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From:
Louis Cabri <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
- Ezra Pound discussion list of the University of Maine <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Thu, 24 Aug 2000 06:08:55 -0400
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Hi all,

"The ant's a centaur in his dragon world"!!

I've enjoyed the exploratory form that debate on this line has taken, by
all involved, concerning this line, and offer the following inklings of a
reading, hoping it's not (over) done already.

"Man" is no better than ant-sized, if properly scaled to the "green
world". At issue in this line, then (and, in the libretto), is the vanity
of *humanist* values: "man" is no better than ant. Hence: "Learn of the
green world what can be thy place," a place that has been lost. In fact,
it seems the sole redeeming quality of "man" is "scaled invention or true
artistry" (humanist values if there ever were, of course: but wait!). In
other words, if there is any remorse that this presumably Althea-like
figure is demanding from the reader/ego scriptor (Pound)/masque-persona
(all seem probable), it is remorse as artist for over-stepping the bounds
of art's "scaled invention", for distorting the scale of the "green world"
(wherein the practice of "true artistry" lies, if one knows one's
art's "place") with hate-based 'politics', etc. It is a lesson that other
poets, reading Pound at this time, are eager to learn from as well (and
do, I think).

I'd also like to twist this line, the canto, and the question of remorse,
towards the issue of Spain, particularly the Civil War, about which Pound
has very little to say in The Cantos - in fact, in Canto 81, he writes the
most about it, followed by Canto 105. Spain is a tactically convenient
socio-political ground (established in roughly the first half of Canto 81)
from which to then receive a visitation from the Althea-like figure in a
libretto, because the Spanish Civil War did not see any Western nations
bringing official support to the democractic uprising, so that the
concerns of the Spanish people were tragically compromised by the World
War's victors' side. In this Canto, Pound does not say what political side
he is on (concerning the Civil War, he reveals his allegiances in C105 [in
case there was any doubt!]), and this enables him to present the materials
of the canto as in support of 'the people themselves', including the
artist among them, set in their idyllic "green world," which has to be
re-found.

Remorse is tactical, and specific to Canto 81's artistry.

I'd need to deal with the huge word, "humanism," but I hope my drift,
well, drifts... "Green world" is pre-Renaissance, I'd say...


Louis Cabri

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