I would not dispute your essential religious claim for art, but consider: Anne Chapple, when she examined Pound's use of the Fenollosa notes for Cathay, saw that whenever the Chinese poems trailed off into infinity, or abstract transcendentalism, Pound cut and replaced with something more concrete.  Further, in many ways, Pound's theories of art and the cosmos--his aesthetic metaphysics--would see man--man, at the center of the cosmos, and religiosity in a crust of bread. Whether a bite into such a crust of bread was seen by him as a transporting experience or one that resulted from a wide-awake and active approach to living is perhaps at issue. Maybe both. Maybe at issue are but two different kinds of religion experience. Yet while Pound is a study in contradictions, he does put a heck of a lot of emphasis on the living experience-the time out in the sun, about in the world. He puts a lot of emphasis on the difficult task of both recognizing and producing beauty. When he delivers this beauty, is it comforting (the puritan streak in me, and I would suggest, in Pound, cringes at the somewhat sumptuous connotations of "comfort on special nights)? Further, is transcendence the same as resonance?
I don't know. I am asking.
>>> William Stoneking <[log in to unmask]> 08/25 9:18 AM >>>
All art (literature) is essentially religious... i.e.: in its essence,
it is transcendant, providing a transcendent experience for its
viewer/reader/listener... the view from the Masthead (vide: Moby Dick)...
this experience...
this sense of resonance ... is comforting...
To the extent that Pound's poetry rises to literature
(the religious, the transcendent)
it will comfort those who
resonate
with it.
 
Stoneking
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: Robert Kibler <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, August 25, 1999 9:40 AM
Subject: Re: EP and academics
 
 
> I wonder if Pound would see his Cantos as a work to comfort during those
certain times late in the night, far from home? I think Frost's work might
serve this end, but the Cantos is primarily a working text, not a comforting
one. (not to say that it does not possess comforting moments, or lyrical,
impassioned ones).
>     Where is this quality in the Cantos that most provides the comfort of
which you write? Serious question.
>
> >>> Tim Romano <[log in to unmask]> 08/25 7:18 AM >>>
> "Much conversation is as good as having a home."
>   -- Pound,  Difference of Opinion with Lygdamus
>
> >
> > I wonder what proportion of this list's
> > readers comprises those, like me, who read EP only for pleasure and who
> > find the Cantos, in particular, the only pages that will serve the
special
> > needs of certain times late in the night or far from home.>>
>