This is a list of persons, places, events, etc. that feature in Ezra Pound's The Cantos, a long, incomplete poem in 120 sections, each of which is a canto. It is a book-length work, widely considered to present formidable difficulties to the reader. Strong claims have been made for it as one of the most significant works of modernist poetry of the twentieth century. As in Pound's prose writing, the themes of economics, governance and culture are integral to its content. The most striking feature of the text, to a casual browser, is the inclusion of Chinese characters as well as quotations in European languages other than English. Recourse to scholarly commentaries is almost inevitable for a close reader. The range of allusion to historical events and other works of literature is very broad, and abrupt changes occur with the minimum of stage directions. This list serves as a collection of links to information on a wide range of these references with clear indications of the cantos in which they appear. It also gives relevant citations to Pound's other writings, especially his prose, and translations of non-English words and phrases where appropriate. Where authors are quoted or referred to, but not named, the reference is listed under their names and the quoted words or phrases are given after the relevant canto number. Individual canto numbers are given in bold for ease of reference.
A
Acoetes - Acoetes is the narrator of the tale from Ovid's Metamorphoses retold in Canto II. Acoetes is the pilot of the pirate ship that kidnaps a youngster who turns out to be the god Dionysus and who transforms the ship into a rock and the sailors into fish. Acoetes warns his fellows about the wrong they are doing, but they don't heed him, being "mad for a little slave money".
Abd al Melik - The first Caliph to strike Islamic coinage - Canto XCVII
John Adams - Second President of the United States; "the man who at certain points/made us/at certain points/saved us", and one of Pound's great political heroes. - Cantos XXXI - XXXIV, L - "the revolution was in the minds of the people" , LXII - LXXI
*Novanglus - Pen-name Adams used for essays written in 1775 to argue against the British Parliament's right to tax or legislate for the American colonies. Canto LXII
John Quincy Adams - Son of John Adams - Canto XLVIII
Samuel Adams – Cousin of John Adams – Adams Cantos
Adonis - Canto XVIIL
Aegisthus - Canto XC
Aeschylus – Cantos II, VII: Puns on the name of Helen of Troy as "destroyer of men" and "destroyer of cities" from his play Agamemnon used by Pound. In his 1920 essay Translators of Greek: Early Translators of Homer, Pound criticises Robert Browning's translation of the passage containing these puns. – Canto LXXXII: Swinburn on.
Louis Agassiz – Naturalist. He is cited approvingly in Pound's ABC of Reading for his insistence that students should actually look closely at specimens before writing about them as exemplifying "the proper METHOD for studying...that is, careful first-hand examination of the matter, and continual COMPARISON". – Cantos LXXXIX, XCIII, C, CXIII
Olivia Rossetti Agresti - Cantos LXXVI, LXXVIII
Rodolphus Agricola – Canto LXXXIX: quoted on the roles of writing: "ut doceat, ut moveat, ut delectet".
Leon Battista Alberti - Architect and Renaissance theorist - Canto IX
Anacreon - Canto LXXXIII: Fragment 7 quoted in German translation
John Penrose Angold - Poet and friend of Pound who died in World War II - Canto LXXXIV
Annals of Spring and Autumn - Cantos LXXVIII, LXXXII
Gabriele d'Annunzio - Italian poet - Canto XCIII
Meyer Anselm - Banker - Canto LXXIV
St. Anselm of Canterbury - 11th century philosopher and inventor of the ontological argument for the existence of God who wrote poems in rhymed prose. Appealed to Pound because of his emphasis on the role of reason in religion and his envisioning of the divine essence as light. In a 1962 interview, Pound points to Anselm's clash with William Rufus over his investiture as part of the history of the struggle for individual rights. Pound also claims that Anselm's writings influenced Cavalcanti and Villon. – Cantos CI, CV
*Terracina – Seaside town between Rome and Naples which was formerly the location of a temple to Venus. In his 1930 essay Credo, Pound wrote "Given the material means I would replace the statue of Venus on the cliffs of Terracina." – Cantos XXXIX, LXXIV, XCI.
Apollonius of Tyana – Philosopher and 'lost' alternative to Christianity. Pound was particularly taken with this dictum that the universe is alive. – Cantos XCI, XCII, XCVII
Athelstan – Early English king who helped introduce guilds in that country. – Canto XCVII
Saint Augustine - Canto XCIV
Avicenna – Canto XCII
B
F.W. Baller - Translator of the Sacred Edict - Canto XCVIII
Edward Bancroft - Double agent in the service of the British - Canto LXV
Bank of England - Canto XVIL
John Hollis Bankhead II - U.S. Senator who met Pound in 1939 - Canto LXXXIV
Josef Bard - Hungarian-born writer and friend of Pound - Canto LXXXI
Béla Bartók - Pound admired his music and compared Bartók's Fifth Quartet with The Cantos as showing "the defects inherent in a record of struggle." - Canto LXXXIV
Charles A. Beard Historian of Revolutionary America - Canto LXXXIV
Aubrey Beardsley - In his 1913 essay The Serious Artist, Pound discusses two types of art; The "cult of beauty" and the "cult of ugliness". He compares the former with medical cure and the latter with medical diagnosis, and goes on to write "Villon, Baudelaire, Corbiere, Beardsley are diagnosis." - "beauty is difficult": Cantos LXXIV, LXXX
Mabel Beardsley - Sister of Aubrey Beardsley and renowned beauty. - Canto LXXXII
Cesare Beccaria - Italian author of On Crimes and Punishments, which had a great influence on the American Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the U.S. judicial system. - Canto LXIV
Jonathan Belcher - colonial governor of Massachusetts and New Hampshire from 1730–1741, governor of New Jersey from 1746 to 1757 - Canto LXIV
Julien Benda - Author of La trahison des clercs, the English translation of which was by Pound's friend Richard Aldington. - Canto XCI
Thomas Lovell Beddoes - Cantos LXXX, XCV
Thomas Hart Benton - U.S. senator who opposed the establishment of the Bank of the United States. His Thirty Years View is a key source for the Rock Drill section of The Cantos. - Cantos LXXXV - XCV
Blessed Berchtold - Canto LXXXVII
Albert Jeremiah Beveridge - Canto LXXXI
Nicholas Biddle - Canto XXXVII
Laurence Binyon - Poet and friend of Pound in his early London days. Pound advised him with his translation of the Divine Comedy and published a review of the first part in 1934 under the title Hell. - Cantos LXXX, LXXXIII
Otto von Bismarck - Cantos LXXXVI, C
Wilfred Scawen Blunt - Cantos LXXXI, LXXXII
Book of the Prefect - Canto XCVI
William Edgar Borah - U.S. Senator who met Pound in 1939 - Cantos LXXXIV, LXXXVI
Bertran de Born - Troubadour: his lament Si tuit li dolh ehl planh el marrimen was translated by Pound as Planh for the Young English King and is quoted in Cantos LXXX, LXXXIV
Boston Massacre - Canto LXIV
Sandro Botticelli - Canto XVL: His painting La Calunnia mentioned. Cantos XX, LXXX: mentioned as "Sandro".
James Bowdoin - American patriot, scientist and poet - Canto LXII
Claude Gernade Bowers - Canto LXXXI
Brendan Bracken - Canto LXXVI
Joshua Brackett - Doctor and patriot who served as a judge in the New Hampshire maritime court during the revolution - Canto LXIV
Constantin Brâncuși - Canto LXXXV: Mental state of the artist at work - Cantos LXXXVI, XCVII: "I can start something any day, but finish..."
William Brattle - Information he provided to the British led to the Boston Massacre - Canto LXVI
Henry Bracton - 13th-century British lawyer who wrote on constitutional law, stressing that the king is subject to law. His thinking influenced the American Founding Fathers. - Canto LXVII
Eva Braun - Canto CX: associated with "beer-halls".
Robert Browning - Cantos II, LXXX
Henri Gaudier-Brzeska - Cantos LXXVIII, LXXX
Basil Bunting - Cantos LXXIV, LXXVII, LXXXI
Martin van Buren - U.S. politician whose Autobiography was an important source for Pound's cantos on the Bank wars. - Cantos XXXVII, LXXVIII, C
Aaron Burr - Vice-President under Jefferson, Burr killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel. - Canto LXVI
Mather Byles - Clergyman who lost his parish in Boston and was almost repatriated to Britain because of his loyalty to the Crown. - Canto LXIV
Byzantine Empire - Canto XCV
C
Guillaume de Cabestang - Troubadour poet. According to legend, his heart was fed to his married lover by her husband. She then threw herself from a cliff to her death. - Canto IV
Cadmus - Grandfather of Pentheus and Dionysus; founder of Thebes - Canto II
League of Cambrai - Canto LI
Piere Cardinal - Troubadour poet - Canto XCVII
Carolingian Empire - Canto XCVI
Kit Carson – Served as Fremont's guide. – Canto LXXXIX
Castalia - A spring sacred to the Muses. - Cantos XC, XCIII
Cathar heresy, also known as Albigensians - passim
John Catron – Jacksonian judge and chief justice from 1830 till 1836. – Canto LXXXIX
Catullus - Cantos IV and V: Arunculeia is the name of the bride in the EpithalamionCarmen 61 - Canto V: "vesper adest" is from another epithalamion Carmen 62 - Canto XX: "quasi tinnula" echoes "voce carmina tinnula" from Carmen 61 - Canto XXVIII "voce tinnula" echoes Carmen 61 again.
Guido Cavalcanti - 13th-century Italian poet and friend of Dante, who condemned his father to hell in the Divine Comedy. In his 1928 essay, How to Read, Pound lists Cavalcanti among the inventors, or poets who were responsible for introducing something to the art that had never been done before. In an essay published in 1934 and written between 1911 and 1931, Pound wrote "Guido is called a 'natural philosopher', I think an 'atheist', and certainly an 'Epicurean', not that anyone had then any clear idea or has now any very definite notion of what Epicurus taught. But a natural philosopher was a much less safe person than a 'moral philosopher'. It is not so much what Guido says in , as the familiarity that he shows with dangerous thinking; natural demonstration and the proof by experience or experiment... we may perhaps consider Guido as one of that 'tenuous line who from Albertus Magnus to the renaissance' meant the freedom of thought, the contempt, or at least a moderated respect, for stupid authority." - Cantos IV and XX: an allusion to and a quotations from the poem Una figura della Donna mia, which refers daringly to the resemblance between Cavalcanti's beloved and the image of the Madonna in a Florentine church. - Canto XXXVI: a translation of Donna mi prega. - Canto LXXIII: a lengthy speech by Guido's ghost. - Canto XCI: "I send to Pinella... a river", from the poem Ciascuna fresca e dolce fontanella.
Cavour – Prime mover in the 19th century unification of Italy - Canto LXI
Circe - Cantos I, XVIIL: on her island - Canto XXXIXGreek quotations describe her
'Chou King'- See next entry
Classic of History - Section: Rock Drill where Pound calls it the Chou King
Henry Clay – 19th century U.S. politician – Canto LXXXVIII
Augustin Smith Clayton – 19th century U.S. politician – Canto LXXXVIII
Cleopatra wrote on currency - Cantos LXXXV, LXXXVI
Jean Cocteau - Cantos LXXVII, LXXX
Sir Edward Coke – Late 16th to early 17th-century British jurist whose writings on the English common law were the definitive legal texts for some 300 years. – Cantos LXIII, LXIV, LXVI, XCIV, and CVII - CIX
Horace Cole - Cantos LXXX, LXXXI
Padraic Colum - Canto LXXX: His "O woman shapely as a swan" quoted. Pound praised this poem in his 1918 essay A Retrospect.
Confucius – Also called Kung, Kung-fu-tseu and Chung at various points in the poem. Pound saw himself as a committed follower of the Chinese philosopher and translated the Analects, the Book of Odes, the Great Digest and the Unwobbling Pivot. Under the various version of his name, Confucius appears in The Cantos at least 76 times. The first and most comprehensive of these appearances is in Canto XIII - Also in Canto LI: Ideogram at end is Confucian "rectification of names", Canto LII: Li Ki, Canto LIII: Cut 3,000 odes to 300.
*The four Tuan, or foundations – Cantos LXXXV, LXXXIX
Congress of Vienna – Canto LXXXVI: Example of politicians working to avoid war.
Séraphin Couvreur – French Jesuitmissionary to China. His edition of the Chou King, with French and Latin translations, was used by Pound in the Rock Drill section.
Credit - passim
Cumaean Sibyl - Cantos LXIV, XC
Cunizza da Romano - Mistress of poet Sordello, sister of Ezzelino III da Romano. She is one of the most important heroines of The Cantos, a type of the poet's sexual and spiritual muse. She "freed her slaves" in her will, a document which she dictated in Florence "in the house of the Cavalcanti / anno 1265". Pound imagined that Guido Cavalcanti knew of this and mentioned it to his friend Dante who therefore pardoned her profligacy and placed her in the Heaven of Venus : "The light of this star o’ercame me". This passage is cited in Italian in Canto XCII: "fui chiamat’ / e qui refulgo". Canto XC associates her with John Randolph of Roanoke.
Thomas Cushing – American politician who opposed independence – Canto LXII
D
Dafne - A nymph who was turned into a shrub to escape the lustful pursuit of Apollo. Also, Dafne was an attempt to revive Greek theater that resulted in the creation of opera - Canto II
Arnaut Daniel - Troubadour poet. Pound translated most of his surviving work and agreed with Dante's high estimation of him. In his 1910 book The Spirit of Romance, Pound wrote "The Twelfth Century, or, more exactly, that century whose center is the year 1200, has left us two perfect gifts: the church of San Zeno in Verona, and the canzoni of Arnaut Daniel" In his 1928 essay, How to Read, Pound lists Arnaut among the "inventors", or poets who were responsible for introducing something to the art that had never been done before. - Canto VII: the line "e qu'el remir " " from the poem Douz braitz e critz quoted. Canto XX: "noigandres" - Canto XCI: The line "pensar de lieis m'es repaus" from En breu brizara'l temps braus quoted. In the 1911/12 series of essays I gather the limbs of Osiris, Pound writes of this line: "You cannot get statement simpler than that, or clearer, or les rhetorical". - Cantos XXIX, XCVII
Dante Alighieri Italian poet whose Divine Comedy, a long allegorical poem in three parts and 100 cantos describing the poet's journey through hell, purgatory and paradise was a major model for Pound's long poem. In his 1928 essay, How to Read, Pound lists Dante among the inventors, or poets who were responsible for introducing something to the art that had never been done before. Cantos LXXXV - Canto XCIII: Discussed distributive justice.
**Paradiso: Cantos VII, XCIII, CIX: - Canto XXXIX - Canto XCVIII: divine light - Canto XCIII -Canto C on "letizia"
*La Vita Nuova: Canto LXXVII " centrum circuli" quoted. The entire passage is quoted in the 1911/12 series of essays I gather the limbs of Osiris.
*Il Convito - Canto XCI: "che il terzo ciel movete" quoted - Canto XXV "compagnevole animale" quoted
*Other works - Canto CXVI
Georgius Dartona Renaissance humanist. Pound used his versions of the Homeric Hymns as a source. - Cantos I, LXXIX
Silas Deane – U.S. agent in France – Canto LXV
Declaration of Independence – Canto LXV
Alexander del Mar – Economic historian whose History of Monetary Systems was a major source for Pound's later writings. Del Mar was Jewish and opposed economic anti-Semitism strongly in his writings. – Cantos LXXXIX, XCVI, XCVIII, XCIV
Edgar Degas - Cantos LXXIV, LXXX, CIV
Demeter - Canto XCVIII
Diana – Latin goddess of hunting, equivalent of Greek Artemis. – Canto XCI: Layamon's hymn to Diana is quoted.
Andreas Divus - Renaissance scholar whose Latin translation of Book XI of Homer's Odyssey forms the basis of Canto I. A section of Pound's 1920 essay Translators of Greek: Early Translators of Homer is devoted to Divus and contains the relevant Latin text. - Canto I
Arnold Dolmetsch - Canto LXXXI
Charles Doughty - Canto LXXXIII
C. H. Douglas - Cantos XXII, XCVII, C
Gavin Douglas - 16th century Scottish poet and translator of Virgil's Aeneid. In his essay Notes on Elizabethan Classicists, Pound calls him a great poet and quotes the passage referred to in The Cantos. - Canto LXXVIII: "the city quarhr of nobil fame" is a misremembered quotation from the opening lines of the Aeneid, where it refers to Rome.
John Dowland - Canto LXXXI
Dryad - Cantos III, LXXXIII: a nymph associated with trees. Ezra and Dorothy Pound referred to H.D. as "Dryas" in their letters.
E
Peggy Eaton - Wife of Andrew Jackson's Secretary of War John Eaton. A scandal surrounding her past led to Martin Van Buren becoming Jackson's Vice-President. - Canto XXXVII
Ecbatana - Cantos IV, LXXIV
Eleanor of Aquitaine - Cantos II, VII
Electra - Canto XC
Eleusinian Mysteries - passim
T. S. Eliot - Canto VIII: reference to The Waste Land, Canto XXIX: Views on religion contrasted with Pound's, Cantos LXXIV, LXXX, XCVIII
Oliver Ellsworth - Judge who served on mission to France under Adams – Adams Cantos
John Endicott – colonial governor of Massachusetts in 1644, 1649, and from 1650 till 1665, with the exception of 1654 - Canto LXIV
Joseph Ennemoser Historian of magic - Canto LXXXIII
Epictetus - Canto LXXI: Hymn to Cleanthes is the source of the Greek text quoted at the end of the canto.
Johannes Scotus Eriugena Pound valued him for his neoplatonic view that all things that are light, his persecution as a heretic long after his death, and the Greek tags in his "excellent" verses - Cantos XXXVI, LXXIV, LXXXIII, LXXXV, LXXXVII, LXXXVIII, XC, XCII
Ezzelino III da Romano - 13th-century Ghibelline lord of northeast Italy, said to be a bloodthirsty tyrant by his enemies, viewed more favorably by later historians. He was the brother of Cunizza da Romano, and appears in Canto LXXII as a furious ghost : "A single falsehood does more damage in this damned world than all my outbursts".
F
Fascism - Although Pound never joined the Fascist Party, he clearly admired Mussolini's brand of the ideology. The word itself does not appear in The Cantos, but the political philosophy it stands for can be readily detected in the poem, especially in the sections written during the 1930s.
Faunus - God of fields and forests - Canto XC
Desmond FitzGerald – Irish-born Imagist poet who fought in the Easter Rising of 1916 and later served in the government of the Irish Free State – Cantos XCII, XCV
Flamen Dialis – Roman priest of Jupiter – Canto XCVI
Gustave Flaubert - Canto LXXXII
Folquet de Marseille - Troubadour turned bishop who was involved in the suppression of the Cathars - Canto XCII
Ford Madox Ford - Canto LXXXII - Cantos XCVIII, C: buy a dictionary and learn the meanings of words
Piero della Francesca - Canto VIII: the master painter
Fortuna – Canto XCVII
Benjamin Franklin Cantos LXII – LXXI In Canto LXIII, the Latin sentence "Eripuit caelo fulmen, mox sceptra tyrannis." is the inscription on Jean-Antoine Houdon's bust of Franklin.
John Charles Fremont – Explorer and Union general during American Civil War. – Canto LXXXIX
Sigmund Freud – Canto XCI
Leo Frobenius - Cantos XXXVIII, LXXIV, LXXXIX
Buckminster Fuller – Canto XCVII
G
Galileo Galilei - Canto LXXXV
Giovanni Gentile - Canto LXXXIX
Jean François Gerbillon - Italian scientist and Jesuit best known for his work in the fields of astronomy and the physics of light. - Canto LX
Robert Grosseteste - 13th century philosopher who argued that light is the first corporeal form from which all other forms are derived and that God is pure Light. Latin tags from his De luce and De Iride that appear in The Cantos appear in more extensive quotations in Pound's 1934 essay Cavalcanti - Canto LXXXIII "plura diafana" from De Iride, Canto CX "Lux enim" from De luce.
Guild – Cantos XCVI, XCVII
H
Alexander Hamilton - For Pound, the great villain of U.S. history. - Cantos XXXVII, LXXII, LXIX.
James Hamilton Jr. – 19th century U.S. politician – Canto LXXXVIII
Hanno the Navigator - Canto XL
John Hancock – American patriot who signed the Declaration of Independence and was involved in the aftermath of the Boston Massacre – Canto LXIV
Hathor Egyptian sky goddess in the form of a cow. Identified with Aphrodite by the Greeks. - Canto XXXIX
Hebe - Goddess of youth identified by her attribute "kalliastragallos" - Cantos CIX, CX
Helen of Troy – Cantos VII, XCVIII
Philippe Henriot – Cantos LXXXIV, LXXXIX
Patrick Henry – U.S. statesman who is famous for his "Give me liberty or give me death" speech. – Canto LXV
Heraclitus - Canto LXXXIII
Christian Wolfgang Herdtrich – Austrian Jesuit missionary to China who served as a mathematician at the imperial court and was amongst the earliest European translators of Confucius. - Canto LX
Eva Hesse - German translator of Pound's work. - Canto CII
Maurice Hewlett – Poet and friend of Pound's in his early days in London. – Canto XCII
John Heydon – 17th century mystic, self-styled secretary of nature, and author of the Holy Guide, which Pound read in Stone Cottage with Yeats and then borrowed from Yeats' widow when writing the Rock Drill cantos. His idea of signatures in nature that mean that, for example, every oak leaf is recognisably an oak leaf and not a holly leaf, is important in the Cantos. He also wrote on form and, in Gaudier-Brzeska: A Memoir, Pound wrote: "A clavicord or a statue or a poem, wrought out of ages of knowledge, out of fine perception and skill, that some other man, that a hundred other men, in moments of weariness can wake beautiful sound with little effort, that they can be carried out of the realm of annoyance into the realm of truth, into the world unchanging, the world of fine animal life, the world of pure form. And John Heydon, long before our present day theorists, had written of the joys of pure form... inorganic, geometrical form, in his Holy Guide". – Cantos XCI. XCII
James Hillhouse – Clergyman and judge who served as a major in the American Revolution – Canto LXVIII
Leo VI the Wise – Byzantine emperor - Canto XCVI
Leopold von Hoesch – German Ambassador to London during the rise of Hitler – Canto LXXXVI
Homer - In his 1928 essay, How to Read, Pound lists Homer among the "inventors", or poets who were responsible for introducing something to the art that had never been done before. - passim
*Odyssey - Canto I: Translation of trip to Hades - Canto XX: Quoted "Ligur' aoide" on the sirens, "neson amumona" on Thrinacia. - Canto LXXXIX: Quoted "δ'ἀνθρώπων ἴδεν" - Cantos XCI, XCIII, XCV, XCVI, XCVIII: Quoted and/or referred to regarding Leucothoe rescuing Odysseus by giving him her veil/kredemnon - Canto XCVIII: Quoted on Nestor
*Iliad - Cantos II, VII: Translation of part of Book III in which the old men of Troy discuss Helen. In his 1920 essay Translators of Greek: Early Translators of Homer, Pound criticises the translations of Alexander Pope and George Chapman for failing to capture the quality of "actually speaking" in their versions of this passage.
William Hooper - American patriot who signed the Declaration of Independence – Canto LXV
Alexander von Humboldt – Naturalist and friend of Louis Agassiz – Cantos LXXXIX, XCVII
Samuel Huntingdon - American patriot who signed the Declaration of Independence – Canto LXIX
Robert Maynard Hutchins – Canto XCI
Thomas Hutchinson - Canto LXIV
Hyksos – Canto XCIII
I
Ileuthyeria - Ancient Greek concept and personification of liberty - Canto II
Samuel Delucenna Ingham – 19th century U.S. politician – Canto LXXXVIII
Iong Cheng - Son of K'ang Hsi who wrote a commentary on the Sacred Edict - Cantos LXI, XCIX
Itys - Canto IV
J
Andrew Jackson - President of the U.S. who opposed establishment of the Bank of the United States. - Cantos LXXXVIII, LXXXIX, C
Henry James - In his 1918 essay Henry James, Pound describes James as a "hater of tyranny…against oppression, against all the sordid petty personal crushing oppression, the domination of modern life". - Canto VII: James' conversation remembered in terms reminiscent of the 1918 essay. The phrase "gli occhi onesti e tarde" echoes Dante's description of Sordello in Purgatorio VI and is used in the canto, the essay, and Pound's 1918 short poem Moeurs Contemporaines. - Cantos LXXIV, LXXIX
John Jay – one of the ministers involved in treaty negotiations with Britain and France. – Canto LXV
Thomas Jefferson - Cantos XXXI - XXXIV and LXII - LXXI
John Jenkins - Canto LXXXI
Ben Jonson - 17th-century English poet. - The line "Or Swansdown ever" from his Have you seen but a whyte Lilie grow is also quoted in his 1918 essay The Hard and Soft in French Poetry. - Canto LXXIV.
Kublai Khan - In his 1920 essay Kublai Khan and his Currency, Pound expresses his views on paper money as a means of controlling credit to the detriment of the public and quotes the passages from The Travels of Marco Polo that he uses in The Cantos - Canto XVIII
Henry Laurens – First president of the Congress of Carolina who was captured by the British while sailing to Holland in 1780 to negotiate a loan, he was held prisoner in the Tower of London for 14 months. – Canto LXVIII
John Law - Scottish economist and sometime Comptroller of the Finances of France. Like Pound, he believed that money was only a means of exchange that did not constitute wealth in itself. - Canto CXIV
Henry Lawes - Canto LXXXI
Layamon – 11th-century English poet. – Canto XCI: His Brut quoted, especially the hymn to the goddess Diana.
Joseph-Anna-Marie de Moyriac de Mailla - Jesuit historian whose work served as the basis for the China CantosLII - LXI.
Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta - Condottiero and patron of the arts who is the first great culture hero to appear in The CantosCantos VIII - XI, Canto XXI
Maria Theresia - Archduchess of Austria and queen of Hungary and Bohemia, her thalers are perhaps the most famous silver coin in the world and were important in trade with the Levant. – Cantos LXXXVI, LXXXIX
Jacques Maritain - Cantos LXXVII, LXXX, XCI
Charles Martel - Carolingian ruler - Canto XCVI
Charles Elkin Mathews - Cantos LXXXII, C
John Masefield - Canto LXXXII
Thomas McKean - American patriot who signed the Declaration of Independence – Canto LXXI
Lorenzo de Medici - Pound admired his poetry - Canto LXXVIII
Medici bank - In his 1934 essay Date Line, Pound wrote: "Wherever you find a Medici, you find a loan at low interest, often at half that of their contemporaries." - Cantos XXI, XIL, L
Mencius - Canto LXXVII: The archer and the bullseye, Cantos LXXVIII, LXXXII: Quoted on the Spring and Autumn - LXXXIII: "the nine fields", equity in government
Abbas Mirza -, prince of Persia who was famed for the simplicity of his lifestyle. – Canto LXXXIX
Jacques de Molay Last Grand Master of the Templars who was executed for heresy and other charges. – Cantos LXXXVII, XC
Money supply - passim
Monte dei Paschi di Siena - Not-for-profit Sienese bank funded by natural productivity and much admired by Pound - Cantos XLI, XLII, XLIII.
Federico da Montefeltro -Fought for the papacy against Sigismondo Malatesta and later switched sides when the pope tried to take control of the Malatesta seat at Rimini - Cantos VIII - XI
Simon de Montfort, 5th Earl of Leicester - Canto LXXXIII
Montségur - Scene of final stages of the Albigensian Crusade - Cantos XXIII, XLCIII
Moon – Either directly or via mythological exemplifications, the moon represents light in its creative or mystical aspect in The Cantos. – passim
Dwight L. Morrow – Sometime U.S. ambassador to Mexico. – Canto LXXXVI
Mozart - Cantos XXVI, LXXIX, CXIII, CXV
Musonius Rufus – Canto XCIV
Benito Mussolini - Italian Fascist dictator admired by Pound. - Cantos XXXIII, XIL , LXXIV, LXXVIII, Notes for CXVII et seq.
N
Napoleon Bonaparte - Cantos XCVII, C, CXI
Napoleon III - Canto LXXXV: Example of a bad ruler
Neoplatonism
Jules Nicole – Translator of the Book of the Prefect
Frederick North, Lord North – British Prime Minister during the American Revolution – Canto LXXII
O
Ocellus Lucanus – Canto LXXXVII " all things have neither a beginning nor an end'" – Canto LXXXVII - Cantos XCI, XCIII, XCVIII: "to build light".
Odysseus - passim
Andrew Oliver - Canto LXIV
A. R. Orage - Editor of the New Age and friend of Pound - Cantos XCVIII, CXI
James Otis - Cantos LXII - LXXI
Ovid - In his 1928 essay, How to Read, Pound lists Ovid among the "inventors", or poets who were responsible for introducing something to the art that had never been done before. - Cantos IV, VII, XVII, XX, LXXXV
*FastiCantos XCIII, XCVIII: "Est deus in nobis: agitante calescimus illo" quoted partially in each canto. The full quotation is given in Pound's 1956 Quotations from Richard of St Victor where it is set beside Richard's "Ignis quidquid in nobis est".
P
Giovanni Pacelli - Canto LXXIII.
Lord Palmerston - Canto LXXXIX: The right of search and the Anglo-American War of 1812 to 1814.
Pandects – Canto XCIV
William Patterson - 17th century Scottish entrepreneur who first proposed the establishment of the Bank of England - Canto XVIL.
Paulus the deacon - Historian of the Lombards was born in 725 - Canto XCVII
John Penn – U.S. politician – Canto LXVII
Pentheus - Banned the worship of Dionysus in Thebes; grandson of Cadmus; mortal cousin of Dionysus - Canto II
Thomas Pereyra - French Jesuit missionary and companion of Jean François Gerbillon. - Canto LIX.
Persephone - Cantos LXXXIII, XCIII
Petronius - Canto LXIV: His Satyricon quoted.
Philostratus - Canto XCIV: His life of Apollonius extensively quoted, Canto XCVIII: "out of Egypt, medicine" quoted in Greek
Francis Picabia - Quoted on the futility of the First World War - Canto XCVII
Piero della Francesca - Canto VIII
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney – American politician and military leader during the Revolution who supported the union of the states. – Canto LXIII
Pindar - Canto IV, Canto LXXXIII
Thomas Pinckney
Pippin III - Carolingian ruler - Canto XCVI
Luigi Pirandello – Canto XCV
Victor Plarr Cantos LXXIV, C
George Gemistos Plethon - Cantos VIII, LXXXIII
Plotinus - Cantos XV, XCVIII, C
Poema de Mio Cid - Medieval Spanish poem discussed by Pound in his 1910 book The Spirit of Romance - Cantos III, XX
James K. Polk – Jacksonian president of the U.S. – Cantos LXXXVII, C
Dorothy Pound - Pound's wife - One of those who "do not cook" Cantos LIV, LXXXI
Propertius - quoted in Canto VII "quoscumque smaragdos, quosve dedit flavo lumine, chrysolithos", Canto XX "Possum ego naturae non meminisse tuae" ; also "Qui son Properzio ed Ovidio"
Proteus - A Greek sea-god with the power of prophecy and the ability to change shape - Canto II
Provençal literature, - passim
Michael Psellos – Byzantine Neoplatonist – Cantos XXIII, C
Raphael Pumpelly - American explorer who made the first extensive survey of the Gobi desert,as a result of which he developed a theory of secular rock disintegration. He was influenced by Louis Agassiz. - Canto XCIII
R
John Randolph of Roanoke – 19th century U.S. politician and leader of opposition to the Bank of the United States - Cantos LXXXVII, LXXXIX, XC
Charles, comte de Rémusat - Canto C
Renaissance - passim
Rhea – Mother of Zeus, who is generally depicted between two lions or on a chariot pulled by lions. Canto XCI
Richard of St. Victor - In his 1910 book The Spirit of Romance, Pound wrote "the keenly intellectual mysticism of Richard of St. Victor fascinates me". In 1956, he selected and translated ''Quotations from Richard of St Victor- Canto LXXXV: On contemplation as active intellect - Canto XC: "ubi amor, ibi oculuc est" and "quam in nobis divinae reperietur imago" - Cantos XCII, XCIV
Joseph F. Rock - American botanist and explorer who described and filmed many Chinese and Tibetan rituals - Canto CX
Roman Empire – Canto XCVI
Franklin D. Roosevelt - Cantos LXXXV, XCVII
Rothschild family - Jewish bankers - Canto LII
Walter Rummel - Musician who worked with Pound on recovering settings of Troubadour songs. - Canto LXXX
Benjamin Rush – Signatory of the Declaration of Independence – Cantos XCIV, XCVII
S
Sacred Edict - Maxims on good government by the Chinese emperor K'ang Hsi. Thrones
George Santayana - Canto LXXXI - Canto C: Fellow admirer of Mussolini; Pound also referred to his ontological theory
John Singer Sargent - Canto LXXXI
Sappho - In his 1928 essay, How to Read, Pound lists Sappho among the "inventors", or poets who were responsible for introducing something to the art that had never been done before. Cantos III - VII, LXXIV, LXXVI, LXXX.
Hjalmar Schacht - Canto LII
Schoeney – Father of Atalanta. The phrase "Schoeney's daughter" is lifted from a passage in Arthur Golding's translation of the Metamorphoses which is quoted in Pound's 1917 essay Notes on Elizabethan Classicists. – Canto II
Jacopo Sellaio - Italian artist whose Venus Pound admired. - Cantos LXXX, XCIII
Septimius Severus - Canto XCIV
William Shakespeare - Discussed distributive justice. - Canto XCIII
William Shirley - colonial governor of Massachusetts 1741–1745 and 1754–1759. Canto LXXVII
Sirens - Canto XC
John Skelton - Canto C
Adam Smith - Economist - Canto XL: on trade organisations as a conspiracy against the public.
Hieronymus Soncinus - Renaissance printer based in the town of Fano. He printed the works of Petrarch. - Canto XXX
Song of Roland - Canto XX: "tant mare fustes/so unlucky were you" quoted from verse XXVII of the French romance
Sordello - Troubadour poet and subject of Robert Browning's long poem of that name. He appears in Dante's Purgatorio. - Canto II - Canto VII: Dante's description of him applied to Henry James - Canto XXXVI
Joseph Stalin - Canto LXXXIV
Stamp Act 1765 - Canto LXIV
Lincoln Steffens - Cantos XVI, LXXXIV
Mount Sumeru - Buddhist holy mountain - Canto CX
Sun – Either directly or via mythological exemplifications, the sun represents light in its active, political, or social aspect in The Cantos. – passim
Emanuel Swedenborg - Canto XCIV: "of society"
Algernon Charles Swinburne - Canto LXXXII
Arthur Symons - Canto LXXX
T
Talleyrand – Canto LXXXI: Curbing Bismarck's ambitions at the Congress of Vienna, Canto CXI: and Napoleon
Tammuz - Canto XVIIL
F. W. Tancred - Canto LXXXII
John Taylor Served as a colonel under Patrick Henry – Canto LXVII
Terracina – Seaside town between Rome and Naples which was formerly the location of a temple to Venus. In his 1930 essay Credo, Pound wrote "Given the material means I would replace the statue of Venus on the cliffs of Terracina." – Cantos XXXIX, LXXIV, XCI.
Thales of Miletus – Pound was interested in his exploitation of a monopoly of the olive presses having predicted a bumper harvest, a story related by Aristotle. – Canto LXXXVIII
Theocritus - Canto LXXXI
Adolphe Thiers - 19th-century French statesman, journalist, and historian of the French Revolution. - Canto XCIX
Tiresias - Cantos I, LXXXIII
Titian - Canto XXV
Toba Sojo - 11th-century Japanese artist - Canto CX
Alexis de Tocqueville - Canto LXXXVIII
Charles-Thomas Maillard De Tournon – Savoyard who served as Papal legate to India and ended his life as a prisoner in Macau for attempting to abolish the Confucian rites. Canto LX
Troubadours - Cantos IV, VI, VII, XX, XXIX
Samuel Tucker – Captain of the ship that brought John Adams to France in 1778. – Canto LXV
John Tyler - He was the first Vice President to be elevated to the office of President by the death of his predecessor. Tyler vetoed Henry Clay's bill to establish a National Bank. – Cantos LXXXVII, C
Tyro - Mythological figure who had two sons, Neleus and Pelias by Poseidon - Cantos II, XC
U
Messier Undertree/Toyotomi Hideyoshi - Cantos LVI, LVIII
United States Federalist Party
Count Usedom - Canto C
Usury - passim, especially Canto XLV, which is a litany on the evils of usury and its impact on culture and the arts, Canto XLVI: with reference to the Bank of England, Cantos XLVIII, LI.
Nicolò da Uzzano - Opponent of the Medici - Canto XLI
V
Roberto Valturio, d. 1489 - Italian engineer and scholar, author of De Re Militari, active at the court of Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta - Cantos IX, XI, XXVI, LIV, LVII
Arthur Hendrick Vandenberg U.S. Senator - Canto LXXXIV
Benedetto Varchi - Italian poet and historian of Florence - Canto LXXXVII
Bernart de Ventadorn - Troubadour poet. - Canto VI: In connection with Eblis - Cantos XX, XCII: "And if I see her not/no sight is worth the beauty/of my thought." - Canto XCIII: "Tristan l'amador" passage quoted
Charles Gravier, comte de Vergennes - Cantos LXV, LXVIII
Victor Emmanuel II of Italy - He was the first king of a united Italy, a title he held from 1861 to 1878. Canto LXI
François Villon - 15th-century French poet who Pound admired. In his 1928 essay, How to Read, Pound lists Villion among the "inventors", or poets who were responsible for introducing something to the art that had never been done before. - Canto XCVII
Leone Vivante - Jewish-Italian philosopher, who lived in Villa Solaia, Siena; author of Notes on the Originality of Thought ; English Poetry and Its Contribution to the Knowledge of a Creative Principle - Canto LII
Wanjina - Australian rain god. He made things by naming them, but made too many, thereby creating clutter and his father sewed up his mouth to stop him. As a result, he symbolises one deprived of free speech for Pound. - Canto LXXIV where he is echoed by the Chinese phrase "Ouan Jin", a "man without education".
Mercy Warren – American writer and sister of James Otis. She was a close friend of Abigail Adams, wife of John. - Canto LXX
Christian Wechel - publisher in 1538 of Andreas Divus's Latin translation of the Odyssey - Canto I. Wechel also published a celebrated edition of Roberto Valturio's De Re Militari, a copy of which is on view in the Chester Beatty Library. In "Andreas Divus", Pound wrote that he bought Wechel's Homeric volume in Paris in "1906, 1908, or 1910".
Harry Dexter White - U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt's economist and founder of the International Monetary Fund - Canto LXXXV
Walt Whitman - Canto LXXXII
John Williams – U.S. politician and judge – Canto LXV
William Carlos Williams - Canto LXXVIII
Wendell Willkie - Canto LXXVII
Oliver Wolcott Signer of the Declaration of Independence – Adams Cantos
W.E. Woodward – American historian who promoted a secular view of George Washington – Canto LXXXVI
William Wordsworth - Canto LXXXIII
Writ of Assistance - Canto LXIII
George Wythe - American patriot who signed the Declaration of Independence and law professor whose students included Thomas Jefferson and Henry Clay – Canto LXV
X
XYZ Affair - Canto LXX
Y
William Butler Yeats - Pisan Cantos passim - Cantos XCVI, XCVIII, CXIII, CXIV
Z
Zeus - Cantos LXXI, XC
John Joachim Zubly – Swiss-born preacher who, during the American War of Independence, betrayed the plans of the popular party to the British. – Canto LXV
