Pound's silence

What is that about?

Hamlet offers some clues........




>From: Tim Romano <[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 Confucian / apocalpytic dimension
>Date: Mon, 22 May 2000 08:38:50 -0400
>
>After readinging En Lin Wei's interesting essay on the emergence of
>Buddhist "quietism" in Pound's thought, I have a few questions and even a
>couple of suggestions for elaboration of the essay.
>
>First, some minor points: I am not sure what was meant by the phrase "the
>sanctity" of the text.  Is "textual integrity" or "holiness" intended here?
>Regarding the use of the word "salvation" in the essay : is one speaking of
>the safe continuance of the peoples -- avoidance of annihilation in a
>nuclear age-- or of the spiritual salvation of the individual soul, in a
>religious sense?
>
>The essay quotes Pound, wondering whether, in light of the atomic bomb, he
>should be writing an apocalypse instead of a paradiso. Is there a place in
>confucian philosophy for the eschatological and the apocalyptic?  An
>excursion into the history of the confucian response to apocalpyse would be
>great.
>
>If, near the end of his life, the poet comes to understand, from
>contemporary events, that history itself might come to an explosive end,
>there are two basic responses, it would seem: a redoubling of
>statecraft-poetry efforts (lifetime and poet's human energy permitting) or
>renunciation and surrender.  Right?   Or could it be that Pound saw a
>poetry of tranquility as a continuation of statecraft, a mode that might do
>something to ameliorate international "tensions"?  Perhaps in this final
>phase of his poetry and his life Pound achieved a *synthesis* of confucian
>and buddhist thought? Contemplative poetry as political action.
>
>Tim Romano

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