The part of Eliot plausibly quoting Byron. The quote itself reminds me of a
fact I not certain is well-known, viz. the Hebrew bible has no spaces to
delineate the words, reputably to enable myriad interpretations.
Scott Reynolds
-----Original Message-----
From: W. Freind <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thursday, March 11, 1999 2:45 PM
Subject: Re: that centaur ant
 
 
>On Wed, 10 Mar 1999, Yakob Leib ha Kohain [Jacob Leib Cohen, Ph.D.] wrote:
>
>> I once attended a reading by TSE at the University of Chicago in the
>> mid-1950's. During the Q & A at the end, someone asked him what some
>> line or other meant, to which he replied (and here I quote from memory,
>> but the gist is accurate), "A poet, including myself, often writes from
>> inspiration and has no more idea what a poem may mean than its reader."
>
>Eliot has a slew of lines like that. He observes somewhere that if (!) he
>ever republished "Ash Wednesday" he might include an epigraph from Byron's
>_Don Juan_:
>
>        Some have accused me of a strange design
>        Against the creed and morals of the land
>        And trace it in this poem, every line.
>        I don't pretend I quite understand
>        My own meaning when I would be *very* fine;
>        But the fact is I have nothing planned
>        Except perhaps to be a moment merry...
>
>He also has a line about meaning serving as the bone to distract the
>watchdog while the poem burgles the house. Both of those offer a pretty
>interesting commentary on the crossword puzzle approach many (most?)
>critics and readers have brought to _The Waste Land_.
>
>Bill Freind