>But Surette at least shows no interest in
>Pound's poetry, casting the issue entirely as a question of Pound's
>presumed beliefs, within the context of 19th and 20th century
>intellectual history. (Indeed, Surette says as much in The Birth of
>Modernism: "The rationale of this study is much closer to the old
>method of the history of ideas" (5).)And as long as we try to read
>Pound as primarily a "thinker," we will, I think, miss the point. The
>poet is a maker, and we need to be talking about what he MADE, not
>about what he may or may not have "thought."
>
>Burt Hatlen
I am not sure how we can make the distinction which Burt Hatlen asks us to.
Virtually everything we know about Pound comes from what he MADE (wrote,
said, composed). When anyone refers to Pound's "thought" they usually
refer to what he MADE. So what does it mean to speak about what Pound made
apart from what he thought? Ezra Pound the historical human being left his
words recorded in poetry, prose, letters, articles, essays, radio
broadcasts, etc. He "made" all these things. For instance, he "made" this
statement about the Platonists, saying they
have caused man after man to be suddenly conscious
of the reality of nous, of mind, apart from any man's
individual mind, of the sea crystalline and enduring,
of the bright as it were molten glass that envelops
us, full of light
(G.K., 44).
He also MADE this statement, in the same work:
I don't in the least wish I had missed a Xtian edu-
cation in childhood, even though the old testament is
most certainly, in the main, a record of revolting barbar-
ism and turgid poesy. The New, they tell me, is written
in disreputable Greek . . .
I am now aged enough to see nothing ridiculous in
19th french [freemasons] and freethinkers having their
offspring Christianly (that is catholicly) educated.
A culture persisted. Only in basicly pagan Italy has
Christianity escaped becoming a nuisance.
(GK, 300).
From these two statements which Pound MADE, one might conclude that Pound
was highly sympathetic to Christianity and neoplatonism (if we assume that a
neo-platonism which had sublated paganism is a sophisticated philosophy,
purely consonant with a Christianity which has not cut off its pagan roots).
However, Pound also MADE this statement, a purely negative one about
Christianity (one of many):
Christian proposals are mixed with all sorts of disorder,
whereas Confucian progress offers a chance for a steady
rise, and defects either in conduct or in theory are in
plain violation of its simple and central doctrine
(S.P., 69).
From these words we might conclude that Pound thought Confucian philosophy
was superior by far to Christianity in all its forms.
The issue if far more complex than some people are letting on here. And it
cannot be solved by simply saying that Pound believed in a little bit of
everything, that he was a "poet" and therefore above believing anything, or
that he believed in the "Cantos", that they are the expression of his
belief, and that's that, so take it or leave it.
There is much to be said on this subject. Pound is not a demigod, as he
admits; and his words are not holy scripture, or incomprehensible, simply
because they are poetry. God is infinite and incomprehensible, but Pound's
record of, or expression of his communion with the infinite is itself
finite, and subject to human efforts to define it--- carefully, and
accurately.
Regards,
Wei
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