Carroll,

"... had its origins _in the events_ recounted in this poem".

Tim

----- Original Message -----
From: "Carrol Cox" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, June 13, 2000 4:46 PM
Subject: Re: Pound myth and religion


> (Sorry about the blank post just sent by accident)
>
> Just a couple of added obserations to Tim's post. I agree that
> "Light fighting for speed" (or, as Blackmur noticed 60 years ago,
> the gold in the darkness) ties the poem together, but it seems to
> me that it is a bit upside down to see that material as *originating*
> in "The Tree." Rather, "The Tree" was one of a large number of
> first approximations as Pound fumbled (I don't think the young Pound
> would have rejected that verb) his way towards the themes of the
> *Cantos*. Secondly, light, The Leader, The Thinker, the Sculptor,
> and other manifestations of a struggle out of chaos into order should
> be seen in the light of Pound's slogan, "make it new," which I take
> to mean "make that which has been live again" rather than an
> injunction to make something that was "original" in never having
> existed before. It is not too far, for example, from Pope's
> (in)famous couplet, "True art is nature to advantage dressed /
> What oft was thought but ne'er so well expressed." Hence for
> example the recurrent image of waves taking form -- each wave
> the same and yet each new.
>
> And incidentally the image of light fighting for speed does seem
> to evoke the Zorostrian/Manichaean idea of creation as the
> entrapment of light in matter, and therefore existence as a struggle
> to free light from that entrapment in clutter?????
>
> Carrol
>
>
> Tim Romano wrote:
>
> > Wei,
> >
> > I would again direct your attention to the poem known as The Tree. The
poem
> > is, as I wrote in an earlier posting, the ur-statement of Pound's
awakening
> > to the world of myth and archetype, and the poem is most important for a
> > fuller understanding of the role that myth and religious experience play
in
> > the Cantos and in Pound's thought generally.  The line "I stood still"
is
> > _not_ merely metaphorical, but a reference to an archetypal experience.
The
> > "light" that runs as a leitmotiv throughout Pound's works has its origin
in
> > the events recounted in this poem. Again, Pound sought and found
> > corroboration of this experience in many places, and his ability to
> > recognize the experience in all of its various manifestations lies at
the
> > heart of his syncretism and eclecticism.
> > Tim Romano
>
>