I'd like to mention that I have read the Wanderer more than a few
times, and translated it in an Anglo-Saxon language  class I took.  I
realize that this is meager in comparison with Mr. Romano's expertise,
but on the other hand, it's not as though I'd only read it once, or
only read it in modern English.  While composing my original post, I
*did* have my copy of the original from Sweet's in front of me, and had
looked at the website we had been pointed towards (without finding the
translation -- thanks Hongguang).  At the end of that post, I typed a
passage from the original that I enjoy, "Wel bith tham the him are
seceth...", and apologized for not being able to use the appropriate
A-S consonants.  Chances are, I didn't do this from my memory alone.

In other words, I looked closely at the thing prior to responding.  I
just didn't do so for long enough, or had done so recently enough, to
sound like a bona fide expert with a claim and not just an opinion.
The original question reminded me of a paper I had written on "The
Wanderer" and "The Seafarer" that put the poems specifically into
comparison with Buddhism.  I thought I could reconstruct roughly enough
the main differences I noted, at least for the purposes of an e-mail
discussion list.  (Maybe I needed more solid data on the relationship
between Buddhism and the Wanderer: maybe if I'd done more research, I
would have seen that St. Bede also translated the Diamond Sutra, and
that Dogen's reading of Grendel's mother was astonishingly apt.)

I ask you, was any of this really a breach of etiquette?  It's not like
I blew my nose on somebody's doily.  Perhaps the one who asks the next
question should provide a list of minimum study requirements prior to
anyone's answering.  That will make our civic discussion proceed that
much more smoothly, and no one will have to have their feathers
ruffled.  (Unless they're the kind whose feathers come pre-ruffled and
are filled with gunpowder.)

That was a joke.

Let's talk about Ezra Pound for a change.

J. W.

- Vive Kiesling

On Saturday, March 8, 2003, at 10:19  AM, Tim Romano wrote:

> Carroll,
> At this point, Jon has agreed that there was no vitriol in my first
> reply
> to his post, only a straightforward suggestion that he reread a poem he
> admittedly did not recall the details of -- and that, only if he would
> like
> to engage me in discussion of it.
>
> For me to have said such a thing should not put a damper on good
> conversation. (Nor should it have raised an ad hominem attack.) To
> look at
> a thing closely before offering an opinion of it should be a basic
> element
> of EPOUND-L etiquette.
>
> The "conversations" we have on this newsgroup are not like those we
> have,
> say, in a train car, where we may say something merely to keep the
> palaver
> going out of politeness or the desire to avoid an awkward silence.
> Here in
> cyberspace there's no immediate need to "keep it going" -- there's
> plenty
> of time to read, in this instance, a 112-line poem, before one
> ventures an
> opinion of its "metaphysics". We're not stuck in a train-car together.
>
> We can agree to disagree if you think list etiquette and train-car
> etiquette are identical. I'd prefer to get back to Pound and to poetry
> that
> may have influenced him.  In my second post to Jon, I attempted to
> draw a
> connection between The Wanderer and "Exile's Letter".  I'd be happy to
> discuss either poem, or both poems, with anyone who has taken the time
> to
> read them.
>
> Tim Romano
>
> At 09:32 AM 3/8/03, Carrol Cox wrote:
>> Tim Romano wrote:
>> >
>> > We have different expectations from conversation, Carrol. I expect
>> people
>> > to look closely at the thing they're talking about before they
>> opine. Not
>> > before they ask a question. Before they opine.
>> > Tim Romano
>> >
>>
>> This really won't wash. Conversation (even the conversation of the
>> 18th
>> c. Paris salons) would be killed by such "expectations." To fulfill
>> those expectations _once in a while_ the basic expectations must
>> acknowledge that conversation, whether in a room or on a maillist, is
>> primarily phatic.
>>
>> Perhaps the standards for maillists must be looser yet, for maillists
>> (a) eliminate background knowledge of the participants (the kind of
>> background that allows recognition that the stupidity of a statement
>> does not reflect stupdity of the speaker) and (b) kill tone. Note that
>> this thread has degenerated into Did Too -- Did Not in reference to
>> the
>> tone of a post.
>>
>> One way to learn through conversation is to make statements without
>> thinking them out too fully, and letting the conversation winnow out
>> the
>> wheat from the chaff -- but that is only possible if participants
>> don't
>> throw a fit about the chaff in the air.
>>
>> Carrol
>