Burt,
 
I've written to you about this before, but without receiving a
reply. I hope that, this time, I've sent my post to the right
address. I want to post the following reply to a message from the
Pound list; could you please forward it, and grand me permission
to post to this fascinating listserv?
 
Thanks,
 
Daniel Zimmerman
Professor
Middlesex County College
Edison, NJ
 
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 
Bob,
 
"Narcissism" seems too personal and too pejorative a judgment.
Pound appears,
rather, to embody two antagonistic but often ourobotic/symbiotic
impulses:
iconoclasm and idolatry. Perhaps his appetite for the ganzwelt
amalgamated
[often blurred] the um-, the mit-, the eigen-? Great men did once
tread [others
attest it] an earth now gone, perhaps, too spongy to sustain
them.
 
[I asked my English Composition students, a few years ago, to
name their heroes.
After five minutes of dead silence, one tentatively said:
"The Pope?" Another said "Nobody qualifies." None had read *any*
of the writers
mentioned in _The ABC of Reading_ or (with the possible exception
of eec)
_Confucius to Cummings_].
 
Let me suggest [with Bloom] that every reader reads first as a
poet manque;
most--unlike Pound--never surpass themselves. You seem to object
that Pound
never surpassed Pound; since he himself confessed as much in his
last Canto, you
appear to beat a dead horse, rather than to thrill at his
steeplechases.
 
Remember: charity begins at poem.
 
Best,
 
Dan Zimmerman
 
bob scheetz wrote:
 
>> doesn't everything about ep point to raging narcissism?
>> the great man/poet thing, the sequence of picturesque personae
>> beginning with bertran, mandarin, jefferson/adams, etc
>> ...the impregnable self-assurance,
>> ...luxuriating in self-fantasy, exhibitionism,
>> and poetry qua self-promotion?
>> ...the imperviousness to umwelt & mitwelt,
>> except qua stage and audience?
>>
>> is ep the laureat of the age of narcissism?
>> the cantoes a kinda lotus-eater-land poetry,
>> wherein all we can indulge
>> our personal poet manque narcissism?
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Jonathan Morse <[log in to unmask]>
>> To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
>> Date: Monday, November 01, 1999 5:33 AM
>> Subject: A summary for Richard Caddel
>>
>> >In "Ezra Pound: 'Insanity,' 'Treason,' and Care," _Critical
Inquiry_ 14
>> >(1987): 134-41, William M. Chace writes:
>> >
>> >"[A] blend of compassion and outright annoyance characterizes
the attitudes
>> >of a great many of Pound's acquaintances over the years. As
early as the
>> >1920s in Rapallo, his visitors and correspondents, among them
Ernest
>> >Hemingway, W. B. Yeats, and James Joyce, tended to note the
same thing: the
>> >poet was embarrassingly self-congratulatory, impervious to
advice or
>> >criticism of even the mildest kind, and high-handed in every
regard.
>> >Hemingway wrote that the poet 'makes a bloody fool of himself
99 times out
>> >of 100 when he writes anything but poetry.' Archibald
MacLeish, later to
>> >rally to Pound's assistance, reported early on that he was 'a
bit fed up
>> >with the Ezraic assumption that he is a Great Man.' Joyce saw
him as a
>> >fellow writer who turned up 'brilliant discoveries' but also
'howling
>> >blunders.' Over the years, Pound put all his friends to the
test, the test
>> >of complying with his wishes, agreeing with his findings about
all matters
>> >under the sun, and surrendering their will to his. It was a
strong will,
>> >but in the end it overwhelmed none of his friends. Those
closest to him,
>> >particularly Williams, who had known him longer than anyone
else, did not
>> >give in but watched with dismay: 'This ain't the old Ez I used
to know,'
>> >Williams wrote in one of the most charged of his letters.
'You're in the
>> >wrong bin. Your arse is congealed. Your cock fell in the
jello. Wake up!'"
>> >(136-37)
>> >
>> >Chace draws all his examples from Torrey's _The Roots of
Treason_.
>> >Williams' letter is dated April 7, 1938.
>> >
>> >And this is the same issue of _Critical Inquiry_ that contains
Conrad L.
>> >Rushing's "'Mere Words': The Trial of Ezra Pound" and Richard
Sieburth's
>> >"In Pound We Trust: The Economy of Poetry / The Poetry of
Economics." How
>> >much we lost when the PC Police mounted their coup against
that journal!
>> >
>> >Jonathan Morse
 
 
 
 
X-SMTP-From: [log in to unmask]
X-SMTP-To: [log in to unmask]
Received: from maine.maine.edu (maine.maine.edu [130.111.2.1]) by
voyager.umeres.maine.edu with SMTP id MSGYEYMS; Wed, 3 Nov 1999
05:08:47 GMT
Received: by MAINE.maine.edu (IBM VM SMTP Level 310) via spool with
SMTP id 1450 ; Wed, 03 Nov 1999 00:06:19 EDT
Received: from MAINE.MAINE.EDU (NJE origin LISTSERV@MAINE) by
MAINE.MAINE.EDU (LMail V1.2c/1.8c) with BSMTP id 6585 for
<[log in to unmask]>; Wed, 3 Nov 1999 00:04:22 -0500
Received: from MAINE (NJE origin SMTP3@MAINE) by MAINE.MAINE.EDU (LMail
V1.2c/1.8c) with BSMTP id 6395; Wed, 3 Nov 1999 00:01:31 -0500
Received: from u2.farm.idt.net [169.132.8.11] by MAINE.maine.edu (IBM
VM SMTP Level 310) via TCP with SMTP ; Wed, 03 Nov 1999 00:01:30 EST
Received: from idt.net (ppp-52.ts-1.hp.idt.net [169.132.73.52]) by
u2.farm.idt.net (8.9.3/8.9.2) with ESMTP id AAA06881; Wed, 3 Nov 1999
00:01:34 -0500 (EST)
Message-ID: <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, 03 Nov 1999 00:01:20 -0500
From: Daniel Zimmerman <[log in to unmask]>
X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.61 [en] (Win98; I)
X-Accept-Language: en
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: [log in to unmask], [log in to unmask]
Subject: rejected posting
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit