>From: Tim Bray <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: - Ezra Pound discussion list of the University of Maine
>    <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: The Incoherence of the Cantos
>Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2001 20:42:53 -0800
>
>At 08:38 PM 18/12/01 -0500, [log in to unmask] wrote:
>
> >I would like to hear some discussion on the lasting importance of the
>Cantos.
> >Is it the great epic poem of the 20th century or a complete mess?
>
>I read poetry for pleasure not professionally - there is no
>poetry I would rather read for pleasure.  Hm... now that I
>think of it, is being a great epic poem necessarily incompatible
>with being a complete mess?
>
> >It, in
> >fact, depends upon the glosses of scholars to render it readable; it is
> >inscrutable without exegesis.  The Cantos is simply not a self-sufficient
> >work of art."
>
>What a load of crap.
>
>Given that to the extent that the Cantos have a subtext or an
>agenda, it veers being incoherent and beign simply wrong, it seems
>like the work has to stand or fall on the quality of the poetics,
>which in the end is an aesthetic judgement.  What role there for
>the scholars?
>
> >This question seems to be exemplified in the whole problem of addressing
>the
> >Cantos in the singular or plural form. The Cantos is or the Cantos are?
>Is it
> >one thing or a miscellany?
>
>Now there's a good question.  It's pretty clear that you couldn't
>create an "elevator pitch [*]" for the Cantos.  So suppose we grant
>that it is a miscellany and lacks coherence.  What then?
>
>Cheers, Tim Bray
>
>[*] "elevator pitch" - late 20th-cent business neologism.  Scenario:
>you the entrepreneur find yourself in an elevator with Jack Welch
>or John Doerr or whoever and have the few elapsed seconds of the
>elevator ride to express what your business does and why it's
>great.



>"Is it the great epic poem of the 20th century or a complete
mess?"

Does the phrase "false dilemma" ring a bell ?

....

_________________________________________________________________
Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com