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Peter Montgomery <[log in to unmask]>
Tue, 3 Jun 2014 06:19:43 +0000
text/plain (245 lines)
Lewis insulted everybody. He saw that as his job as a satirist. It left him with very few friends when he was blind and helpless. Even his closest supporter, Eliot, got a severe blast and called a pseudoist in MEN WITHOUT ART. It's not that Lewis can be defended. He just needs to be accepted on those grounds and appreciated for the work worth attention, like THE HUMAN AGE and TIME AND WESTERN MAN.  Also, consider that if the satire hit so many nerves even unfairly, there must have been something to it, or it would just have been laughed off. It helps somewhat to look at it in the context of Swift's MODEST PROPOSAL which was absolutely outrageous.
   Curious how he can spark a discussion even now. To this day I love his satire on Canada in SELF-CONDEMNED.
Peter M.

Roxana Preda <[log in to unmask]> wrote:


In1927 when he was particularly distressed by the turn Pound’s
activities had taken, Lewis remarked that the images in
CantosVIII-XIXmake “it all effectively like a spirited salon-picture,
gold framed and romantically ‘classical.’"

That WAS an insult. The Malatesta Cantos at least, are an application
of Cubism and Vorticism in literature. But then WL was hell-bent on
insulting EP at that time. He hit exactly where it hurt most, probably
as payback.
He felt that EP had pulled Blast from under him.


Quoting Peter Montgomery <[log in to unmask]> on Mon, 2 Jun 2014
20:11:44 +0000:

> And then there is Fred Flahiff's admirable biography of Sheila
> Watson, NeWest Press 2005, ALWAYS SOMEONE TO KILL THE DOVES.
> Peter M.
>
> Michael Edmunds <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>
> Anyone interested in Watson can download here thesis here
>
> http://stmikes.utoronto.ca/kelly/special-collections/pdf/SWDissertationTiessen191009.pdf
>
> It should be noted that Donald Theall, McLuhan's first PhD student,
> wrote his thesis on Pound, Eliot, Yeats and Joyce. He refused to
> include Lewis for a few reason.
> Sheila Watson then completed the "1914" project under McLuhan with
> her thesis.
>
> Through out Watson writes of Pound in the Lewis world.
>
> Sheila Watson
> Wyndham Lewis and Expressionism
>
> "Writing about Lewis the visionary in 1932 Hugh Gordon Porteus says that in
> The Enemy of the Stars Lewis“translates what he sees into terms of
> painting, and translates
> the results into words which embody, in embryo, the same gesture.” 70
> For Lewis, as for Pound, he suggests, “the primary
> pigment of poetry is the image.” The truth of this statement
> depends entirely on the definition of “image.”
>
> "Retrospectively Lewis dissociated himself, as he did
> perhaps less consciously at the time when Pound was involved
> in the production of Blast, from the activities of the Imagists,
> whom, he said, he looked on as “pompier,” or academic.71
> In1927 when he was particularly distressed by the turn Pound’s
> activities had taken, Lewis remarked that the images in
> CantosVIII-XIXmake “it all effectively like a spirited salon-picture,
> gold framed and romantically ‘classical.’"
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ________________________________________
> From: - Ezra Pound discussion list of the University of Maine
> [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Peter Montgomery
> [[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Monday, June 02, 2014 2:33 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Plays about Ezra Pound
>
> Sheila Watson's writing maybe of value to this list as an adjunct.
> Her thesis on Lewis is definitive. It, like all her work was very
> assiduously done. I believe she defined her life's work in terms of
> her students.
> Peter M.
>
> Roxana Preda <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>
> I'll be at that conference - will come to listen!
> best,
> Roxana
>
> Quoting Bob Dobbs <[log in to unmask]> on Mon, 2 Jun 2014 07:23:21 -1000:
>
>> The title of my talk at the BLAST 1914 Conference at Bath Spa
>> University at the end of July will be:
>>
>> "Mind Your Media, People, or You'll Catch a Cold Environment: Sheila
>> Watson as Missing Link in Lewis Scholarship"
>>
>> So, your life's work will be well-represented, Peter.
>>
>> :@)
>>
>>
>> Bob Dobbs
>>
>>
>> On Jun 2, 2014, at 12:01 AM, Peter Montgomery wrote:
>>
>>> One of Marshall McLuhan's (who had his own history with Pound)
>>> students, a person named Sheila Watson, did her PhD on Percy
>>> Wyndham Lewis of Vorticist  and portraiture fame, also WWI artist
>>> for the Canadian govt. She wrote one of the definitive Canadian
>>> novels, The Double Hook, which has the influence of Pound, Eliot
>>> and Lewis about it, while being entirely original. I think it might
>>> well be worthy of consideration for a place in such a list. A
>>> quotable phrase from it is something like: He didn't know that one
>>> couldn't catch the glory without the darkness, and to catch twice
>>> the glory was to catch twice the darkness (almost an accurate quote).
>>>
>>> Just saying.
>>> Peter M.
>>>
>>> Roxana Preda <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> Hi Stephen,
>>>
>>> I have now supplemented the plays list with the info and links about
>>> Findley you gave us.
>>>
>>> Our website is that easy to update, even from the front end.
>>>
>>> Many thanks for this.
>>> We also have a first item for a future list about fiction on EP!
>>>
>>> Michael Coyle has also informed me of the existence of a bibliography
>>> of poems about Ezra that Lea Baechler was compiling. Anyone might know
>>> where her papers are? At least we would know where to look.
>>>
>>> Best wishes,
>>> Roxana
>>>
>>> Quoting Stephen J Adams <[log in to unmask]> on Sun, 1 Jun 2014 23:56:15 -0400:
>>>
>>>> Poundians:
>>>>
>>>> The Bibliography should note that Timothy Findley's play The Trials
>>>> of Ezra Pound has had at least one major professional production at
>>>> the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in 2001. I saw it then and was
>>>> impressed, though with reservations. The play struck me as fairly
>>>> even handed, probing, questioning rather than tendentious or
>>>> hostile. Biographically it struck me as reasonably correct, though
>>>> it represents EP erroneously as anti-religious.
>>>>
>>>> Findley, who is highly regarded among recent Canadian novelists,
>>>> also wrote Famous Last Words, about a character named Mauberley
>>>> surviving in Italy during the last months of the War. I have taught
>>>> that book, as well as his Not Wanted on the Voyage, a retelling of
>>>> the Noah and the Flood story. (Findley's hostilities towards Jehovah
>>>> are more overt than they are towards Pound.) His writing is
>>>> engaging, highly readable, probing in its way, popular with the
>>>> students, but ultimately, as I found in teaching, not as deep as it
>>>> might have been.
>>>>
>>>> For the play, there are a number of websites, but check these:
>>>>
>>>> http://www.stage-door.com/Theatre/2001/Entries/2001/7/22_The_Trials_of_Ezra_Pound.html
>>>>
>>>> http://journals.hil.unb.ca/index.php/tric/article/view/7274/8333
>>>>
>>>> Stephen Adams
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 06/01/14, Roxana Preda  <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>>>> Dear Poundians,
>>>>>
>>>>> In a previous discussion some time ago, people showed interest in
>>>>> creative writing about Pound and deplored the fact that plays about
>>>>> him and his life were not more widely known.
>>>>>
>>>>> Here was our chance to put our new website to the test. Archie
>>>>> Henderson compiled a very useful bibliography of plays about Pound
>>>>> that I have just uploaded to our website. Please have a look at
>>>>> http://ezrapoundsociety.org/index.php/creativewriting
>>>>>
>>>>> What is good about the list is that it gives us statuses of the
>>>>> plays (whether in manuscript or published; whether performed or
>>>>> not). It gives synopses and in a considerable number of cases, the
>>>>> full text of the plays.
>>>>> We are now able to see just what sides of Pound's life fired the
>>>>> writers' imagination: how they saw him, what words they put into
>>>>> his mouth.
>>>>>
>>>>> I have checked all the links at my end and hope all of them work
>>>>> for you too.
>>>>> What was scattered and seemed lost is now at our fingertips.
>>>>>
>>>>> A warm vote of thanks to Archie!
>>>>>
>>>>> Enjoy,
>>>>> Roxana
>>>>>
>>>>> PS Maybe we could also have a list of poems, maybe? Or fiction,
>>>>> who knows?
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
>>>>> Scotland, with registration number SC005336.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Stephen J. Adams
>>>> Department of English
>>>> University of Western Ontario
>>>> "Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime;
>>>> therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or
>>>> beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of
>>>> history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however
>>>> virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we must be saved by
>>>> love."
>>>> – Reinhold Niebuhr
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
>>> Scotland, with registration number SC005336.
>>
>>
>
>
>
> --
> The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
> Scotland, with registration number SC005336.
>
>


--
The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
Scotland, with registration number SC005336.

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