Ancora
Ancora - meaning Summary
Defending Classical Inspiration
Pound reacts to accusations of being risqué by turning to classical myth and poetic tradition. The speaker defends himself and fellow poets as dawn-singers and devotees of Greek art—albas, Artemis, the Helicon ridge and Castalian spring—portraying their work as inspired, communal, and sacred rather than scandalous. The poem asserts a lineage of refinement and mythic authority that rebuts modern criticism through joyful invocation of the Muses and Hellas.
Read Complete AnalysesGood God! They say you are risqué, O canzonetti! We who went out into the four A. M. of the world Composing our albas, We who shook off our dew with the rabbits, We who have seen even Artemis a-binding her sandals, Have we ever heard the like? O mountains of Hellas!! Gather about me, O Muses! When we sat upon the granite brink in Helicon Clothed in the tattered sunlight, Muses with delicate shins, O Muses with delectable knee-joints, When we splashed and were splashed with The lucid Castalian spray, Had we ever such an epithet cast upon us!!
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