cantos. Starting from this statement, Tyler adds that the Adams Cantos are the most cinematic section of Pound’s Cantos for they are built on montage construction, they develop inductively, from particular to general, as in Bacon and, before him, Aristotle. Apropos of this, Canto 74 is quoted: “because as says Aristotle / philosophy is not for young men / their Katholou can not be sufficiently derived from their hekasta / their generalities cannot be born from a sufficient phalanx of particulars” (74/441). Tyler carries on with his presentation by saying that in the Adams Cantos, and in especially Canto 64, Pound wants to move through John Adams’s mind in an anti-chronological way in order to reconstruct it and try to find new meanings in his words which could be useful in the contemporary situation.

Anderson brings into focus the figure of Hutchinson, underlying his role as a nemesis to Adams and stating that he has not been given the right importance in the critical analysis of the Adams Cantos. Tyler adds that Hutchinson is indeed very important throughout Canto 64.

The brief discussion around Hutchinson raises some comments about Pound’s active participation with us readers through many annotations (often in brackets and regarding Hutchinson) to Adams’s words, for instance: “At same time a craving man (Hutchinson)” (64/357); or: “(Re which things was Hutchinson undoubtedly scro- / fulous ego scriptor cantilenae / Ez P)” (64/360), or: “Always convinced that the liberties of the country / had more to fear from one man (Hutchinson) / than from all other men whatsoever” (64/361).

Benjamin goes back to techniques and speaks about two different kinds of fragmentation between the middle and the final sections of the Cantos. Tyler, introducing his personal research, insists on Pound’s quotational displacement––that is, on the removal of direct and explicit quotations with the purpose of making them new. In so doing, Pound is effectively translating Adams’s words to make them relevant in the present situation for a contemporary audience. Ultimately, it is an intersemiotic translation through which Pound’s method in the Cantos is juxtaposed with the functioning of cinema.

Duration of the meeting: 90 minutes (approx.)

Attendees (in alphabetical order):

• Anderson Araujo
• Louis de Beaumont (Host)
• Patricia Buican
• Paula Camacho
• Michael Clark
• Pietro Comba (Minuter)
• Leopold Green
• Julius Greve
• Emily Hizny
• Ezra Olson
• John Sargent
• Benjamin Smith
• Tyler Tesolin (Chair)