While I am by no means an expert of matters Pound I do enjoy reading the
list. In response to the Gill e-mail I must ask if Pound had an affinity for
the work of Sandro Botticelli? There is one painting by B. that has Pallas
Minerva subduing the Centaur. The philosophy behind the painting is said by
one Gombrich, who traces the philosophy to Ficino, who was also the
inspiration behind SB's Spring, thus the now well-known dialectic of the
centaur being both the animal/sensual and the human, Minerva being the
obvious reason. This leads to my question, where as I am more aware of
Pound's alleged and otherwise Anti-Semitism a small sampling of the Cantos
and miscellaneous shorter works, also some of the correspondence with TSE
and Voices and Visions bio, than the more erudite of you respective
scholars. Knowing that Pound must have loved Italy where would I find in the
Cantos or elsewhere his knowledge or mention of the Italian Renaissance. I
realize this is a rather broad question and blame you not if you deem me
unworthy of answer---does Botticelli figure in Pound's work?
BTW I loved the essay on Sherri Martenelli. I have checked out two of the
books in the biblio one on Pound the other about beat women.
Well thanks for your time,
Scott Reynolds
-----Original Message-----
From: Jonathan P. Gill <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thursday, March 11, 1999 1:14 PM
Subject: Re: that centaur ant
 
 
>This passage is also more difficult, I think, because it's so
>beautiful--we're so moved that we don't think!  Whether that's good or
>bad, I leave to another post...
>
>I remember having seen the centaur identified as a figure of creativity
>for Pound, but now that I think about it, wouldn't Daedalus be the figure
>of the artist?  And the centaur the evidence of warped passions that must
>be contained by the artist?
>
>Might this be Pound's attempt to pull off a bi- or tri-cultural figure?
>That is, looking out from the Gorilla cage and thinking about Jews and
>Greeks?
>
>Jonathan Gill
>Columbia University