The Fourth Canto begins to truly look like what one expects of the Cantos. Though the lines often seem to refer to some sort of narrative, they rarely refer to the same narrative.

This is where we see Pound’s obsession with words as individual objects and his use of words for their qualities, in and of themselves, rather than, necessarily, in relation to each other (as in coherent sentences, stanzas, or paragraphs).

He also starts digging deeper into his bag or erudition. For example, referring to the church at “Poictiers” – “Poictiers” being an old English way of spelling the French town of Poitiers.

And, for the first time, he starts mixing Chinese names and influences from Pound’s own studies and translations of Chinese poetry.