Tim Romano

Thanks

Rick Seddon


----- Original Message -----
From: "Tim Romano" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, January 30, 2003 8:11 PM
Subject: Re: Clarity


> Usually it is my own ignorance that makes me feel in the dark when I'm
> reading the Cantos; I might not get an allusion until I do some background
> reading.  At times they're obscure because the relationship of the parts
to
> each other is not immediately evident even after I have come to some
> understanding of a chunk in isolation. I think of the Cantos as puzzles in
> which the pieces have very well-defined edges but just how the pieces
> interconnect is not apparent. With cogitation the relationships do come
> into focus and the clarity of the work often will emerge quite suddenly
> where there had been muddle. But the muddle was my own.
>
> Pound discusses this mode of poetic meaning in his elaboration of
> Fenollosa's essay on The Chinese Written Character, where he gives this
> ideogram:
>
>          cherry, rose, sunset, iron-rust, flamingo
>
> The common meaning that jumps out when these discrete things are
juxtaposed
> without connectives is "redness".  Substitute several lines of poetry for
> "cherry"  and a several more lines for "iron-rust" etc, and the same
> principle can be seen operating at a higher formal level in each
> canto.  Pound writes:
>
> "The moment we use the copula, the moment we express subjective
inclusions,
> poetry evaporates. The more concretely and vividly we express the
> interactions of things the better the poetry. We need in poetry thousands
> of active words, each doing its utmost to show forth the motive and vital
> forces. We can not exhibit the wealth of nature by mere summation, by the
> piling of sentences. Poetic thought works by suggestion, crowding maximum
> meaning into the single phrase pregnant, charged, and luminous from
within."
>
> Tim Romano
>
>
> At 02:33 PM 1/30/03 -0800, you wrote:
> >Tim Romano wrote:
> >>Why read literature that lacks clarity?
> >
> >The question above has been obstinately staring me in the face every
> >time I visit this list in recent weeks.  The question is too important
> >to allow just deleting it, but the answer is less obvious the longer
> >Tim's question sits there.
> >
> >Obviously, we *do* read and enjoy literature that lacks clarity.  The
> >Cantos being a prime example.  And yet, clarity is clearly (so to speak)
> >a virtue.  For example, you can make a case that Vikram Seth is the
> >greatest living writer of English prose (a formidable poet too) and it
> >is just impossible to imagine more transparent writing then Seth's.
> >
> >What other virtue in famous less-than-clear literature is it that
> >compensates for lack of clarity?   I think this is a really important
> >question. -Tim
>