Canto VII Principles Quotes

When Pound gets frustrated in his efforts to look for beauty, he begins to blame the "partition" or barrier that separates him from the classic beauty he admires so much. In this case, the partition keeping him from what he wants is time itself. Pound seems to feel like he was born in the wrong century, since he admires medieval and classic art and culture so much more than the 20th century stuff.

No matter how much he starts to despair about ever recovering the past, Pound is also hopeful about the fact that the "house" of the modern world can never fully get rid of the "house" of the past. In other words, Pound feels like he can still catch brief glimpses of the beautiful past he reads about in literature, and he finds some hope in this fact.

Eventually, Pound starts to think of himself as a "live" man in a world full of dead people. Because for Pound, you can't really call yourself a living person if you aren't governed by some worthwhile principal. But Pound isn't willing to give up on us just yet. As a live man and as a poet, he thinks of himself as someone who travels around "shaking the dry pods" of our minds and trying to fill us with something more worthwhile than whatever worthless stuff we supposedly think about. It's not clear why Pound thinks his audience is so dumb, but it seems to have something to do with Pound feeling disappointed that not everyone knows as much about poetry as himself.