"...whenever the Chinese poems trailed off into infinity, or abstract
transcendentalism, Pound cut and replaced with something more
concrete."
In other words, whenever the writing went bad, whenever it became soft,
vague, illogical, or aridly abstract, Pound edited, re-invented, "made it
new" ... like any poet worthy of the title.
I agree: the "beauty" Pound champions IS expressed through men and
women (AND is apprehended by men and women) through art ...
but the source of beauty (and let's not forget truth) is not mere MAN...
"Hyperion" expresses it, as I recall, though I have no texts of Pound's with
me here in my temporary home in the Catskills...
When I speak of "the religious" I do not mean religiosity. More the idea
which
Whitehead espoused: "Religion is what a man does with his own solitariness."
Taking this to heart, in a Poundian sense, we find - not surprisingly -
much
music (and resonance!) in what is perhaps Pound's finest and most
transcendent
poetry - the verse he composed when he was most alone (and without access
to libraries) in The Pisan Cantos. Re: the connection between resonance and
transcendence, I call your attention to The Masthead chapter of Moby Dick...
and the touchstone chapter about the Whale nursery (The Grand Armada??)...
Pound, of course, was involved IN the world.... & WITH the world... his
obsession
with economics... etc. But he was more Confucian than Keyesian in his
obsession...
The guiding principle of Confucian ethics is "jen" (Legge defines it as
'humanity',
Waley as 'human-ness'...). Basically, I adhere to Chinese poet and
philosopher,
Joseph Wu's interpretation, i.e.: 'human-heartedness'. The expression of
jen -
or human-heartedness- is the Confucian ideal... tho each human,
depending on his/her station, age, relationship, sex, etc. expresses this
ideal in different ways... The role of the artist/philosopher in the
Confucian
state was to advise the King. Pound took this seriously... as seriously as
Shelly
(was it Shelly?) when he talked about the unacknowledged legislators of the
world... Pound wanted to advise the government because this was what great
poets did... in a Confucian sense. Why? Because the poet saw deeper, more
profoundly, more creatively, the weaknesses and strengths of the human
character...and through the alchemical configurations of the unconscious at
play with the poetic sensibility, could divine the way in which humankind
could escape the situation of irony into which it had fallen. PAIDEUMA
always
pointed the way out ... but who could see it? who could speak it? Only
the poet... to those most powerful leaders in the world who could not see
it at all. One can understand Pound's frustration, then, (dare I say,
anger?)
at Roosevelt's dismissal of his (Pound's) most ardent desire for an
audience with the American President, adding insult to injury by sending him
off to talk to an under secretary of an under secretary... Pound's eventual
meeting with Mussolini was a merely a "playing out" of Pound's sincere
belief
in the social role of the poet, which he got from Confusius (i.e.: to advise
the
King)... As such, it is the PHILOSOPHICAL idea of jen, and, more
importantly,
its implied logic of the balance of heart and mind, which was the source of
Pound's dramatic forays into the world of politics. To make the political
more
poetic, to make out of the manners of nature, a world of transcendent egos -
in the spirit of the Cathars... & then there are the contradictions... the
impossible contradicitions...
Stoneking
----- Original Message -----
From: Robert Kibler <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, August 25, 1999 12:02 PM
Subject: Re: EP and academics
> I would not dispute your essential religious claim for art, but consider:
Anne Chapple, when she examined Pound's use of the Fenollosa notes for
Cathay, saw that whenever the Chinese poems trailed off into infinity, or
abstract transcendentalism, Pound cut and replaced with something more
concrete. Further, in many ways, Pound's theories of art and the
cosmos--his aesthetic metaphysics--would see man--man, at the center of the
cosmos, and religiosity in a crust of bread. Whether a bite into such a
crust of bread was seen by him as a transporting experience or one that
resulted from a wide-awake and active approach to living is perhaps at
issue. Maybe both. Maybe at issue are but two different kinds of religion
experience. Yet while Pound is a study in contradictions, he does put a heck
of a lot of emphasis on the living experience-the time out in the sun, about
in the world. He puts a lot of emphasis on the difficult task of both
recognizing and producing beauty. When he delivers this beauty, is it
comforting (the puritan streak in me, and I would suggest, in Pound, cringes
at the somewhat sumptuous connotations of "comfort on special nights)?
Further, is transcendence the same as resonance?
> I don't know. I am asking.
> >>> William Stoneking <[log in to unmask]> 08/25 9:18 AM >>>
> All art (literature) is essentially religious... i.e.: in its essence,
> it is transcendant, providing a transcendent experience for its
> viewer/reader/listener... the view from the Masthead (vide: Moby Dick)...
> this experience...
> this sense of resonance ... is comforting...
> To the extent that Pound's poetry rises to literature
> (the religious, the transcendent)
> it will comfort those who
> resonate
> with it.
>
> Stoneking
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Robert Kibler <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Wednesday, August 25, 1999 9:40 AM
> Subject: Re: EP and academics
>
>
> > I wonder if Pound would see his Cantos as a work to comfort during those
> certain times late in the night, far from home? I think Frost's work might
> serve this end, but the Cantos is primarily a working text, not a
comforting
> one. (not to say that it does not possess comforting moments, or lyrical,
> impassioned ones).
> > Where is this quality in the Cantos that most provides the comfort
of
> which you write? Serious question.
> >
> > >>> Tim Romano <[log in to unmask]> 08/25 7:18 AM >>>
> > "Much conversation is as good as having a home."
> > -- Pound, Difference of Opinion with Lygdamus
> >
> > >
> > > I wonder what proportion of this list's
> > > readers comprises those, like me, who read EP only for pleasure and
who
> > > find the Cantos, in particular, the only pages that will serve the
> special
> > > needs of certain times late in the night or far from home.>>
> >
>
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