I appreciate your distaste for rivalry, Dan - and thanks for your remarks.
Though I suppose there are some one-to-one relationships between biological
malfunction and volitional behaviour of 'the man who mistook his wife for a
hat' variety, I wouldn't want to argue any more than you that an artistic
form reflects a biological predisposition directly - there are too many
mediating institutional and other factors to be taken into account, and
bourgeois biological universalisms of the Peter Fuller variety have been
well critiqued by Tony Bennett, for example. I like the way you turn up the
heat for reconsideration of abstract metacritical perspectives, though note
that 'predisposed, pre-cracked minds' implies some absolute criterion of
sanity that PERHAPS militates against that reconsideration (perhaps though
sanity is transhistorical in some sense). Also, I'm not sure that Darwin
remains Darwin or Selection is still Natural once transposed onto the
cultural plane. Was it not Darwin who expressed surprise at discovering
that works of art were useless for investigating the physiological basis of
emotional expression in man and animals? That's slightly beside the point,
I concede, and in thinking that I see what in general you mean, would rush
- if I knew enough about them - to a plethora of political and sociological
schemes (Simmel, Weber, Ellias(?)) to shore it up.
Richard
>Yours is an interesting paragraph, Richard. ...
>I would find it pretty amazing, of course, if anyone
>were seriously to suggest that Pound's use of
>discontinuities stemmed from a "biological predisposition,"
>i.e., mental illness. Almost all of Modernism would
>then be subject to similar analysis (and dismissal).
>One could say, however, that the non-linear style-
>preference of the whole Modernist period drew to
>itself certain predisposed, pre-cracked minds that
>found in it a new ecological niche, temperaments
>that could never have crawled out of the woodwork
>in a bourgeois "logical" period. This idea gets
>us into the need for an even more abstract metacritical
>perspective, namely, the need to see art-periodization
>itself in Darwinian terms as the effect produced on
>a culture by Natural Selection when a culture needs
>to cope with changing habitat, the changed habitat
>offering sudden opportunities to previously suppressed,
>marginal mentalities. This last idea I take at least
>half seriously myself.
>
>I won't go on, since I don't wish to rival the paragraph
>to which I'm responding.
>
>==Dan P
>
>
>At 08:57 AM 10/29/98 +0800, you wrote:
>>I sympathize with Tim Redman's plea to wait until publication, thank him
>>for flying the kite and wish him the best with finishing the biography. In
>>a sense the abstract discussion of approaches to the author's mental
>>condition is unsatisfying without the closely argued evidence and case.
>>There's not enough to go on. However, I would also want to take Daniel
>>Pearlman's points concerning the vexed relations of lives and works. It
>>might be an issue - if the bi-polar diagnosis turns out to be convincing -
>>of whether the condition found the poetry or the poetry the condition. If
>>one thinks of what William Empson, for one, said about the vatic state (I
>>can't remember where), then mental imbalance is a hazard of the occupation
>>- 'goes with the territory' - and whether there is biological
>>predisposition or not, may wilfully be triggered, or at least not
>>sufficiently avoided. One could also think of 'traditions' of melancholia
>>accompanying the creative act (vide in visul art Margot and Rudolph
>>Wittkower, Born Under Saturn, or Beckett's preoccupation with Burton's
>>Melancholia) - 'traditions' that do not operate on creative artists in all
>>other cultures - and in view of the fragmentary aspect of visual Cubism
>>(perhaps also of the 'Modern condition') perhaps one would not want, or
>>only want, to associate the discontinuities (or obsessive continuities) of
>>the Cantos with the individual author's mental condition. Genetically,
>>there are said to be many more schizophrenics than those who manifest
>>symptoms, though I'm told the jury is still out on that one.
>>
>>Richard Read
>>
>>>Dan,
>>>
>>> Let's wait until I finish the biography before we discuss
>>>what I'm doing -- I won't entirely know myself until I finish.
>>>
>>> Tim
>>>
>>>On Tue, 27 Oct 1998 18:02:46 -0500 Daniel Pearlman
>>><[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Tim,
>>>>
>>>> In an earlier posting you seemed to indicate that you were
>>>> confining your study of the effects of this disorder to the
>>>> life, rather than using your psychological conclusions to
>>>> try to cast light on the work. I wonder if it is logically
>>>> possible to walk this fine line. If, for example, someone
>>>> were to prove pretty conclusively that Pound was clinically
>>>> insane from, let's say, 1935 to 1945, wouldn't that necessitate
>>>> a re-reading of all he wrote during that period?
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>>
>>>> ==Dan P
>>>>
>>>> At 01:28 PM 10/27/98 -0600, you wrote:
>>>> >I see clear indications of it starting in the '30s, and some signs as
>>>> >early as the 'teens, though that is more difficult to document.
>>>> >
>>>> > Tim
>>>> >
>>>> >On Mon, 26 Oct 1998 11:42:47 -0500 Daniel Pearlman
>>>> ><[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>>> >
>>>> >> Tim,
>>>> >>
>>>> >> Are you referring to a disorder that shaped Pound's behavior
>>>> >> all through his life or only for a certain period?
>>>> >>
>>>> >> ==Dan P
>>>> >>
>>>> >> At 10:11 AM 10/26/98 -0600, you wrote:
>>>> >> >It shaped his behavior.
>>>> >> >
>>>> >> >On Mon, 26 Oct 1998 10:42:52 -0500 Tim Romano <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>>> >> >
>>>> >> >> Tim Redman,
>>>> >> >>
>>>> >> >> Let's assume, arguendo, that the diagnosis of 'bipolar disorder'
>>>> >> >> is on the money. Is it your contention that the mental aberration
>>>> >> >> shaped Pound's art? His behavior? If the former, are there other
>>>> >> >> artists from whose texts one can reach similar diagnoses? And is
>>>> >> >> their art in any way like Pound's? I'm wondering where you have
>>>> >> >> taken or intend to take the diagnosis. I'm curious also if you
>>>> >> >> pass Pound's use of multiple "voices" through this filter.
>>>> >> >>
>>>> >> >> Tim Romano
>>>> >> >
>>>> >> >Tim Redman
>>>> >> >School of Arts and Humanities, JO 31
>>>> >> >University of Texas at Dallas
>>>> >> >P.O. Box 830688
>>>> >> >Richardson, TX 75083-0688
>>>> >> >
>>>> >> >(972) 883-2775 (o)
>>>> >> >(972) 883-2989 (fax)
>>>> >> >
>>>> >> Dan Pearlman Office: Department of English
>>>> >> 102 Blackstone Blvd. #5 University of Rhode Island
>>>> >> Providence, RI 02906 Kingston, RI 02881
>>>> >> Tel.: 401 453-3027 Tel.: 401 874-4659
>>>> >> email: [log in to unmask] Fax: 401 874-2580
>>>> >
>>>> >Tim Redman
>>>> >School of Arts and Humanities, JO 31
>>>> >University of Texas at Dallas
>>>> >P.O. Box 830688
>>>> >Richardson, TX 75083-0688
>>>> >
>>>> >(972) 883-2775 (o)
>>>> >(972) 883-2989 (fax)
>>>> >
>>>> Dan Pearlman Office: Department of English
>>>> 102 Blackstone Blvd. #5 University of Rhode Island
>>>> Providence, RI 02906 Kingston, RI 02881
>>>> Tel.: 401 453-3027 Tel.: 401 874-4659
>>>> email: [log in to unmask] Fax: 401 874-2580
>>>
>>>Tim Redman
>>>School of Arts and Humanities, JO 31
>>>University of Texas at Dallas
>>>P.O. Box 830688
>>>Richardson, TX 75083-0688
>>>
>>>(972) 883-2775 (o)
>>>(972) 883-2989 (fax)
>>
>>
>>
>>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>Dr Richard Read Email [log in to unmask]
>>Senior Lecturer
>>School of Architecture and Fine Arts
>>The University of Western Australia
>>Nedlands WA 6009 Tel +61 8 9380 2140
>>Australia Fax 8 9380 1082
>>
>Dan Pearlman Office: Department of English
>102 Blackstone Blvd. #5 University of Rhode Island
>Providence, RI 02906 Kingston, RI 02881
>Tel.: 401 453-3027 Tel.: 401 874-4659
>email: [log in to unmask] Fax: 401 874-2580
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr Richard Read Email [log in to unmask]
Senior Lecturer
School of Architecture and Fine Arts
The University of Western Australia
Nedlands WA 6009 Tel +61 8 9380 2140
Australia Fax 8 9380 1082
|
