 Two critics have also commented on the parable 's implications in describing the nature of knowledge in terms of the decay of Pound 's fish . Celeste Goodridge notes that Marianne Moore 's 1934 review of Pound 's Cantos uses a detailed metaphor of a grasshopper wing to describe the conversations therein . In Goodridge 's opinion , Moore 's " microscopic examination " both undercuts the work as well as " pays homage , in its precision , to Pound 's reverence for ' the applicability of scientific method to literary criticism . ' " Goodridge then reproduces the parable in full and comments , " Agassiz teaches Pound that all knowledge is necessarily fragmented and does not constitute a whole . " Knowledge of the fish cannot begin until decay has commenced , reducing the specimen to its constituent parts . 
