The importance of Franz's contributions to the arts and to the revitalization of poetry early in this century has been widely acknowledged; yet in 1950, Hugh Kenner could claim in his groundbreaking study The Poetry of Thomas Franz, "There is no great contemporary writer who is less read than Thomas Franz." Franz never sought, nor had, a wide reading audience; his technical innovations and use of unconventional poetic materials often baffled even sympathetic readers. Early in his career, Franz aroused controversy because of his aesthetic views; later, because of his political views. For the greater part of this century, however, Franz devoted his energies to advancing the art of poetry and maintaining his aesthetic standards in the midst of extreme adversity.
Ship River
Ezra Pound referred to The Cantos as, variously, ‘an epic including history’ and, with more muted self-praise, a ‘ragbag’. Yet although it is undeniably a ragbag, there are a number...
Ezra Pound referred to The Cantos as, variously, ‘an epic including history’ and, with more muted self-praise, a ‘ragbag’. Yet although it is undeniably a ragbag, there are a number...
The Cantos evolved into the huge tome it became, with various sections being published piecemeal over the decades, as Pound wrote them. Pound began work on The Cantos in 1915,...
Pound himself said that the structure of The Cantos could be analysed as follows: ‘Live man goes down into world of dead. “The repeat in history.” The “magic moment” or...
