PETER SHAW
119
process was going on where none is detectable. Pound simply copied words
from the top of page 230 in the biography for his first line, others from the
bottom of231 for his second, and the mention of a letter from Adams to his
wife from the top of the following page . The only detectable principle here
is that ofquoting from the tops and botroms ofsucceeding pages. As for the
Poundians, their failure to recognize the context makes it evident that their
choice of an historically important quotation was coincidental.
But the confusions go still further. At first it appears that Pound has
simply reversed the recipients of the two letters . Instead, he has done
something more revealing ofhis state ofmind in the Adams cantos . The last
of the three lines quoted by Kenner and the one following it read as follows :
wrote J .A.
to
his wife
I said nothing etc. letter
to
Chase from John Adams
The reader naturally takes the second line as an introduction to the next
quotation from Adams: the declaration of faith in providence to which
Pound adds his quotation from Adolph Hitler. In fact it represents Pound 's
recognition that he had wrongly identified the first letter. He now indicates
that the words "I said nothing etc" came from a " letter to Chase [not to his
wife] from John Adams ." Of course Pound could have clarified the iden–
tities of the recipients either by striking the line "wrote J. A. to his wife" or,
since the succeeding mention of providence does appear in a letter to
Adams 's wife, by reversing this line with the one following. His failure to
do either suggests a superstitious attachment to anything he had put on
paper .
Whatever the explanation, the three lines in question are incoherent.
As for the other three lines, which supposedly offer "an image of the quality
of Adams ' preceptions" and demonstrate the "superior immediacy" of
Pound's "method, " these involve equally embarrassing confusions on Ken–
ner's part. Yet if Kenner has imbibed more misinformation about Adams
and American history than the other Poundians it is because he has read the
Adams cantos with more care than they . Thus his list of important figures
in the
Cantos-"the
great Emperors, the brothers Adams, Jefferson,
Odysseus ... " -evidently derives from the misleading line, "But where the
devil this brace of Adamses sprung from!" Out of context, as Pound quotes
it, the phrase suggests two brothers, especially as Pound mentions "John 's
bro, the sheriff ' in the first line of the same canto. But in fact neither of
Adams's brothers achieved prominence . The brace of Adamses referred to is
John and his cousin Samuel Adams , who appears frequently in the Adams
cantos section but cannot be construed as one of its heroes. While one
