tim,
     yer advancing a number of notions which i find rather difficult:

1.) cantico del sole = manifestation of sexual hysteria:
from the one line "woe to those that die in mutual transgression".
...granted that eros is everywhere, and always problematic ( dialectical),
i don't find the image of the pure/chaste "sister water" to be morbid.
yours about the death-wish sensibility, contemptu mundi, of medieval
religiosity is certainly true, but it is precisely st francis, giotto & co
(12th cent renaissance, no?) and especially with the cantico, that strike
the antithetical chord, celebration of the flesh, nso on.
     doubtless st fancis was oedipal, mama's boy; but, isn't it just as
clear his career is a classic of successful
sublimation/maturation/creativity/aufhebung? ie he's a "hero" of the civ.
hasn't his cantico del sole always been percieved (and not naively) as the
epitome of psycho-salubrity?
anyway, it's been 30 yrs at least (much too long), what does freud say here?

2. the simeon mythos and the eliot poem, and thence the learned hand
persona's nocturnal prayer,  express the piety of self-emasculation in
abjection before the great castrating/circumcising oedipal  jewish god.
but...luke's and eliot's and pound's explicitly situate their fears in
non-subjective dispensations of evil, the spiritual desolation of
roman/bourgeois-lib hegemony;
your insistance that this is merely the classic subtrafuge of projection
fails to reckon with all the evidence and analysis, marx to jameson, of the
objective existence of this evil.

fer simeon, eliot, hand, & pound "the word" is salvation, no?
as, for all of them it is elitist...adults only, no?
so how comes it you totally discount the literal signification
of the poem?...the objective abomination of desolation that "the word" has
been turned to in the western culture industry?... arriving say to andres
serrano's "piss christ", and the recent brooklyn museum "shit madonna"?
isn't this enuf by itself (totally absent any sexual hysteria)
to trouble sleep?

bob



----- Original Message -----
From: Tim Romano <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, January 21, 2001 9:24 AM
Subject: Re: cantico del sole


> The notion that sexual appetites are evil underlies both Pound's dramatic
> monologue and St Francis's canticle. The latter is NOT unambiguously an
> "exuberation affirmation" -- it simply masquerades as one. The line about
> mortal sin is not a single "contrapunto". Read Francis's poem more
closely,
> and you'll see that aversion to sexuality is a major theme of the saint's
> work.  That fear and aversion is most evident in the sister/water/death
> associations:
>
>
> Laudato si mi signore per sor acqua. la quale e multo utile et humile et
> pretiosa. et casta.
> ...
> Laudato si mi signore per sora nostra morte corporale. da la quale nulla
> homo uiuente po skappare. guai a cquelli ke morrano ne le peccata mortali.
> beati quelli ke trouara ne le tue sanctissime uoluntati ka la morte
secunda
> nol farra male.
>
> (Be praised, My Lord, through Sister Water; she is very useful, and
humble,
> and precious, and pure.
> ...
> Be praised, my Lord, through our Sister Bodily Death, from whose embrace
no
> living person can escape. Woe to those who die in mortal sin! Happy those
> she finds doing your most holy will. The second death can do no harm to
> them.)
>
> This linking of sexual appetite with evil and sin is certainly a
commonplace
> in the medieval religious poetry that leads up to Dante -- and Pound would
> not have overlooked this aspect of the genre.
>
> The troubled character in Pound's poem is trying not to have impure
> thoughts; his unstated fear is that he might die in a state of sin because
> of these thoughts.  The Nunc Dimittis prayer tells us so.  The thematic
> connections are not really all that tenuous. By means of the title and the
> prayer, Pound places the Supreme Court ruling in the historical context of
> western judeo-christian religious tradition with its distorted,
guilt-ridden
> attitude towards human sexuality.
>
> Tim
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "bob scheetz" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Sunday, January 21, 2001 12:32 AM
> Subject: Re: cantico del sole
>
>
> > tim,
> >      there is that one, almost adventitious, contrapunto in francis'
> > cantico; but, as a unity it is an exhuberant affirmation, a great "yea!"
> to
> > life,  sensual existence.   pound's is the diametric opposite,
> > contemplates with dread the purveyance of "rosy fingered dawn" & co, the
> > celebratory sensuality of the pagan classics.  so they should,
> > naturally, be titled opposite...as l'allegro & il penserosso, sunny
south
> > vs frozen north, eh?
> >       further, the "thought" that "troubles sleep" being nihilism,
> > ... first amendment commodification & commerce of "the word",
> > there, for puritan piety, is a spiritual wasteland,
> > ... and the sun, a principle of dehydration & death.
> > an existence the aged and faithful simeon would,
> > reasonably, wish rather to depart
> >
> > thence, perhaps, an ironic "cantico del sole"...postlapsarian,
> > ... of modernity?
> >
> > but...still seems a bit of a stretch, no?
> >
> > bob
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: Tim Romano <[log in to unmask]>
> > To: <[log in to unmask]>
> > Sent: Friday, January 19, 2001 10:30 PM
> > Subject: Re: cantico del sole
> >
> >
> > > Bob,
> > > The title.   I'd venture the following explanation:  the Nunc Dimittis
> > (the
> > > Song of Simeon to which you refer) has long been a prayer which is
said
> at
> > > the end of the day; this allusion, together with "It troubles my
sleep",
> > > establishes the dramatic context: it's bedtime.  But the prayer ("Now
> > > lettest Thou thy servant depart in peace") is also associated with the
> end
> > > of life, and has come to be associated with the Departed, with death
and
> > > dying.  So there's a death-wish here.  Death is, in a sense, an answer
> to
> > > the vexations of the man, for it brings "peace" to the troubled soul.
> But
> > > the death-wish is intertwined with the guilt-ridden puritanical mind,
> > which
> > > fears dying in a state of sin and damnation. This guilt/punishment
> complex
> > > sheds some light on the title.  In Saint Francis's Cantico del Sole
one
> > > finds this line:  "guai a quelli che morranno ne le peccata
mortali" --
> > woe
> > > to those who die in in mortal sin. That's how the title is connected
> > > thematically to the poem.
> > > Tim
> >
> >