the parble of the 'poet as doctor' as well as the 'poet as scientists' run throughout Poun's prose; if you add a little derrida, and say that what the scientist is producing and what the doctor is prescribing is a kind of 'pharmakon' or drug both as social medicine and a kind of poision to root out the unwanted. that way the poet becomes a counter-measure to the contemporary 'sickness' which might include bad legislation. perhaps im read too much into/out of it though...

tony.


-----Original Message-----

> Date: Sun Oct 12 11:15:28 PDT 2003
> From: "Jonathan Weidler" <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Canto II & Prohibition
> To: [log in to unmask]
>
> Dear friends --
>
> I last night ran across a claim (authored by Hugh Kenner) that Canto II
> is an "oblique protest against the Prohibition amendment".  I did some
> searches around in the MLA bibliography but didn't find any articles
> that address this oblique protest.  (I did find some that appear to
> suggest prohibition as a good-enough motivation to keep American expats
> in Europe.)  Does anyone first of all know of essays that cope with
> Pound & Prohibition?  Does anyone secondly, have a good reading of
> Canto II that points in this direction?  I suppose I could attempt this
> reading alone (and I will, regardless), but recognizing that there is
> no substitute for critical tradition, I would very much like to listen
> to your thoughts as well.
>
> It does seem strange that such a socially sweeping legislative act
> should not find fuller representation in the verse of Modernist poets,
> particularly compared with the non-stop temperance talk of their
> antebellum predecessors.  Perhaps there's a connection between popular
> social control of alcohol and popular discourse that state-imposed
> Prohibition short-circuits.  Particularly in light of the present day
> War on Drugs, this seems a critical question.  For what reasons do
> public communicators become silent about state-based prohibition?  What
> Pound would have to say on this is opaque to me -- it doesn't seem to
> be something he talks about.  Any ideas?
>
> Go Cubs!
> Jon Weidler (in Chicago)