Dan,
I've been think about what seems to me to be a contradiction or an
incongruity-- how could Pound be deliberately ambiguous here -- meaning two
things at once-- if one of those things involves _sincere_ self-assessment?
Doesn't the duplicity and irony undermine the integrity of the contrition?
But what if we were to take this Zweifaltigkeit (half black, half white) as
a kind of structural _counterpoint_ (Lawes, Jenkins)? Sincere
self-appraisal counterposed with the ironic statement, addressed to
"Paquin", that the (army's) green casque has outdone his elegance.
Tim Romano
----- Original Message -----
From: "Daniel Pearlman" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, August 23, 2000 3:32 PM
Subject: Re: green casques
> Tim,
>
> As you'll see by my last message, I'm getting sold for various
> reasons on this duality possibility myself--as an *intentional*
> use of ambiguity on EP's part.
>
> ==Dan
>
> At 02:53 PM 8/23/00 -0400, you wrote:
> >Burt,
> >It's clear that the green casque is readily associated with other
elements
> >from the green (i.e. natural) world in the Pisan Cantos, such as an
insect's
> >beautiful case, not made by man. I was fairly well convinced that Dan's
> >myrmidon theory was overshooting the target, but now, I'm not so sure.
> >There seem to be _two_ green worlds, and two planes of meaning here ---
> >again, the Elizabethan masque's meta-commentary upon the dramatic
action,
> >and the magpie's duality, may shed some light on how the ambiguities of
this
> >passage operate.
> > Tim Romano
> >
> >
> >----- Original Message -----
> >From: "Burt Hatlen" <[log in to unmask]>
> >To: <[log in to unmask]>
> >Sent: Wednesday, August 23, 2000 11:56 AM
> >Subject: green casques
> >
> >
> >> I haven't been following the "green casques" thread very closely, and
> >> I've erased a good many messages, so someone may have made this point
> >> already. But the association of the green casques with army helmets
> >> seems to me totally wrong. I have always associated the "Paquin"
> >> passage with the final lines of Canto LXXX, five pages previous:
> >>
> >> as the young lizard extends his leopard spots
> >> along the grass-blade seeking the green midge half an ant-size
> >> [then five lines about London]
> >> and if her green elegance
> >> remains on this side of my rain ditch
> >> puss lizard will lunch on some other T-bone
> >>
> >> sunset grand couturier.
> >>
> >> We have here an association of "green" with "elegance," and Paquin was
> >> in fact a couturier. A midge is a small fly, and its closed wings might
> >> look like a "casque." But I also think that Carroll Terrell is correct
> >> in association the green casque with the cocoon from which the wasp
> >> emerges, in Canto LXXXIII.
> >>
> >> Burt Hatlen
> >>
> >>
> >
> HOME:
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