Bob,
As for the St Francis allusion: the latent fear expressed in the cantico
with respect to concupiscent appetite (evident in the emphasis on female
purity and in the metaphorical equation of death with a woman's embrace)
stands, I think, as an analogue to the neurotic puritanical psychology of
the poem's speaker rather than as an expression of archetypal grandness.  If
the recognition of human mortality were driving the saint into a sea of
women I'd agree with your reading. But what we find in the cantico is
asceticism, not the quenched brand of Meleager.
Tim



----- Original Message -----
From: "bob scheetz" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2001 10:59 PM
Subject: Re: cantico del sole


> Tim writes:
> > However, The original question was, what was troubling the sleep of the
> > character in the poem.  In your reading, the poem is not a dramatic
> > monologue; you identify the speaker with Pound.  But such identification
> is
> > not supported by the tone of voice Pound used when he read the poem.
The
> > tone lacks the typical sarcasm he is wont to use when speaking in
propria
> > persona in a satirical mode; rather it is a kind of stylized
ventriloquism
> > which is meant to reveal the state of mind of the character
>
> tim,
>      forgive the delay.
>      but contrary to the above, i took your suggestion of judge learned
hand
> as the speaker, with the eliot quote extending it to the puritan
> ethos,...and yes, another pound personna.
>
> judge hand, in accord with that ethos, banned the publication of joyce's
> "ulysses"; the classics should be restricted for those with sufficient
> seriousness (piety) and erudition.
>
> the supreme court overturned him (and "scopes") and introduced the reign
of
> 1st amendment bourgeois liberalism, with the effect of creating a market
> /consumer culture without reverance or transcendance,...culture-cide; the
> prevision of which (as with simeon) accounts for the troubled sleep.
>
> actually, i thot i was ff the lead of your reading...i think all the
> freudian figuration works...but,  to corporealize/eroticize/impassion the
> voice,
> to make it big, pregnant, archetypal,...not neurotic.
>
> and after all, it's a reading counter-intuitive to present day
> sensibilities, and therefore, of course, likelier pound-ian, nez paw?
>
> but am still unhappy with the st francis motif.
>
> bob
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Tim Romano <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Sunday, January 21, 2001 8:14 PM
> Subject: Re: cantico del sole
>
>
> > Bob,
> > Let me take your objections one at a time.
> >
> > >  from the one line "woe to those that die in mutual transgression".
> >
> > I don't know where you come up with "mutual transgression".   "ne le
> peccata
> > mortali" = 'in mortal sin'.
> >
> >
> > > ...granted that eros is everywhere, and always problematic
>  dialectical),
> > > i don't find the image of the pure/chaste "sister water" to be morbid.
> >
> > You don't see any ambivalence towards women, as sexual beings, in the
> > following metaphor?
> >
> >                 Be praised, my Lord, through our Sister Bodily Death,
> >                from whose embrace no living person can escape.
> >
> > The ethos is hardly an exuberant expression of physical being.  Death's
> > EMBRACE?
> >
> > > 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.
> >
> >
> > As I say above, I would not put St Francis or the Cantico del Sole"
under
> > the rubric "celebration of the flesh".  There's more to the metaphor
> "Sister
> > Bodily Death, from whose embrace.... "  than "contemptus mundi".
> >
> > > 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?
> >
> >
> > "Successful sublimation" is rather like "military intelligence".
> Seriously,
> > the trouble is that the basis for the sublimation is a culture in which
> > human sexuality is regarded as a necessary evil.
> >
> > > hasn't his cantico del sole always been percieved (and not naively) as
> the
> > > epitome of psycho-salubrity?
> >
> > That is not, I think, how Pound regarded the Cantico del Sole.
> >
> >
> > > 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.
> >
> > Phallic and ambrosial
> > made way for macerations.
> >
> > > 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.
> >
> > I'm not sure what you mean by "roman/bourgeois-lib". What do you mean by
> > "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?...
> >
> > I wouldn't discount a reading of this poem that interpreted it in the
> light
> > of the fact that most Americans seem to prefer cheap trashy novels to
the
> > classics. The culture industry and the religion industry do not operate
on
> > skewed planes, and so these approaches are not at odds with one another.
> > However, The original question was, what was troubling the sleep of the
> > character in the poem.  In your reading, the poem is not a dramatic
> > monologue; you identify the speaker with Pound.  But such identification
> is
> > not supported by the tone of voice Pound used when he read the poem.
The
> > tone lacks the typical sarcasm he is wont to use when speaking in
propria
> > persona in a satirical mode; rather it is a kind of stylized
ventriloquism
> > which is meant to reveal the state of mind of the character.
> >
> > Tim
>
>