Canto VII Women & Femininity Quotes

As with his other images of dead beauty, Pound draws on a classic figure of feminine beauty to talk about how beauty itself is gone from the modern world. According to legend, the attractive sea nymph named Tyro was actually immortal. But to suggest here that she's dead might mean that beauty—something we think of as timeless—has actually died, and that without it, there's not much point to modern life.

As he continues his search for beauty, Pound gives us a moment of hope by alluding to a love poem by the 12th-century Provencal poet Arnaut Daniel. In this poem, the poet talks about meeting his lover by lamplight and kissing her. So here, Pound seems to indulge himself in the fantasy of actually reaching the ideal of beauty that he's looking for. But as you can imagine, the moment doesn't last long.

As Canto VII unfolds, Pound begins to talk about his ideal of beauty as a dancing woman. Unfortunately, his hope of promoting this kind of beauty in modern life is prevented by the old men of the modern world, whose boring talk "makes stiff about her a glass." This basically means that the dry, emotionless talk of modern people just ends up turning beauty into a dead object to be studied, but never enjoyed or appreciated.