>From: [log in to unmask] (Burt Hatlen)
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: On the question of what one believes or what one MAKES
>Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2000 06:19:03 -0400
>What strikes me here is Wei's total failure, even in this posting, to
>talk about Pound's WORDS. In fact, he seems to find incomprehensible
>the notion that language is, not simply a vehicle for ideas, but a
>material fact in its own right, a plastic material that the poet molds
>into shapes, no less than the sculptor frees the music inside the
>stone, or the composer shapes a melodic line.
I can understand why you might think this. However, simply because I don't
say everything at once, you should not charge me with a failure. I agree
completely with your view that " language is, not simply a vehicle for
ideas, but a material fact in its own right . . ." This makes perfect sense
to me, but it may be only marginally relevant the question of what Pound
believed, and what the poem means.
>But if language is the
>material in which the poet composes, then the decision whether to write
>a poem or to write a letter or a radio broadcast is a matter of some
>consequences. (Philip Sidney got the issue in a nutshell more than 400
>years ago. "The poet he nothing affirmith"--whereas the writer of a
>radio broadcast is, by the nature of the medium, "affirming" a set of
>ideas.)
>
Now this is where I find problems. You charge me with ignoring the purely
material and purely aesthetic properties of language. But poems USUALLY
have both a MEANING and an AESTHETIC FORM. Philip Sidney is wrong--- the
poet does affirm something, whenever he uses words which have meaning. Yes,
the decision to write a poem and make a radio broadcast is a matter of some
consequence. But the meaning of a radio broadcast and of a poem may share a
great deal, and it is meaning that I am choosing to speak about.
Allow me to pose a thought experiment which may clarify the issue in
connection with Pounds words.
Please tell me what you think is the poetic effect of this line of "poetry":
Hawds fro tawn duh asher rare
Bite hods an' tusk anbag vee foor zuh doo wuh shchade.
Perhaps it helps to have accents to make the rhythm easier to apprehend:
Hawds fró tawn duh ásher rare
Bíte hóds an' túsk anbág vee fóor zuh dóo wuh shcháde.
Tell me if this is a good line of poetry or not. And why?
In the next post, allow me to explain why I ask this question.
Regards,
Wei
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