Truth and Calliope: Ezra Pound's Malatesta

Abstract

Among critics who accept the Aristotelian distinction between “poetry” and “history,” those who recognize that Pound's Cantos aspires to “history” generally consider it bad history and “impure” poetry; critics who value it as poetry usually dismiss its claim to history. But Pound's aesthetic recognizes no essential difference between poetry and history; a poem, for him, is a report of its author's experience, and by reading historical documents as attentively as poetry, one can penetrate to the reality behind them, too. A good literary critic is therefore the best historian. The Malatesta Cantos show this theory in action; Pound's Sigismundo, derived from a critical reading of primary sources, seems more plausible than the one found in most secondary sources. These cantos show that Pound's attempts at writing history should be taken more seriously than they have been and that his achievement as an epic poet should be reevaluated.