>Having made my living for many years as a journalist, I'd like to
>comment in defense of the Post & Carolyn See.  Most people outside of
>academia do not share the enthusiasm for obscure references and
>multi-lingual poems.  It always struck me as elitist snobbery... a kind
>of intellectual showing off, as in "see how many languages I know" ...
>aimed at other people who could devote their lives unravelling puzzles
>so they, too, could show off their erudition.
>
>Count me on the side of the Post on this one, although I too agree that
>they are usually more aligned with the people who write the paychecks
>than those who receive them.
>
 
I am not an academic. I read [and re-read] the Cantos just for
pleasure, as most other readers do.
It seems to me that Pound uses other languages the same way
he uses English. That is, his English runs the gamut from Olde English,
middle English, Elizabethan, 18th Century prose, pedantic, slangy,
conventionally poetic, conventionally un-poetic, a dozen dialects,
etc. I gather that,like Shakespeare, Ez wanted to use all the
words and "styles" he knew in order to fit the global range
of the epic he intended. Since he knew several other languages,
he used them, too.
Words like "elitist snob" are called "snarl words" in general semantics,
because they convey mammalian anger without human (rational)
content. But if it makes Mr Wagner happpy I will try to feel
ashamed of liking a book he doesn't like.
 
mark chan
 
 
[log in to unmask]
 
 
That is precisely what common sense is for, to be jarred into uncommon
sense.  One of the chief services whcih mathematics has  rendered the
human race in the past century is to put "common sense" where it
belongs, on the topmost shelf next to the dust cannister labeled
"discarded nonsense."
        Eric  Temple   Bell, Mathematics: Queen of the Sciences
 
 
Las die Lasagne weiter fliegen!
 
~