PETER SHAW
123
For Sanders the triumphant demonstration of Pound 's art occurs in
Canto 70 when a passage is quoted out of the chronological order of John
Adams's
Works.
There are exactly two such instances in the Adams cantos,
both in number 70. One might ask why, if these were intentional, Pound
made only two such departures. His failure elsewhere to do what Sanders
praises here implies an indictment of all but these half dozen lines of the
Adams cantos. But Sanders does not reveal that there are only two cases in
point. He discusses the second as representative of Pound's method
throughout.
What Pound actually did in Canto 70 is evident from a revealing line
at the end of Canto 69:
vignette
in margine
-vignette in the margin. Evidently Pound ran across and used a marginal
comment by the previous owner of his book. He either added lines of his
own to the comment or translated it into Poundian Cov the 64 members ov
the House ov reppyzentativs"). The historically knowledgeable content of
the marginal vignette passage, for which Sanders is unable
to
find a source,
rules out the possibility of its being Pound 's own. Evidently he simply
continued copying from his margin through the beginning of Canto 70.
The quotation there which appears to be the result of turning forward one
volume is far more likely
to
have come from this same margin than from
Pound's own industry.
There is a touching affinity among Pound , Adams, and the anonym–
ous author of the lines in the margin. All three display a familiar type of
lonely and isolated American crankiness and all three are eccentric an–
notators of obscure books . In his old age Adams filled volumes with
marginalia. Pound, like him an isolato in old age, wrote pages of cantos
that at the most generous estimate might be classed as a primitive kind of
marginalia. Insofar as Pound had any grasp of Adams 's character it unfortu–
nately came from Charles Francis Adams's biography and interpretive
notes , both of which figure copiously in the Adams cantos. In these Adams
is presented as a figure of marmoreal probity : the unsmiling public man
Charles Francis thought it his duty to make his grandfather appear. Yet on
the evidence of the
Works ,
if one ignores Charles Francis, a more interesting
John Adams of wayward passion can be discerned. Thus , as far as one can
make out, Pound never perceived the affinities between himself and
Adams . Needless to say, neither did he present a new image of Adams
unknown ro historians. (Here I should note that I was alerted to the
probable use of marginalia by Pound partly by
J ohn Adams and the Prophets of
Progress
by Zoltan Haraszti , a brilliant compilation of Adams 's marginalia,
