Dear Garrick Davis:

What unites I and II?   Contrast.

What do they share?  Journeying after what a man thinks he needs to know  /
discovering what's out there to be known, with diverse responses.

I find I am constantly fairly certain about things I can't wholly grasp --
seems to me a normal condition.  That applies especially to the more
interesting creations of the mind.  We can glimpse what we can't always
grasp.

I don't seek to persuade.  To say 'that's how I see it' does not infringe
your liberty to see it your own way.

But I do question the truth and accuracy of your 'it has no structure' --
you surely need to add, 'so far as I can make out'.   A self-evident fact it
may be to you, but how can you deny that to another it may not be so?  You
would deny me my own insight into the matter?

'The conventions of the epic poem' are not fixed -- Byron's <Don Juan> did
for them in one way, Blake and Wordsworth in other ways.  The advance in
Western (self)-consciousness makes the figure of the poet, and then the
actual reader of the poem, the central or unifying actor.  The action is
discovery of the human universe.  The time is, to be brief, all time now.
The verse is tied to its moment.  Better than applying the old conventions
is to think of it as a musical composition -- i.e. a composition in words in
the modes of music.

Yours in shorthand,

David Moody


----- Original Message -----
From: <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, January 24, 2003 8:05 PM
Subject: Major Form


> Dear Professor,
>
> I note, also without rancor, that you began this conversation with the
assertion, "I am fairly certain that The Cantos do have an apropriate [sic]
form, even if I
> have not yet grasped the whole of it."
>
> I am troubled that you are fairly certain about something that you cannot
fully grasp---which makes it rather hard to argue or demontrate the point. I
am, thus, still unpersuaded by your certainty.
>
> If, by "major form", we mean formal unity from the first to the last
canto--then clearly The Cantos has none. What unites the first and second
Cantos? What character, what action, what theme do they share? The answer
seems to be: nothing. Nor is this lack of continuity between cantos an
aberration: it is endemic to the poem.
>
> In fact, from its very first pages, the poem exhibits an utter disregard
for all the conventions of the epic poem. It has no plot, no central figure,
no linear time or chronology, and no fixed verse form. In short, it has no
structure.
>
> Certainly, there is "minor form" displayed in certain sections of the
poem, certain moments of recurrence or narrative cohesion--but nothing that
makes the whole "cohere."
>
> This seems to me (and forgive the tone of this) a self-evident fact.
>
> Regards,
> Garrick Davis
>
>
>
>
>
>