Carlo,
Really, now, I quite know the difference between coherence and profundity!
Lots of Hollywood movies are perfectly coherent without being profound.
Coherence is also susceptible to critical demonstration--we are here in the
world of technique, craft, but there is no doubt that a judgment about
profundity will always be subjective or, as you say, "a function of the
current
state of the reader." Having taught graduate courses in both Pound and
Frost, I have to say that I have gradually come to see--without any
suggestion of devaluing Pound or all that I have learned from him--that
Frost appears the more tuned-in in every way, and is even, in the
political realm, far more astute than Pound. Frost approaches politics
and history with a tragic sensibility; Pound, with the reformist's
sensibility.
==Dan
At 04:22 PM 12/20/2001 -0500, you wrote:
>I agree with your comments on Garrick's level of engagement with what he
>criticizes. But I think you are simply substituting "profundity" for
>"coherence" in
>your critique. It seems obvious that finding more profundity in Frost or early
>Williams is a function of the current state of the reader unless
>accompanied by a
>detailed comparison. Others experience may certainly and validly be apposed or
>tangential to this ubiquitous response to "profundity" or "coherence." Also,
>notions of "coherence" and "profundity" don't respond well to hierarchies. And
>there are other hierachies for profundity. My uncles find Andy Rooney
>"profound"
>and Oakeshott "incoherent."
>
>And sometimes some of us find that history is just so much clutter. Carlo
>Parcelli
>
>Daniel Pearlman wrote:
>
> > I for one am glad to hear a voice like Garrick's that questions
> > fundamental literary values and suggests that we reassess
> > our evaluation of the Cantos (and, perhaps, the reasons that
> > a number of us become Pound-beguiled, unable to look at
> > his work objectively). I, too, would like us to stop pretending
> > that "disjunction, disunity, lack of coherence and totality" are
> > literary qualities to be championed. The thing is, I don't have
> > a problem with Cantos unity, coherence, etc. I've seen it
> > and I've expounded upon it, and if Garrick were actually to
> > READ some of the critics of the poem--including my own
> > BARB--he'd have a hard time defending his bravura dismissal
> > of the work. Instead, Garrick seems to rely too heavily for
> > his breezy dismissal on listing a bunch of major literary critics
> > throughout the century who have equally dismissed the Cantos
> > (also, with little more reading effort than Garrick appears to
> > have put into the job), and he does not seem to realize that
> > much of the reason for the critical dismissal of the Cantos
> > over the years stems not only from the work's difficulty but
> > also from Pound's totalitarian and anti-semitic value system.
> > (We on this list have wrestled with these issues on and off
> > over the last several years, and many of us have been quite
> > objective about the potentially damaging effects of the ideas
> > on the art.) I myself, to reiterate, do not have a problem
> > defending the unity of the Cantos; rather, as I think more
> > and more about what Pound has to say to us (above and
> > beyond all that annoying political froth of his), I find that I
> > cannot defend anything that remotely could be identified
> > as a sophisticated, profound view of the world that the
> > poem was intended to critique. Such profundity and
> > sophistication I find, to the surprising contrary, in the
> > considerable body of the work of Robert Frost (Pound's almost
> > complete opposite), and, to a somewhat lesser extent, in
> > the earlier work of Pound's friend W.C. Williams. In my
> > dubiousness about the depth of Pound's thinking, I suppose
> > I am merely echoing his friend Wyndham Lewis, who
> > expressed it all as early as 1927.
> > ==Dan Pearlman
> >
> > At 01:35 PM 12/20/2001 -0500, you wrote:
> > >Dear Listmembers,
> > >
> > >Thanks to Messrs. Gancie, Davis, and Pealrman for their responses.
> > >
> > >Many wondered whether I was being "willfully provocative" or "playing the
> > >devil" when I suggested that the Cantos are a junk heap--littered with
> pearls
> > >of course--so let me discomfort them by affirming that I am perfectly
> serious.
> > >
> > >This judgment of the Cantos--it should be added--was one shared by Yeats,
> > >Randall Jarrell, R.P. Blackmur, and Allen Tate. In fact, it is an
> > >illuminating experience to read Tate's opinion change drastically over
> > >time---compare "Ezra Pound" to "Ezra Pound and the Bollingen Prize"
> (both are
> > >contained in Essays of Four Decades).
> > >
> > >In fact, the opinion I "provocatively" expressed has been the stated
> opinion
> > >of many great critics of the 20th century. I find it disheartening, but
> > >perfectly understandable, that the Pound List would not entertain this
> > >opinion (except dismissively and in passing) but it shall not be
> dispelled so
> > >easily.
> > >
> > >What is most interesting is not that the members of this List have
> difficulty
> > >admitting that the Cantos are "nasty, obscure, fragmentary, and long"
> (this
> > >is a self-evident fact) but that justification of " the poetics" of the
> > >Cantos should finally, and fatally, involve embracing the virtues of (to
> > >paraphrase Alex Davis' response): disjunction, disunity, lack of
> closure, and
> > >lack of totality. Aren't these qualities the very hallmarks of the failed
> > >work of art?
> > >
> > >If we (as Tim Bray has) entertain the idea that the Cantos are a
> miscellany,
> > >and not "a unified work of art" then we explain many problems that have
> > >bedeviled Modernism for three quarters of a century. The Cantos are a mess
> > >because Pound had no epic plan in mind when he started, NOT because he
> wished
> > >to be "ahead of his time" and champion "disjunction, disunity, lack of
> > >coherence and totality" as avant-garde aesthetic values. Talk of it
> being an
> > >epic poem simply dissipates, as it should. The Cantos become not one
> thing,
> > >but many things---whereas an epic poem is a unified work of art--and
> so talk
> > >of the Cantos fragments into various sections (Confucian, Adams, Pisan,
> > >Throne sections, ad infinitum). These values have--need it be
> said?--polluted
> > >Modernist and post-Modernist poetry to its great detriment and left the
> > >reader with more unreadable poetry (Olson, Duncan, et al. than any one
> > >century ought to produce.
> > >
> > >The Cantos have no one "poetic theory" but many--and I have suggested
> (in an
> > >upcoming essay) that the Cantos would have suffered less had it simply
> been
> > >titled the Later Poetry of Ezra Pound. The Cantos are a collection of
> > >disparate poems, without any doubt. "It" will not and does not cohere
> as one
> > >thing the author admitted (either as "a unified work of art" or "an epic
> > >poem"). Isn't it time that we treated the Cantos as a miscellany? And
> stopped
> > >talking of "disjunction, disunity, lack of coherence and totality" as
> > >literary qualities to be championed (alas, because we wished to defend the
> > >Cantos) rather than the very absence of those qualities which characterize
> > >the superior work of art?
> > >
> > >I shall finish by twisting a phrase by Robert Gorham Davis to my purposes:
> > >"The Cantos are, finally, a litmus test for a whole range of critical
> values
> > >(and for the excesses of Modernist taste) and stand self-condemned."
> > >
> > >Regards,
> > >Garrick Davis
> > >editor,
> > >CPR
> > >(www.cprw.com)
> >
> > Dan Pearlman's home page:
> > http://pages.zdnet.com/danpearl/danpearlman/
> >
> > My new fiction collection, THE BEST-KNOWN MAN IN THE WORLD AND OTHER
> > MISFITS, may be ordered online at http://www.aardwolfpress.com/
> > "Perfectly-crafted gems": Jack Dann, Nebula & World Fantasy Award winner
> >
> > Director, Council for the Literature of the Fantastic:
> > http://www.uri.edu/artsci/english/clf/
> >
> > OFFICE:
> > Department of English
> > University of Rhode Island
> > Kingston, RI 02881
> > Tel.: 401 874-4659
> > Fax: (253) 681-8518
> > email: [log in to unmask]
Dan Pearlman's home page:
http://pages.zdnet.com/danpearl/danpearlman/
My new fiction collection, THE BEST-KNOWN MAN IN THE WORLD AND OTHER
MISFITS, may be ordered online at http://www.aardwolfpress.com/
"Perfectly-crafted gems": Jack Dann, Nebula & World Fantasy Award winner
Director, Council for the Literature of the Fantastic:
http://www.uri.edu/artsci/english/clf/
OFFICE:
Department of English
University of Rhode Island
Kingston, RI 02881
Tel.: 401 874-4659
Fax: (253) 681-8518
email: [log in to unmask]
|
