Bob,

I do accept your restatement as an improvement upon my "product and
reflection of his times" -- it is more specific and emphasizes the crisis of
the 'thirties. We do have to keep in mind the nature and severity of these
crises when reading Pound. On the other hand, "engage' posture" -- though an
apt description of Pound's aggressive confrontational stance -- might
obscure the notion of the "passive observer" in the quote that I didn't have
to hand, namely, that regardless of what the artist's agenda happens to be,
and regardless of what he thinks he is accomplishing,  he cannot help but be
a "true" reflector of his milieu as long as he reports candidly. Pound was
both an idea-into-action and an action-into-idea artist. I dwell on this
point only because I recall that at one point in my life, when I broached
the subject of doing a dissertation on Wyndham Lewis, the professor to whom
I was speaking replied aghast, "But what about his politics?!" He had, I
think, lost sight of the dual nature and therefore timeless value of even
the most engage' artist.

Tim



> tim,
>      i almost agree...but don't think "product of his times"
> and "mainstream" quite accurate rendering
> ...better said his text is a product of his engage' posture
> vis a vis the global revolutionary crises of the 30's...it speaks that
> crises...a voice which needs to be heard,
> ...and which as logically  has to be neutered ("demonized")
> by the victor.
> anyway...admittedly itz not brecht...perhaps had he stayed in merka
> ...but still, his ideological confession and praxis, for all its warts,
> exceeds boojwa lib by a damm quantum, no?
>
> bob
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Tim Romano <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Wednesday, June 28, 2000 8:02 AM
> Subject: Re: Pound , Censorship and "Social Darwinism"
>
>
> > Wei,
> > I no longer have to hand the broadcasts edited by Doob, but there you
will
> > find _many_ passages to support the view that Pound's racism has a
> > "scientific" eugenist component to it --  ~the best science today is
> racial~
> > [I paraphrase since memory fails on the exact quotation].  He makes a
> number
> > of  references in the broadcasts to the need to preserve the race from
the
> > downgrading of miscegenation, stating that the knowledge of animal
> breeding
> > needs to be applied to human society. By the time these ideas gets to
> Pound,
> > this "science" may be merely popular science. I cannot tell you what
books
> > or articles, or what correspondence, Pound had been reading on the
subject
> > of social engineering (though I suspect Jonathan Morse would probably
have
> > this information).  It may turn out that Pound read some science on this
> > subject and also found many of his ideas texpressed in popularizations
of
> > these principles.  Certainly they were commonplaces. But even if these
> > notions were no more than "broadly cultural" as you suggest, that only
> > underscores the point I was making. I did not set out to demonstrate a
> > clearly discernible paper trail, to establish "influence" to the
> > satisfaction of the literary historian, though that may indeed be
possible
> > to do. My point was rather that Pound is not an aberration; and yet a
> > student today might easily get that impression from the manner in which
> > Pound is often written about.
> >
> > To demonize Pound by linking him to the harsh political acts/sins
against
> > mankind/atrocities/draconian measures (however one wishes to
characterize
> > them) of the leaders, ancient and modern, whom Pound chooses to exalt
for
> > some quality or qualities they possessed, gives the false impression
that
> > Pound was not a product of his times; it suggests that his views were so
> > exterme that he was on the fringes. But these views were common, almost
> > "mainstream."  The record of these times has been distorted and purged.
> >
> > Other artists have been long ignored, their works allowed to go out of
> print
> > or rot in basements. I spent 8 years studying literature, from the late
> '70s
> > through the mid '80s and did not see the name of the painter and
> > man-of-letters Wyndham Lewis mentioned even once in any course
> description,
> > or hear his name mentioned by any teacher or colleague --the man whom
T.S.
> > Eliot called "the greatest prose writer of my generation"-- and when I
did
> > learn about Lewis, it was impossible to find copies of his many works
> > anywhere; in some instances, the works had been removed from the
shelves.
> I
> > happen to know that rare scientific works on eugenics are being removed
> from
> > the shelves of a major university to be stored offsite, not in a special
> > archive, but in an area devoted to superseded or discredited volumes
which
> > are destined eventually for the incinerator, while the pulp fiction
> section
> > is growing larger. There's a painting by Augustus John of the South
> African
> > poet Roy Campbell locked away in a basement in an art museum in
Pittsburgh
> > PA, where it has been out of sight for maybe 40 years. e.e. cumming's
work
> > EIMI is also out of print.  Pound's translation of Moscardino is out of
> > print.
> >
> > If I had the broadcasts to hand, I would cite the passage where Pound
> writes
> > that it does not matter what the artist believes he is making or doing;
if
> > he sincerely reports what his eyes are observing, his works will reflect
> the
> > times.
> >
> > Tim Romano
>
>