----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, January 21, 2000 9:32
PM
Subject: Re: Thanks and query
Hi, Joe:
Your patience in responding to the heated
Scheetz is admirable. I find him
empty and full of himself and a material
of which his persona seems
redolant.
He hasn't actually said
anything about Pound or poetry in his many posts. He
spammed the TSE list
too for a while (I haven't been following their posts
for a good while now,
so he may be posting there yet), and when people on
that list criticised
the inarticulacy of his posts and accused him of being
unclear in his
messages and compared them to Pound's obscurity and
ideosyncratic
spellings, etc., I expected to find him later turning up on
the EP
list.
Lo.
Perhaps that's how he heard of Pound....
Your
last two paragraphs very neatly shot down his recent blather, though
I
don't expect THAT to be felt.
Anyway, a good response, and a
measured and patient.
Chris
> ----------
>
From: Joe Brennan
>
Reply To: Ezra Pound discussion list of the University
of Maine
> Sent: Friday,
January 21, 2000 9:27 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
>
Subject: Re: Thanks and query
>
> In
a message dated 01/20/2000 11:23:36 PM Eastern Standard Time,
> [log in to unmask]
writes:
>
> <<
Erik,
> Regarding typewriters, i.e.
technology's formal effect
> on "writing", there's Nietzsche's
famous saying that he
> philosophized "with a hammer;" punning on
the mechanism
> of the typewriter, but meaning the iconoclastic
force of his exposition.
>
> So... The animistic notion of
technology is really just
> a old red-herring, arising from the
bourgeois
> fetishizing of technology, trotted out biennially
by
> the latest photogenic "intellectual sex-pot" like
McLuhan.
> There is no essential effect.
>
>>
>
> well, there is certainly not this effect, but outside
of such a loaded
> observation, there is certainly some effect, which is
probably not
> generalizable from person to person, as regards both the
influence or the
> extent of that influence.
>
> <<
Similarly, the question regarding the influence of Pound's
>
Cantos, seems also to imply a suspect notion of literary
influence:
> bourgeois reification, copyright, of that (the
platonic)
> which can't be commodified. And, where it
occurs,
> (as in say, Browning's influence of Pound) this type of
influence
> is just trivial, footnote-ish stuff.
>>
>
> again, the issue of influence can't be brushed off so
easily, although the
> exact extent of such influence is probably, in
most instances, impossible
> to
> gauge. however, one can
certainly understand the "commodification"
> objection
> to the
use of influence in critical exegesis, especially in those
>
instances
> where the "influence" is held to be decisive, usually to
support some
> (admittedly trivial) overarching
perspective.
>
>
> The essence of the Cantos is, as we
say today, deconstruction;
> and its thematic well as stylistic is
the
> logically necessary outcome of an attempt at
>
radical platonic exposition,
> the laying open human
truth
> sans embellishment (the hallowed paltry
dodges,
> metaphysical and rhetorical); that's to say,
an
> anti-art art...the diabolical inversion of "art pour
l'art,"
> or nihil-ation.
>
> But, having once
seen this, the inexorable hermeneutical
> progression is to
thematize, metaforize, totalize,
> ...nso on, IT
("deconstruction");
> which, as we used to say, is the box we're
in today,
> "the wind which will not subside."
> The
Cantos poetizes the wind which we all feel.
> ...'n everbody's
doin it, no?
> So do we more properly speak of the
influence
> of The Cantos or the zietgiest [the spirit of the
times]?
>
> this is true among literary critics, but what of those
who engage the
> method
> of the cantos at the level of
investigation and presentation -- that is,
> of
> poets actually
engaging this thematic and this stylistic in their poetic
>
expression?
>
> What could literary influence possibly mean
here?
> ...simply running on interminably and
incomprehensibly
> in vers libre about nothing?
>
...Jerry Seinfeld?
> don't know?
>
> the fallacy here
stems from the desire to put everyone into the same bag
> of
> hot
air. everyone is not a critic, nor does every critic approach
the
> cantos
> at the level of deconstruction, nor does every act
of deconstruction
> reflect
> the same parts.
>
> joe
brennan
>
>
> thanks
>
bob
> >>
>