Cameron McWhirter,
 
thanks for this article...about as unambiguous an illustration,
(issuing as it does from the spiritual heights of boojwa liberalism)
ideologically, of the emperor's new clothes as is ever likely
to appear.
 
nothing anomolous here:
at this moment in the history of the kingdom of the west
the "piss christ" & "shit madonna" perfectly express
the sense of the ruling class elite toward the "xian tradition"
(its metaphysic of "the little ones");
and therefore their position in the bourgeois liberal cultural shrine
is ensured.
otoh, blasphemy against the cult of capital,
land jobbery, stock jobbery, usurey,...
...the so dearly beloved fetish, "money",
the mandarin caste, jewry,
...is so outrageous
that despite the endless self-complacent drivvel
about their wonderful "freedoms";
they percieve nothing contradictory
in denying ep standing in the canon.
 
bob
 
 
 
 
 
-----Original Message-----
From: Cameron McWhirter <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tuesday, December 28, 1999 10:22 PM
Subject: FYI-- from today's Washington Times re Pound and St. John
 
 
December 28, 1999
Dangerous to honor
John Julian Vecchione
A ceremony took place this past year in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine
which was notable more for what was absent than what was present. On Oct.
24,
the needs of politics overtook the beauty of art when a ceremony placing
Ezra
Pound in the Cathedral's Poet's Corner was aborted. The magnificent
Cathedral
is justly famed for its beauty, its commitment to liberal theology, and its
belief that the arts contribute to the worship of the divinity. This is the
basis of the Cathedral's angelic musical tradition. It is also reflected in
the Poet's Corner. In that niche of the Episcopal sanctuary are honored
Americans who have contributed the most to literature.
Luminaries such as Hart Crane, E.E. Cummings, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt
Whitman, Mark Twain, Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville, Ernest Hemingway and
a
host of others are honored in the Cathedral's Arts Bay with stones bearing
their names. The long connection of Anglican Divines with art and literature
is continued in Morningside Heights' magnificent sanctuary.
A writer is not inducted into this august company by ecclesiastical
whim. The Academy of American Poets, which includes Robert Pinsky, poet
laureate of the United States, John Updike, and Rita Dove, National Book
Award winner for poetry, must place their imprimatur on which truly great
men
and women of letters will be honored.
This year two new inductees were to be admitted: F. Scott Fitzgerald and
Ezra Pound. At the last minute, a letter was sent by the Very Rev. Harry S.
Pritchett Jr. to the Academy stating that Pound would not be inducted.
Members of the congregation had threatened a demonstration if such a
ceremony
were to go forward. The bishop acceded to the pressure. Pound's son,
daughter, and Pound scholars planning to attend were informed of the
cancellation. Daniel Hoffman, poet in residence at St. John's, sent the news
that the congregation had protested the induction of Pound and that he would
not be honored in the Cathedral. Fitzgerald's induction proceeded as
planned.
The incident sheds a harsh light on the thrall political correctness has
on the broad-minded in New York. The uproar occurred because Ezra Pound, not
to put too fine a point on it, was an anti-Semite and a traitor in the
service of fascism. Although a seminal figure of modern poetry, Pound
created
a scandal that resonates today by broadcasting for the Italian Fascists
during World War II and for the anti-Semitism he espoused. After the war
Pound was tried as a traitor but spent 12 years in St. Elizabeth's after
being found insane. Eventually, an international outcry by intellectuals and
poets lead to his release.
Traitor, anti-Semite, fascist and madman, Ezra Pound is a poster boy for
bad behavior. The Episcopalians are perfectly within their rights to refuse
to honor him in their own Cathedral. The initial acceptance however, up to
even creating the stone for the Pound niche, followed by sudden reversal,
smacks of politics rather than religious belief. Notably, there is a curious
silence from the arts community at this form of "censorship." At a time when
all the cognoscenti of New York are outraged at Rudy Giuliani for
cutting-off
funds for anti-Catholic art in a public institution, not a peep of protest
has been raised against "narrow-minded" Episcopalians. The defense of Andrew
Serrano and his "Piss Christ," or the more recent denigration of the Virgin
Mary with elephant dung, rest on the assertion that good art must challenge
our beliefs and assumptions. Any resistance to these "challenges" is rebuked
as babbitry.
How odd then, that the liberal, transgressive world of high-minded
artistic endeavor is not up-in-arms over St. John the Divine's decision.
Pound is, by common consent, one of the greatest poets of the age. Measured
by influence alone, he ranks in the top five poets of the century. He
encouraged or improved the work of T.S. Eliot, Robert Frost, and James
Joyce.
The work for which he is honored is, in the main, neither fascistic nor
anti-Semitic. It is Pound's political associations that are too challenging
for those who normally lecture the devout to lighten-up when artists attack
all that they love.
Marsha Ra, warden of the Cathedral's congregation and leader of the
protest is quoted as saying Pound is "not representative of Christian
values." She continued with what is normally regarded as blasphemy in the
rarefied world of New York intellectuals: "The belief in art for art's sake
is neither Christian nor Jewish. We are not a temple to the Muses." This is
a
perfectly reasonable position to take. Tellingly however, when
traditionalists make such points against left-wing artistic expression is
the
fact that they face the combined animosity of The New York Times, the
wealthy
art aristocracy, and the cultural elites. It is tempting to compare Pound to
the others the progressive congregation honors in the Poet's Corner.
Mark Twain's writings were virulently anti-Catholic, and he was a foe of
organized religion in general. Hemingway died by his own hand; a mortal sin
in
Christian theology. Poe was a booster of Southern slavery. Fitzgerald used
anti-Semitic slurs frequently in his correspondence. T.S. Eliot held to the
fashionable, upper-crust anti-Semitism of his day. Others made sport of
opposing Christian moral teachings regarding sexuality.
Yet only Pound is denied a place in the Episcopal pantheon. Pound even
has an excuse for his most odious actions: An American court of law found
him
mad. For 12 years he languished in an insane asylum. Time and again
Episcopal
Bishops have attempted to intercede on behalf of accused criminals because
they were mentally unfit to stand trial. Evidently this mercy is only
granted
murderers.
When Pound was released he seemed to disavow his anti-Semitism to fellow
poet Alan Ginsberg. Forgiveness upon repentance has an impressive Christian
pedigree. The most interesting aspect of the whole Pound adventure is what
it
reveals concerning that which truly offends those making artistic choices in
New York. Had Pound denounced the Catholic Church in Vietnam and justified
the communist atrocities in that country, does anyone doubt that he would be
in the Poet's Corner today? Pablo Neruda, a great poet and unrepentant
Stalinist is the subject of fawning adulation.
Mediocrities like Maya Angelou are lauded precisely because of their
left-wing views. Year after year literary prizes go to anti-Catholic
crusaders. Yet the banishment of Pound goes almost unremarked. Where is The
New York Times? The directors of artistic enterprises throughout New York?
Had the Baptists excluded a writer of the first rank from their celebrations
because of his politics the outrage in New York would not yet have subsided.
Frank Rich call your office.
Here we come to the crux of the matter. The world-view preached in
Morningside Heights is so indistinguishable from the prejudices of New
York's
secular cultural arbiters that it is immune to the cries of censorship that
greet any other display of moral opprobrium towards art by the religious
leaders of New York. The politicization of the art world is now so advanced
that an undisputed literary heavyweight is denied a place beside his fellows
because of political views which barely manifested in his art.
The Cathedral of St. John the Divine is an indisputable, though
religious, part of this world. Still, Pound is likely to get the final world
because, as he wrote, "The history of art is the history of masterwork, not
of failures, or mediocrity."
John Julian Vecchione is an attorney with Ross & Hardies and a graduate of
Hamilton College, which is also Ezra Pound s alma mater.