Didn't anyone receive my Thursday post about Omar Khayyam? FitzGerald's
translation, a favorite of ep's early and late, seems a much more evident source
for this orientalist imagery.
wp
Booth, Christopher wrote:
> That Pound might not have had the Eastern background yet to significantly
> weave in a Buddhist or Confucian conceit may be so, but the fact remains
> that a "prayer wheel" is a term dating from 1814 (according to my Webster's
> 10th here at work), and it is a term that would have been familiar to
> missionaries, students of philosophy, theology, Asia, geography, readers of
> National Geographic, travel literature, etc., etc. Pound had not yet hit on
> his Asian vein, but lets give him credit for having a decent vocabulary and
> the general knowledge that an educated young man with a curiosity about the
> world would have had in his day.
>
> It is a not uncommon fallacy to assume that a writer's knowledge about a
> subject was tabula rasa before a certain period in the writer's development.
> It seems absurd to me that Pound could not have used a common phrase that
> would have been as in the realm of general knowledge in his day as it is
> now, only because we would like to catagorize its use under "E.P.: Asian
> Reference". It doesn't have to be a mature Eastern reference, but an
> appropriate phrase for an image.
>
> I don't have a copy of the poem here, but if the line does indeed run as
>
> Th' alternate prayer wheel of the night and light
>
> then it is a prayer wheel. A prayer wheel is a prayer wheel, and was so in
> his day.
>
> What is the liklihood that Pound would have coined a phrase already in use?
>
> !!!!!!!!!!
>
> Although I am still quite comfortable with what I said above, a trip to the
> OED fished up this treasure under _prayer wheel_:
>
> 2. A wheel set with bells and fastened to the ceiling of a chapel,
> formerly used for divination in connexion with masses or
> other devotional services.
>
> 1897 _Daily News_ 26 July 5/1 Even now in Brittany
> a kind of prayer wheels are kept in churches and set
> spinning by the devout.
>
> Hmmm. Perhaps Brittany is located somewhere between Lhasa and Kathmandu? [_A
> Lume_ and _Cathay_?] ;-)
>
> > ----------
> > From: Robert E. Kibler
> > Reply To: Robert E Kibler
> > Sent: Tuesday, May 19, 1998 6:30 PM
> > To: [log in to unmask]
> > Subject: Re: re grace before song lines 1-3
> >
> > >
> > I would be surprised if the "prayer wheel" refers to anything
> > Buddhist/Tibetan
> > so early in pound's career. there are other possibilities--I know D. H.
> > lawrence, for example, writes about the 'cry of the peewit and the wheel
> > of the
> > stars." May have been a common expression in first two decades of 20th.
> > Pound
> > had touched upon Eastern poetry before Fenollosa--he had read Gile's book
> > on
> > Chinese poetry, and Judith Gautier's Book of Jade, among other precious
> > 19th
> > century translations. There had also been a general Eastern influence in
> > art,
> > from Van Goh to Whistler, the effect is registered on canvass. Further,
> > one of Pound's first friends in london, Lawrence binyon, was curator of
> > the
> > Eastern arts collection at the British Museum. So Eastern culture was
> > again in
> > the air in the last decades of 19th, and early 20th, and Pound was aware
> > of it.
> > But if an image such as this early prayer wheel were to have its origins
> > in the
> > East, it would probably have been accompanied by other tell-tale Eastern
> > images. Pound's early poems follow the years during which he had carefully
> > imitated styles of poets whom he thought to be great. Good recent sources
> > for
> > early Asian influence on him is Zhaoming Qian's book to that effect, as
> > well as
> > Mary Patterson Cheadle's book on Pound's Confucian Translations.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > HTEN=3DCONDENSARE) and the latin origins of the word, _dictare_, to com=
> > pose
> > >(create) or dictate, in conjunction with the word _light_ on the next
> > >line--an important word in Pound--and its Genesis resonances. Dight also
> > >meant to ordain or equip, and a "dighter" was a poet. Etc. Hmmm....]
> >
> > Being a student of German, I pretty much smack my forehead in shame at
> > this point.....Yikes! But thank you for pointing it out! Dichter =3D
> > dighter. So essentially on the basis of etymology and rhyme Pound brings
> > together the notion of poetic/theologic creation with the notions of
> > night and light as antagonistic life-animating aesthetic forces etc. =8B
> > there's more here than I even thought of before. Still, I would ask what
> > the connection is with the rest of the poem, and the imagery of offering
> > oneself into a sort of oblivion. Maybe the eternal spiralling exchange
> > of "Night and light" can be read as a foil to the once-and-done-with
> > disappearance of rain into sea, word into silence, art into indifference,
> > etc. But I'm only conjecturing.
> >
> > Also I would still quibble over the third line, in getting down to the
> > basic roots of grammar: the meaning up to the end of line 2 is clear, and
> > I read "that with mercy dight" etc. as a relative clause, but what's the
> > connection with "Eternal hath to thee"? What's the object of "hath"; why
> > is it eternal (or possibly clipped "eternally")? What is going on,
> > grammtically speaking, in this line?
> >
> > Thank you, Mr. Booth, for your very helpful suggestions.
> >
> > Cheers, Michael Kicey
> >
> > _________________________________________________
> >
> > "you love in spite of, not because of"
> > -Lucas Klein
> >
> > _________________________________________________
> > Michael Kicey
> > F&M #836
> > Franklin and Marshall College
> > PO Box 3220
> > Lancaster PA 17604-3220
> >
> > email: [log in to unmask]
> > net: http://acad.fandm.edu/~M_Kicey/
> > phone: 717.399.6747
> > _________________________________________________
> >
> >
> > Robert E. Kibler
> > Department of English
> > University of Minnesota
> > [log in to unmask]
> >
> > fortunatus et ille, deos qui novit agrestis,
> > Panaque Silvanumque senem Nymphasque sorores.
> >
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