Jonathan,
 
Do you have any evidence that EP ever read any extant English
version, no matter how brief, of the Talmud, or knew anything
about it beyond its name?
 
In further connection with your posting, and especially with
your dissertation, have you read my Paideuma essay (1981?)
called "Ezra Pound: America's Wandering Jew"?
 
==Dan Pearlman
 
At 09:15 AM 10/13/98 PDT, you wrote:
>Re Pound and Jewish mysticism:
>
>We're not talking coffee here (although let us recall Williams's
>recollection of Pound's method of making coffee in Paris and London)!  I
>wouldn't want to make all Jewish culture synonymous with Jewish mysticism,
>but Pound's affiliations with Jewish writers and Jewish books are
>worth exploring.  His very first footnote (in "Sandalphon") refers to the
>Talmud, and his last book (if "Selected Prose" can be considered that)
>returns a number of times to Jewish texts and textuality.
>
>I take Pound's joke about his name--how could someone named Ezra be an
>anti-Semite?--very seriously.  An entire chapter of my recently completed
>dissertation looks at these matters in great detail.  I'd be glad to
>elaborate on or off-line, but the gist is that Pound engaged in a most
>conflicted identification with Jewish texts and textuality throughout his
>career.  One reason the Talmud comes in for such criticism on his part is
>that it is the quintessential "Jewish" text--i.e., no proper form,
>multilingual, fragmentary, no beginning or end, filled with mistakes,
>lies, propaganda, arguments, gaps, etc.  Sounds alot like the Cantos, no?
>
>Jonathan Gill
>Columbia University
>
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