Read's revolutionary work postulates that there is a hidden key to Pound's lifework, a hermetic coherence created from a pagan calendar that Pound devised and published in 1922 and from the Great Seal and Constitution of the United States. From these Read extrapolates an elaborate combination of heraldry, numerology, and geometry that he applies to Pound's entire poetic work. Discussing each canto separately, Read shows that the designs, paradigms, and arcana were deliberately constructed.