Metamorphosis in E. Pound's poem "The cantos"

The article is devoted to the study of the semantics of metamorphosis in the poem by the American author E. Pound "The Cantos". The role of metamorphosis in the poetics of the work is noted as a kind of method of organizing the text: the unification within the framework of a common canvas of the transformation of various epochs, cultures, images. The article directly analyzes similar plots - the transformation of a man into a wolf - in the texts of Canto IV, which is part of the cycle of the first songs of A Draft of Thirty Cantos (1933), and Canto XXXIX, which completes the second cycle of the poem Eleven New Cantos (1934). The context in which each of the plots is included is considered: a comparison of Peyre Vidal's peculiar "lycanthropy" with the history of the Capstan, known from the life of the troubadour, and Actaeon from Ovid's "Metamorphoses" (Canto IV), as well as Homer's narrative of enchanted beasts on the island of Circe (Canto XXXIX). Possible parallels with the works of J. Bruno "On Heroic Enthusiasm" and Dante's "Divine Comedy" are traced, the importance of Neoplatonic ideas in the interpretation of Pound's poem is emphasized. The connection of transformation is shown with the idea of connection with the contemplated object, the idea of likening to some ideal principle, which is also found in the observer himself, as well as courtly ideas about the exalted feeling of a knight for a beautiful lady. In conclusion, the conclusion is made about the symbolic meaning of metamorphosis in the songs under study, their fundamental difference.