Pound was fascinated by facts, compelled by their factishness, but never
too rigorous with them. I forget the exact phrase G. Hill uses about the
Homage to Sextius Propertius - it's something like "a farrago of
poker-faced misreadings" ("in flagrant delight" for "in flagrante
delicto", etc.), except it wasn't "farrago". The air of knowing, of
having delved into all sorts of wordly things, is essential to Pound.
But it's a studied imposture; he wasn't a scholar, and wasn't really
pretending to be. The scholar ultimately refers you to his sources,
dispersing the glamour of knowledge among footnotes. Pound always sounds
as if he's the first person since the ancients to really know *anything*
about his subject.
The "fact" in the cantos is there to bring the imagination to attention.
Like any crank, Pound wants to wield the ultimate conversation-stopper
that will reduce all quibbles to rubble. "What about those thermite
sparks coming out of the South tower, then, how do you explain *those*"?
The onus is pushed back towards the reader: what do you, dear fellow,
know about banks and credit? Now sit still and listen while I explain
how these things really work...
Dominic
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