>From: Jack Savage <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: - Ezra Pound discussion list of the University of Maine
>    <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: "self-sufficient work of art"
>Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2001 15:07:36 -0800
>
>>From: Dirk Johnson <[log in to unmask]>
>>Reply-To: - Ezra Pound discussion list of the University of Maine
>>    <[log in to unmask]>
>>To: [log in to unmask]
>>Subject: Re: "self-sufficient work of art"
>>Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2001 09:35:19 -0800
>>
>>Your point is well-taken, but why use a term like "self-sufficient", which
>>implies so much more?  The terminology itself seems to have been invented
>>in
>>order to raise a certain type of work above others by imbuing these works
>>with an ontological superiority. Why not just call them "straight-forward"
>>or "accessible" or something like that?  Could it be that, though
>>accessibility is their touchstone, critics of this ilk wish to retain the
>>mystery of the mantle of scholarship and to create an elitism of the
>>anti-intellectual?
>>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: Tim Romano [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
>>Sent: Saturday, December 22, 2001 6:19 AM
>>To: [log in to unmask]
>>Subject: "self-sufficient work of art"
>>
>>
>>Not that I agree with the critical stance taken by Garrick Davis ... but I
>>think he had in mind the kind of work that makes no recondite or arcane
>>allusions, when he used the term "self-sufficient". Take Hemingway's _ The
>>Old Man and the Sea _, for example; it alludes broadly to baseball in a
>>way
>>that "everybody" would understand, not to its obscure statistics or to a
>>particularly dazzling double-play in the bottom of the 8th inning of some
>>game that has achieved legendary status among baseball fans, but in the
>>form of beloved teams.
>>
>>To understand Hemingway's allusions requires a deep acculturation. To
>>understand Pound's allusions, on the other hand, requires extensive
>>book-learning and a cross-cultural, anthropological perspective.  As I
>>understood Garrick's question, it might be paraphrased so:  for an epic to
>>be a successful epic, doesn't it have to play to the deep acculturation of
>>a People, not the to book-learning and polyglot abilities of the elites?
>>The cross-cultural and the Epic don't seem to mix, do they?
>>
>>My reply to that question would be this: the fair critic must ask how the
>>Cantos seeks to _transcend_ the epic genre with respect to  Place, Time,
>>People, Language, and the task set for its Hero.
>>
>>Tim Romano
>
>
>" ... an elitism of the anti-intellectual"
>
>Yes. And let's consider the source of that distinctively
>American attitude:  --  fundamentalist Xtianity.
>
>The Puritan invaders, ironically imitating Mother Church (R.C.),
>long ago established a deep-seated suspicion -- if not ouright
>fear -- of knowledge.
>
>"Science is the criticism of Myth."  .... Yeats
>
>Knowledge leads to Questions; questioning to Doubt ...
>and there are still those among our fellow citizens (U.S.)
>who maintain that the only Book one needs to read is
>Ta Biblia.
>
>(Mr Pound "knew his Bible".)
>
>At any rate, if what we want in Art is that which will express
>"emotion" to the greatest number in the simplest fashion,
>we don't need to exert ourselves beyond the verse
>of a Hallmark card.
>
>"It ain't just to walk around and sing --
>you gotta step out a little -- right?"
>
>Robert Alan Zimmerman said that
>
>Have a very merry winter solstice
>
>(I said that)
>
>the Zimmerman quotation

"It ain't NOTHING
just to walk around and sing" ...
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