Part IV, Section IX, Education or Information, Neo-Platonicks Etc., Losses, Odes: Risks, Great Bass: Part Two, Tone Summary and Analysis

In "Education or Information", Pound reports that in his youth, American universities tended to believe that one should go to Germany to receive systematized information. He says he wasted time studying Lope in Madrid. Then, again characteristically, Pound begins to muse on different versions of his original subjects. He laments the decline of Oxford and the fall of 19th century philology.

"Neo-Platonicks Etc." discusses those philosophers that followed Plato, or the Neo-Platonists. Plato was the father of prose rhapsody. Platonic thought overflowed the Church fathers, lifting them away from their Hebrew roots. In this philosophy, men are drunk with God, inebriated with infinity. The view is not limited to...