"Anatole France is said to have spent a great deal of time
searching for the <i>least possible</i> variant that would turn the most
worn-out and commonest phrases of journalism into something distinguished.
         Such research is sometimes termed 'classicism'.
         This is the greatest possible remove from the usual English
stylist's trend or urge toward a style different from everyone else's."

--EP
  ABC OF READING




At 07:55 AM 8/1/01 -0700, Stoner James wrote:
>A good topic for a poem:  The hermits grocery store!
>
>Few people have read the Cantos.  Obviously, the allusion is difficult.
>  People don't read this kind of poetry anymore.  If they do they are
>the erudites like the people on this list.  In fact, I often lament the
>fact that my own poetry cannot be understood nor taken seriously
>because people are not grounded in the classics. Pound is a classic but
>most people like fast food in a fast paced society.  It is true that
>literature must be easily accessible and digestible for people to
>"tolerate" it.  Most people who get a Ph.D. in Literature are finding
>out that literature is rarely taught anymore, they can't find jobs.
>The comp and rhet people have taken over and Dante and Vergil (and
>Pound, Wilbur, Eliot) have been purged from the curriculum.  Because
>the public doesn't have a firm grounding in the classics, allusions are
>now made to Nike, McDonalds, and Steven King.  Yes, we are the hermetic
>types.  Somebody has to keep this stuff alive until Rome falls, once
>again.
>
>Stoner, the Ascetic
>
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