Wei,
I wrote about the "betrayal of the US Constitution" and didn't say anything
about "democracy".  There's more to the consitution than democracy. I would
never assert that Pound was an egalitarian democrat, and you should not
infer, from my taking issue with some of your statements, that my views are
diametrically opposed to your own. I can see how you might easily infer that
I was talking about virtue when I used the words "civic loyalty" and "duty"
(those terms do frequently appear in discussions of virtue and are often
used as synonyms for virtue), but I personally don't equate them. If one
equates moral goodness with the sophrosyne, with taking the middle path, one
would regard Pound's profound sense of civic duty to be lacking in virtue,
while recognizing in it the operation of a principled and reasoned
conviction.  As Bob Scheetz conjectured a while back... a tragedy that seems
to befall platonists?

Tim Romano

----- Original Message -----
From: "En Lin Wei" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, June 08, 2000 1:51 AM
Subject: Pound, Loyalty, Civic Virtue, and "Saints" in the Cantos


> >Subject: Betrayal of the constitution
> >
> >Wei,
> >If your goal is to understand Pound (and not merely to hang him out to
dry
> >for his political sins) then you should investigate further why he felt
the
> >US Constitution had been betrayed.  You dismissed this sense of betrayal
> >out
> >of hand as "an odd defense" coming as it did from someone who had been
> >indicted for treason.  But if you're going to get into the head of this
> >"traitor" you have to plumb his notions of civic loyalty and duty.
> >Tim Romano
> >
> There are many ways of "plumbing his notions of civic loyalty and duty",
> especially in relation to his poetry.
>
> I have never said my intention toward Pound was "merely to hang him out to
> dry for his political sins [...]. "  You might consider the possibility
that
> this is a mischaracterization of my approach.  Actually, rather than
invite
> others to attempt to characterize my method,  I would like others to
engage
> Pound comprehensively.  Just as we cannot dismiss the poet for his alleged
> treacheries, we cannot understand the MEANING of his poetry by attributing
> to him a genuine concern for the essential elements of the Constitution
> which he did not have.  Even if Pound was allegedly, in some vague sense,
a
> person who "believed" in the Constitution, his outlook cannot be
> characterized as democratic, "loyal" to the basic principles upon which
his
> Constitution was based, or as "civicly virtuous,"  unless you think Petain
> and Quisling possessed civic virtue.
>
> Pound's outlook as a whole is also defined by those he designates
> "saints."  As Achilles  Fang points out, "Poundian political
> hagiography can become rather pathetic"  (Fang, III-32).   To show
> this, Fang cites a passage from the conclusion of Canto 84, last of the
> "Pisan" group.
>
>   Wei, Chi and Pi-kan
>   Yin had these three men full of
>             humanitas (manhood)
>             or Jin
>   Xaire, Alessandro,
>     Xaire Fernando, e il Capo,
>   Pierre, Vidkun,
>     Henriot . . .
>      (84/539).
>
> The source containing the names of the three Confucian saints states,
>
>   The viscount of Wei withdrew from the court.  The viscount of Chi became
a
> slave to Chou. Pi-kan remonstrated with him and died. Confucius said, "The
> Yin dynasty possessed these three men of virtue."
>     (Confucius, Analects, XVIII, i).
>
> Fang, not at all pleased by the juxtaposition of the three Confucian
> "men of virtue" with "il Capo" and company, writes,
>
>    In this litany of saints the six men
>   to whom Pound bids farewell are "Il capo del governo Italiano e Duce del
> Fascismo" Benito Mussolini ("the Boss"), who was put to death in April
1945;
> the Secretary of the Fascist Republican Party.  Alessandro Pavolini, who
>   was put to death together with Mussolini;  Minister of Popular Culture,
> Fernando Mezzasoma,
>   who also shared Mussolini's fate; Pierre Laval,  sentenced to death by
the
> High French Court of Justice on October 4, 1945, and executed on
>   October 15; Vidkun Quisling, sentenced to death  by Norwegian High Court
> on September 10, 1945,
>   and executed on October 24; Phillipe Henriot, assassinated in Paris by
> French underground
>   resistance agents on June 28, 1944.  A good dog deserves a good bone, so
> goes the saying.  But do the three Fascists and three collaborators
deserve
> to be put on a par with the triad of Confucian Saints?
>    (Fang, III, 33).
>
> I leave the question for you to answer.
>
> [Incidentally, Achilles Fang did know Pound, was a great admirer of his
> poetic technique, and met with Pound many times in St. Elizabeths to help
> him with various aspects of Chinese culture.  Fang wrote the first
> comprehensive several hundred page work analyzing the Chinese dimension of
> the Cantos.  The manuscript, still unpubished, is available at Yale].
>
> Regards,
>
> Wei
>
> http://www.geocities.com/weienlin/religion.html
> ________________________________________________________________________
> Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com
>
>