When reading Pound, in particular, the Cantos of Pound, individuals are often overwhelmed by the myriad contexts in which they may become lost. It is out of this necessity—intimately knowing more contexts than may be possible—that the Canto Project began. Coupling this need with the theoretical claim that The Cantos is an early version of hypertext (before the term hypertext came to exist in its current form) presents a void that can be filled only by hypertexting the Cantos, one at a time.

 The design of my current hypertext project looks only at Canto XXXI, as it reflects many of the themes evident in the other Cantos, and further, it is the introduction to the second “book,” Eleven New Cantos, which places it at a point of transition between Pound’s first and second volumes of Cantos. The Canto is not only a historical document that traces the writings of Thomas Jefferson, but it is also a formula for the improvement of politics. It further represents the earliest examples of the American age in the Cantos. Christine Brooke-Rose refers to XXXI as the Canto that introduces us to Jefferson’s concern with the Erie Canal, where “canals having been the first major breakthrough for the transport of goods during the Industrial Revolution,” and she further notes that XXXI and XXXII illustrate “the political acuteness of Jefferson and Adams, the awareness that France is on the eve of a revolution and that the new American nation should stabilize its finance by getting a loan from Holland instead (successfully brought off in the later Adams Cantos)” (175). This centrality of the character of Jefferson and this situation in the midst of so many other Cantos reveals XXXI as on necessary to understanding the Cantos as a whole.

 The most significant reason for hypertexting the Cantos is that such reading relies on understanding the context of the primary sources that Pound uses. In an article titled “How to Read a Canto,” Max Halperen explains that

with a minimum of help—the sort of help provided by very occasional reference to the Annotated Index to the Cantos of Ezra Pound—it is quite possible to read the poem as a poem…aware of its context…[and in which] documents, translations, descriptions, personal comments—all may be read as images. (8)

 Prior to the use of electronic hypertexting, the reader necessarily sat with a companion guide, or more likely, several companion guides, in order to make sense of the Cantos. Because the references are layered so thickly, the electronic texts permit the reader to display simultaneously on one screen the Canto and the source text which Pound used for the Canto.

 As for the structure of the Cantos, Halperen explains that since they have been “rewritten and reshuffled, they can scarcely be read as part of a narrative design” (8). And so it goes for hypertext in general. What may be said of hypertext is that it negates linear narrative, and in the Cantos, Pound, using his “ply over ply” method, seeks those elements of culture and history that occur periodically throughout history in both experience and presentation of experience. It is this lack of narrative, this wandering through history and shuffling of primary sources, along with hypertextuality in its essence, that has drawn many readers to consider the necessity of hypertexting Pound electronically.

 The future of this project is guaranteed, as the inter-textuality of  the Cantos is endless. What the future of the project involves specifically is the addition of many links, both primary and secondary. To experience The Cantos hyperlinks within itself is to fully realize Pound’s ideas that history recurs in a ply-over-ply fashion. Canto I ends “so that…” while Canto XVII picks up with “And so.” By such hypertexting between Cantos in addition to within Cantos, the project will continue infinitely.  In terms of secondary source hypertexting, the project will continue as more information is uploaded. Additionally, for each letter of Thomas Jefferson, there are a number of overlapping contexts. To accommodate these multiple sources, this project will eventually include another layer of windows devoted to historical contexts such as Revolutionary War documents and historical narratives. And ultimately, the Cantos will be read with immediate access to its necessary contexts.

Works Cited

 Halperin, Max. “How to Read a Canto.” Studies in The Cantos. Comp. Marie Henault. Columbus, Charles E. Merrill Pub. Co. 1971.

Brooke-Rose, Christine. “A ZBC of Ezra Pound.” Berkeley, U of California P. 1971.