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Wed, 28 Jun 2000 15:53:42 -0500 |
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I was just wondering. Is the *Cantos* 'easier' to get into
today than it was for my generation (I'm 70), or is its kind
of difficulty a kind that doesn't disappear over time? Eliot's
*Wasteland*, for example, was "difficult" for readers from,
say, its publication until some time in the '50s, and then
gradually ceased to be difficult. The *Cantos* sort of teach
themselves if one simply browses and rebrowses through them
for a enough years without becoming impatient. Does it take as
much time now as it did back in the '50s? (It took me five or
six years.) Of course at that time there was no significant
commentary to help one -- but from what I've read of commentary
since then, it still doesn't help until after one has quite a bit of
familiarity with the poem.
Carrol
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