Bob,
There is a recording of Pound reading this poem.  He delivers the brief
dramatic monologue in a kind of stylized rant, his voice rising with each
repetition of the phrase "the thought of what America" to a higher level of
anxiety and reaching a climax with "circulation... Oh!"  The falling action,
as it were, occurs with the phrase "It troubles my sleep."  The poem is
indeed an "obsessive puritanic" bedtime reverie. The sexually repressed
character  is kept awake at night worrying that the classics might reach the
American public. One imagines him trying with the prayer "Nunc dimittis" to
crowd out of his mind images of particular scenes from the classics. Did the
Latin prayer remind you of TS Eliot?  Take a gander at Wyndham Lewis's first
portrait of Eliot, the one where TSE is dressed in a dark green suit, his
hands are folded nervously in his lap, and the front-lighting casts a shadow
on the wall behind the troubled poet.
Tim

> tim,
>      so it's to be read as judge hand speaking?
> ...an obsessive puritanic meditation against
> bourgeois liberalism?...no irony?
>
>     very nice...does seem to work.
> bob
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Tim Romano <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2001 5:03 PM
> Subject: Re: cantico del sole
>
>
> > Here's something posted to the list a while back by Matthew Hofer.
> > Tim Romano
> >
> >
> > Your epigraph is from "Cantico del Sole" (originally published in
> > _Instigations_), a poem written after the decision by Judge Hand in
March
> of
> > 1918 to ban the American distribution of the serialized "Nausikaa"
chapter
> > of James Joyce's _Ulysses_ (which had been serialized chapter by chapter
> in
> > _The Little Review_).
> >
> > The premise was that the same language that the court finds unacceptable
> in
> > a modern "classic" is permissible in the classics in translation because
> > they "have the sanction of age and fame and USUALLY APPEAL TO A
> > COMPARATIVELY LIMITED NUMBER OF READERS."  You can find this quotation
and
> > more in Pound's essay "The Classic's [sic.] Escape."  To this evaluation
> of
> > the controversial decision, he adds, "No more damning indictment of
> American
> > civilization has been written than that contained in Judge Hand's
> > 'opinion.'"  The decision was not reversed until 1933.
> >
> > And you will find the poem on page 182 of Pound's _Personae: The Shorter
> > Poems._
> >
> > Best,
> >
> > Matthew Hofer
> > Managing Editor
> > Modernism/Modernity
> > http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/mod/
> > 1050 East 59th Street
> > Chicago, IL 60637
> > Tel.: 773 702 8539
> > Fax: 773 702 9861
>
>