Okay--

I've been lurking on this list for a while, but I have to jump in this time.
This seems a rather artificial discussion, my own input (which follows at an
unfortunate length) included...

Did I miss something, or isn't part of Pound's project a kind of
balancing/synthesising of East/West mythologies and traditions? So why is it
that Pound scholars so often assert the necessity of Greek and/or Latin as a
prereq for reading the Cantos, but not Chinese? Surely the Chinese portions
of the Cantos are equally significant? And surely Chinese is even _more_
difficult to translate (culturally as well as linguistically) than Greek and
Latin, which we at least have cultural ties to? So how many of us are
reading Chinese to frame, ground and contextualise our readings of the
Chinese Cantos?

And doesn't that cultural slippage make the Chinese portions of the Cantos
equally valuable, indeed, perhaps _more_ significant, given their less
familiar status in Western culture? How many of the folks out there stumping
for Greek, Latin, and reading Homer in the allegedly original feel that way
about any of the Chinese sources? In other words--we need to be consistent,
here. If you can't read _all_ the sources in the original--East and West
alike--then is an argument for any single original language credible? I
would think that several of the scholars who participated in the China
conference two years ago, for instance, might have much to contribute on
Western interpretations of Eastern thought in the Cantos.

And please enlighten me: why would we assist in perpetuating the idea that
poetry is only valid and valuable when it's possible for only the
well-educated elite to decipher? Could that have anything to do with, oh,
job security??? Can it really be the general belief of this list that
"accessible" poetry--I believe Li Po was one example used--lacks
significance? Or is that why at least one lister deprecated Pound's earlier
work, as if it lacks the "intellectual rigour" of the Cantos?

Both Tims: I applaud the sense(s) of humour that ground the difficult
questions you both raise. I wish my Albertson's--or maybe Wild Oats?--had
the Cantos at the checkout stand, Tim R...:) And I didn't care much for
Achilles, either, Tim B., until I read _Achilles in Vietnam_, which
discussed his incredibly self-centered behaviours as perhaps the earliest
documented case of PTSD...He's still not my favourite hero, but then neither
is Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now, of whom he reminds me...:)

And as a comp/rhet type who sometimes uses Pound (even in Freshman Comp) as
an example of astounding rhetoric, I really feel that disciplinary ad
hominems don't accomplish much. There are a number of reasons--few if any of
them having much to do with comp/rhet--why classics aren't taught today. In
fact, rhetoric is one place where the Greeks and Romans are still lively
topics of debate--even in undergrad courses...

As for Pound being disowned by the contemporary poetic community .... as a
practicing, published poet I feel pretty comfortable with a resounding 'No!'
here. Many bright lights in 20th century poetry--from Merwin to Hirschfield,
for instance, from Hass to Oliver--acknowledge a profound debt to Pound.
Scratch most contemporary poets and they'll bleed a familiarity with
imagism, at the very least...Or do I forget that Pound's early work may not
be suitable for inclusion in this rather rarified atmosphere?

Doesn't it seem to anyone else that we miss the point of poetic beauty, of
poignant and transcendent language, of windows into other worlds and places,
when we become so enmeshed in what really feels a lot like minutiae...? I'm
with the Tims, here, as well as whoever it was who championed poetry as
being fundamentally about language...Aren't we attempting to dictate how
people should read--a dangerous prescriptive--when we mandate the classics,
the original language, certain frames for meaning...? Why can't we just
accept that different people read from different needs and motives: some of
us read Pound as much for his astonishing craftsmanship as for his obscure
allusions. And some of us read Pound for reasons difficult to articulate,
but no less valid and compelling.

Britton Gildersleeve