To Sylvester, Tim, Kevin, Charles:

I'm responding here to the whole list, and perhaps should by now be  
taking this discussion off list, to address only individuals; but  
thought I might be forgiven at least one more message before doing  
that. I am grateful to all I name above for help on my initial query.

To respond to Kevin's query: I posed it because I had two things  
going: I am writing a general article on Pound for a magazine that  
has been kind enough to take some of my things in the past, and I was  
working on a "pum" of my own. The poem started out to be a comment  
(logopoeia?) on Lennon's song, "Imagine," which has annoyed me for  
two reasons (1) he seems to be objecting foolishly to the  
constitution of our universe as our (human) senses receive it, that  
is, as made up of opposites, and (2) and because it is so popular,  
and dammit, so good, IMHO. I especially like Baez's version, as I  
like her version of Dylan's "Forever Young," probably chiefly for the  
reason that I am a month from being 84. I am not bragging (or am I?),  
but perhaps more hinting as to why the existence (or not) of Paradiso  
has come to interest me a lot.

For the general article (not a scholarly effort since I am not a bona  
fide Pound scholar or a scholar of anything else really) I wanted to  
make a sweeping generalization more of less to the effect that  
Pound's entire life and outlook and certainly his megawork, the  
Cantos, reflect, portray, embody, (etc., etc.), the pull and haul of  
two of the master opposites, paradise and hell. I believe in his  
contention, or at least implication, that Paradise can be built and  
held in the mind even before death.

(I keep in mind an ever so slightly impatient dismissal by that saint  
of metaphysical scholarship, Ananda Coomaraswamy, of a correspondent  
of his who wrote to complain that the universe or God or somebody had  
got things wrong with all that good/bad, black/white stuff. He (that  
is, God or his stand-in) should have done better.)

My level of hubris in even attempting to write about EP can be  
indicated by the fact that I had not known that the French version of  
the line about Le paradis referred to a Baudelaire text (thanks, Tim)  
and even with that lead, I still don't know where it comes from in B,  
that is, what the context is. I see Kevin works hashish into the  
picture. I left booze and drugs behind in 59, a decade ahead of the  
so-called Revolution of 1968. I still don't know quite what that  
really was, although I think I was in some ways helping to set it up  
in the 50s.

I particularly love Canto CXX. Maybe it seems to me quintessential  
old-man's verse. I wish I could quote it entire in my mag piece, but  
I suppose it constitutes a "whole poem" for copyright considerations.  
Anybody have an informed opinion on that?

I am a retread Christian with a heightened appreciation of the  
central figure of the Gospels. EP and G. Santayana are two of my  
culture heroes; both of them wrote brilliantly and winningly, I would  
even say lovingly, of Christ; both seem to have been badly burned by  
institutional Xty, something I have come to see as almost inevitable  
in growing up churched. Someone on this email list suggested that  
EP's references to Zagreus can be taken as references to Christ/ 
Logos. I have unfortunately forgotten who it was who said that and  
wish I hadn't. Perhaps no one else sees it that way. Christ is  
presently being rather badly salvaged by the Talmudites; I don't  
think their thing has legs, however. The whole business is up in the  
air, and dishonesty rather rules these days. We all, I think, are  
waiting, one way for another, for release from l'enfer, that is, for  
entry into Le Paradis, with or without houris.

Thanks for your patience. Tom White


On Apr 14, 2007, at 11:09 AM, Kevin Kiely wrote:

> Sylvester, Tim and Colleagues,
>
> Tom White suggests an ignition, leading from/to:
>
> Baudelaire’s ‘Du vin et du haschisch’ and ‘Les Paradis  
> artificiels’—?—are
> the latter
>
> in receipt of a riposte from EP, apropos—the paradise in not  
> artificial
>
> And in passing ‘paradise’ schematically pervades the Cantos, as TW  
> says, is
> he working up a total statement on this—?—:
>
> ‘hath no man a painted paradise on his church wall’ C 45
>
> ‘So that walking here under the larches of Paradise’ C 94
>
> ‘nel Paradiso Terrestre’ C 105
>
> ‘I tried to make a paradiso
>                                         terrestre.’ C 117 [incomplete]
>
> ...& more
>
>
> —Kevin Kiely, Dublin