Very sorry to both of them, but Tim Romano in my last should have read
Robert Kibler.
Richard Read.
>there was an article in the paper a few years ago concerning the term
>"pschotic." We label someone a "psychotic" and what more needs to be known
>about them? "Tom Smith, a known psychopath......" He must be a screaming
>madman. And that is the problem with labels and diagnosis, on one level.
>They are permanent, and often erroneous. The article in question took the
>clinical criteria for determining a "psychopath," and suggested that 90%
>of American male teenagers would qualify.
>
>Psychology, like English, is one of those professions that has cloaked
>itself in scientisms and argot in order to hide its sneaking suspicioun
>that some kind of fraudulence or hokum is inside of its most serious
>endeavor.....Jame Frazer notes the same phenomenon in shamans and
>witchdoctors. The successful ones, he notes, are those who actually do
>not think there is a direct correlation between their dances and chants,
>and the rain which comes to save the crops--or not. So they always have a
>way out, an alternative. Somehow we (all professionals in the 20th) seem
>to have lost the knack for objectively looking at our wisdom base and
>seeing--even accepting--a bit of chicanery in it. Consequently, we
>absolutely believe in the intellectual systems at our disposal as if our
>lives depended on them--and we protect them with argot and authoritative
>studies. I can't help but feel that there is some kind of loss to culture,
>when the successful witchdoctors can't occasionally question the greater
>value of all that they do, give a whoop and a holler, yet put the headress
>back on and take the next customer.
>
>The nuttiest people whom I know are psychologists and psychiatrists. And I
>am not the only one to say that. So what? We need them. But we should
>only partly believe in them, in what they do. What we do. And we should
>only partly believe in ourselves. All of us.
> Then we would stop taking our intellectual stake in our discussions
>so seriously that we can never put them down. The stakes aren't really
>that high. Isn't this true?
>
>
>
>>>> Daniel Pearlman <[log in to unmask]> 10/28 8:06 PM >>>
>Yours is an interesting paragraph, Richard. ...
>I would find it pretty amazing, of course, if anyone
>were seriously to suggest that Pound's use of
>discontinuities stemmed from a "biological predisposition,"
>i.e., mental illness. Almost all of Modernism would
>then be subject to similar analysis (and dismissal).
>One could say, however, that the non-linear style-
>preference of the whole Modernist period drew to
>itself certain predisposed, pre-cracked minds that
>found in it a new ecological niche, temperaments
>that could never have crawled out of the woodwork
>in a bourgeois "logical" period. This idea gets
>us into the need for an even more abstract metacritical
>perspective, namely, the need to see art-periodization
>itself in Darwinian terms as the effect produced on
>a culture by Natural Selection when a culture needs
>to cope with changing habitat, the changed habitat
>offering sudden opportunities to previously suppressed,
>marginal mentalities. This last idea I take at least
>half seriously myself.
>
>I won't go on, since I don't wish to rival the paragraph
>to which I'm responding.
>
>==Dan P
>
>
>At 08:57 AM 10/29/98 +0800, you wrote:
>>I sympathize with Tim Redman's plea to wait until publication, thank him
>>for flying the kite and wish him the best with finishing the biography. In
>>a sense the abstract discussion of approaches to the author's mental
>>condition is unsatisfying without the closely argued evidence and case.
>>There's not enough to go on. However, I would also want to take Daniel
>>Pearlman's points concerning the vexed relations of lives and works. It
>>might be an issue - if the bi-polar diagnosis turns out to be convincing -
>>of whether the condition found the poetry or the poetry the condition. If
>>one thinks of what William Empson, for one, said about the vatic state (I
>>can't remember where), then mental imbalance is a hazard of the occupation
>>- 'goes with the territory' - and whether there is biological
>>predisposition or not, may wilfully be triggered, or at least not
>>sufficiently avoided. One could also think of 'traditions' of melancholia
>>accompanying the creative act (vide in visul art Margot and Rudolph
>>Wittkower, Born Under Saturn, or Beckett's preoccupation with Burton's
>>Melancholia) - 'traditions' that do not operate on creative artists in all
>>other cultures - and in view of the fragmentary aspect of visual Cubism
>>(perhaps also of the 'Modern condition') perhaps one would not want, or
>>only want, to associate the discontinuities (or obsessive continuities) of
>>the Cantos with the individual author's mental condition. Genetically,
>>there are said to be many more schizophrenics than those who manifest
>>symptoms, though I'm told the jury is still out on that one.
>>
>>Richard Read
>>
>>>Dan,
>>>
>>> Let's wait until I finish the biography before we discuss
>>>what I'm doing -- I won't entirely know myself until I finish.
>>>
>>> Tim
>>>
>>>On Tue, 27 Oct 1998 18:02:46 -0500 Daniel Pearlman
>>><[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Tim,
>>>>
>>>> In an earlier posting you seemed to indicate that you were
>>>> confining your study of the effects of this disorder to the
>>>> life, rather than using your psychological conclusions to
>>>> try to cast light on the work. I wonder if it is logically
>>>> possible to walk this fine line. If, for example, someone
>>>> were to prove pretty conclusively that Pound was clinically
>>>> insane from, let's say, 1935 to 1945, wouldn't that necessitate
>>>> a re-reading of all he wrote during that period?
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>>
>>>> ==Dan P
>>>>
>>>> At 01:28 PM 10/27/98 -0600, you wrote:
>>>> >I see clear indications of it starting in the '30s, and some signs as
>>>> >early as the 'teens, though that is more difficult to document.
>>>> >
>>>> > Tim
>>>> >
>>>> >On Mon, 26 Oct 1998 11:42:47 -0500 Daniel Pearlman
>>>> ><[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>>> >
>>>> >> Tim,
>>>> >>
>>>> >> Are you referring to a disorder that shaped Pound's behavior
>>>> >> all through his life or only for a certain period?
>>>> >>
>>>> >> ==Dan P
>>>> >>
>>>> >> At 10:11 AM 10/26/98 -0600, you wrote:
>>>> >> >It shaped his behavior.
>>>> >> >
>>>> >> >On Mon, 26 Oct 1998 10:42:52 -0500 Tim Romano <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>>> >> >
>>>> >> >> Tim Redman,
>>>> >> >>
>>>> >> >> Let's assume, arguendo, that the diagnosis of 'bipolar disorder'
>>>> >> >> is on the money. Is it your contention that the mental aberration
>>>> >> >> shaped Pound's art? His behavior? If the former, are there other
>>>> >> >> artists from whose texts one can reach similar diagnoses? And is
>>>> >> >> their art in any way like Pound's? I'm wondering where you have
>>>> >> >> taken or intend to take the diagnosis. I'm curious also if you
>>>> >> >> pass Pound's use of multiple "voices" through this filter.
>>>> >> >>
>>>> >> >> Tim Romano
>>>> >> >
>>>> >> >Tim Redman
>>>> >> >School of Arts and Humanities, JO 31
>>>> >> >University of Texas at Dallas
>>>> >> >P.O. Box 830688
>>>> >> >Richardson, TX 75083-0688
>>>> >> >
>>>> >> >(972) 883-2775 (o)
>>>> >> >(972) 883-2989 (fax)
>>>> >> >
>>>> >> Dan Pearlman Office: Department of English
>>>> >> 102 Blackstone Blvd. #5 University of Rhode Island
>>>> >> Providence, RI 02906 Kingston, RI 02881
>>>> >> Tel.: 401 453-3027 Tel.: 401 874-4659
>>>> >> email: [log in to unmask] Fax: 401 874-2580
>>>> >
>>>> >Tim Redman
>>>> >School of Arts and Humanities, JO 31
>>>> >University of Texas at Dallas
>>>> >P.O. Box 830688
>>>> >Richardson, TX 75083-0688
>>>> >
>>>> >(972) 883-2775 (o)
>>>> >(972) 883-2989 (fax)
>>>> >
>>>> Dan Pearlman Office: Department of English
>>>> 102 Blackstone Blvd. #5 University of Rhode Island
>>>> Providence, RI 02906 Kingston, RI 02881
>>>> Tel.: 401 453-3027 Tel.: 401 874-4659
>>>> email: [log in to unmask] Fax: 401 874-2580
>>>
>>>Tim Redman
>>>School of Arts and Humanities, JO 31
>>>University of Texas at Dallas
>>>P.O. Box 830688
>>>Richardson, TX 75083-0688
>>>
>>>(972) 883-2775 (o)
>>>(972) 883-2989 (fax)
>>
>>
>>
>>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>Dr Richard Read Email [log in to unmask]
>>Senior Lecturer
>>School of Architecture and Fine Arts
>>The University of Western Australia
>>Nedlands WA 6009 Tel +61 8 9380 2140
>>Australia Fax 8 9380 1082
>>
>Dan Pearlman Office: Department of English
>102 Blackstone Blvd. #5 University of Rhode Island
>Providence, RI 02906 Kingston, RI 02881
>Tel.: 401 453-3027 Tel.: 401 874-4659
>email: [log in to unmask] Fax: 401 874-2580
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr Richard Read Email [log in to unmask]
Senior Lecturer
School of Architecture and Fine Arts
The University of Western Australia
Nedlands WA 6009 Tel +61 8 9380 2140
Australia Fax 8 9380 1082
|
