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Subject:
From:
Charles Moyer <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
- Ezra Pound discussion list of the University of Maine <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Mon, 16 Apr 2007 07:23:58 -0400
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Well, who was the greater theologian, Pound or Sherman? Tom, I don't think
you have to humble yourself to the sacrosanct Pound "scholars". I would
rather read what you have to write because your thoughts always come from a
heart which has deeply and wisely read from its own experience, and that is
how you are like Pound himself.

Pax vobiscum,
Charlie

> From: Tom White <[log in to unmask]>
> Reply-To: - Ezra Pound discussion list of the University of Maine
> <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2007 14:08:10 -0500
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Pound & Baudelaire?
> 
> 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:
>> 
>> Baudelaire¹s ŒDu vin et du haschisch¹ and ŒLes Paradis
>> artificiels¹‹?‹are
>> the latter
>> 
>> in receipt of a riposte from EP, apropos‹the paradise in not
>> artificial
>> 
>> And in passing Œparadise¹ schematically pervades the Cantos, as TW
>> says, is
>> he working up a total statement on this‹?‹:
>> 
>> Œhath no man a painted paradise on his church wall¹ C 45
>> 
>> ŒSo that walking here under the larches of Paradise¹ C 94
>> 
>> Œnel Paradiso Terrestre¹ C 105
>> 
>> ŒI tried to make a paradiso
>> terrestre.¹ C 117 [incomplete]
>> 
>> ...& more
>> 
>> 
>> ‹Kevin Kiely, Dublin

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