I have been reading this list for a month now and I would like to thank you for the most intelligent post so far. John. >From: Everett Lee Lady <[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: discussions... >Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2000 13:18:35 -1000 > > >From: Burt Hatlen <[log in to unmask]> > >Subject: Re: discussions... > >Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2000 05:44:52 -1000 > > > >From: Jake > >> > >> As a current undergraduate student very interested in Ezra Pound, > >>I joined this list serve with high hopes for mature, academic discussion > >>of Ezra Pound's works, most especially his poetry, as it is a formidable > >>and challenging (but also invigorating, and, at its best, moving and > >>affecting) collection. At times, I have found this kind of discussion >at > >>its best. But more often, I tend to find meaningless squabbles over the > >>relative merits of completely unrelated books (i.e., the Seamus Heaney > >>discussion) and bitter academic infighting. If this is the life of > >>academia, perhaps I should reconsider my choice of careers... Is there > >>any way the list serve could perhaps sped more time on actual, >worthwhile > >>discussion and less time on these more trivial matters. > >> ... > >>--Jake > >I do think that it's a good idea for you to *reconsider* your choice of >careers. Not necessarily change it, but try to assess realistically what >it will involve. It's hard to do this realistically with any sort of >career when you are a student. One tends to be attracted to a career for >reasons that are very different from the reality of it. I think that a >career in academia is probably no better nor worse in this respect than >most others. > >People go to graduate school for all sorts of reasons. Often, as in my >case, it's because they can't figure out what else to do with their life >at the moment, and going to school is one thing they know they're good >at. But somewhere in the mix of motives there is probably some love, or >at least strong liking, for one's subject. > >It often seems that everything about the academic world is designed to >kill this love one has for one's subject. Certainly this seems to be >true of most graduate programs, which are pressure cookers focussing >students' attention on papers to be written, comprehensive exams, and >the like. > >Within academia, it is the rare academic whose who manages to do work >which is primarily a manifestation of love for his subject. These are >the exceptional scholars like Northrop Frye and Hugh Kenner whose books >are intended to enable readers to have a deeper understanding of >literature and a deeper enjoyment of it. > >For most academics, though, critical work becomes an end in itself, >addressed not to the general audience of readers but almost exclusively >to fellow academics. Most of the articles you see posted on the list >here are a reflection of this. > >There was a visiting writer here at the University of Hawaii a few years >ago who said, "A short story should be an urgent message." Whether this >is true of short stories, or novels, or poems is something that can be >argued about. But it is certainly seldom true of academic work, and >this is one of the major differences between EP and the academics. >Alomost everything EP wrote was written as an urgent message to the >world, not something intended primarily to add to his publication list >and boost his reputation. > >Not everyone contributing to this list is an academic, though. I >myself am one, at least technically, but not in literature but rather >mathematics. I do not consider myself an academic any more, though. >Or at least, if I am, I am a totally irresponsible one. Twenty odd >years ago, I found that I had wound up at a university where good >academic work is not rewarded. (This is not the fault of the attitude >of the academics here, but rather built into the structure of the >university.) At first I was very angry about this, because my work >had been rewarded extremely well at the University of Kansas, where I >had been previously, but after a while I realized that it was a >blessing in disguise, because publishing papers in journals and >establishing a reputation in the mathematical world was never something >I really wanted to do, but something I did in order to satisfy the >expectations of others. Now, if I have something I want to say to the >world (usually not mathematics), I put it on my web site and write it >to satisfy myself, not some editor. Occasionally someone sends me >email to ask, "How do I cite this article from your web site?" and I >write back, "Beats the hell out of me! That's your game, not mine." > >But I got where I am by playing that game. > > >I started reading this list because forty years ago I used to be one of >E.P.'s regular visitors at St. Elizabeths, and I finally decided that >I want to see what people now think about the man and about his work. > >What I've found is that there's now enormously more information >available, but attitudes have changed very little. The same old >arguments are still going on, and it's still true that most people who >write about him, and most people who have made a profession about being >interested in him, have little conception of who he was (despite the fact >that there are excellent biographies, such as those of Charles Norman and >Humphrey Carpenter, which portray him very vividly) and are committed >to ways of thinking that he condemned, such as concentrating attention on >labels ("traitor," "Fascist," "Imagist") as a substitute for looking at >the reality behind the labels. > > >I don't agree with you about the discussion of Heaney's Beowulf, which > >has been, I think, a thoughtful exploration of the principles involved > >in the translation of poetry. But I agree that this list is the scene > >of a excessive amount of egoistic posturing. Pound himself was prone > >to such behavior. In his prose especially, he was in the habit of > >announcing his opinions in a strident tone of voice, usually without > >benefit of supporting argument, as if any sensible person should be > >able to SEE the obvious truth of what he was saying. > >Academic posturing is different in quality from Pound's posturing, which >for many people (myself being one) has a very refreshing quality, even >while one notices that at times it is extremely foolish: the attitude of a >bright young iconoclast (and even in his fifties, EP was still a bright >young man) who is an enthusiast rather than a thinker. > >Posturing is an almost essential part of the academic world. Go to some >of your department's colloquia to observe this, Jake. An academic is >always grading, and always being graded. The object is always to >impress, because success in the academic world depends on impressing >people. When a new book in one's field comes out, academics will >always have to *judge* it. And the judgement is not primarily on the >basis of "Did I enjoy it?" or "Did I learn something from it?" but >instead on the basis of "How good is it?" "How does it stack up?" > > >this mode of discourse was energizing, sweeping away great tracts of > >unexamined assumptions, and thereby opening a space for what has become > >the most exciting poetry of the last half of the 20th century. As > >applied to social and political issues, on the other hand, this habit > >of mind and this mode of discourse issued in appalling results. But > >for better or for worse, many readers (I include myself here) were > >initally attracted to Pound by the sheer bravura of that VOICE, > >slashing through to what he claimed was the gist of the matter. > >Therefore it isn't surprising that Poundians often try to talk LIKE > >Pound. The problem begins when some of these readers identify with > >"their" poet to the point that they begin to imagine that they ARE > >Pound, and that their own snap judgements are as interesting as his. > >EP's egotism is of a very different nature than the egotism of academics, >blatant in a way that would be unacceptable within the academic world. >Within the academic world, it would be unacceptable to say, as EP so >often does, "I am the only one smart enough to see these things. My >judgements are correct without question. People who disagree with me are >total idiots." But I find this much less objectionable than the covert >egotism of academics, who are always trying to impress, whether they are >giving a talk on their own ideas in a colloquium or seminar, or fawningly >introducing some distinguished visiting speaker, trying to steal a little >reflected glory from him. (And the distinguished speaker is, after all, >just an ordinary person who at various moments of his life managed, often >by a process he himself doesn't understand, to do something which people >found remarkable. The biggest danger for someone who becomes >distinguished is that eventually, as happened with EP, they themselves >start to believe the myth that they are not ordinary.) > >Having said all this, though, let me add that being an academic is not by >any means incompatible with being a decent human being. The "official" >persona that an academic manifests when "on duty" should not be mistaken >for the ordinary person who occasionally dons that persona. I have sat >in on a number of courses here at the University of Hawaii, usually in >the English Department, and almost without exception I have found my >teachers to be worthwhile human beings with a genuine love for their >subject and a genuine desire to teach that love to their students. (I >can think of only one exception where the person in question seemed to >fit my stereotyped paradigm of the academic, and I wound up not taking >his course.) It is only a more formal occasions among their own >colleagues (or when presenting their ideas in written form in journals) >that they fall into the more academic competitive posturing paradigm >which is often also manifested on this list. > >--Lee Lady Http://www2.Hawaii.Edu/~lady > >------- >Unlike past American intellectuals, who saw the educated nonacademic >public as their main audience, today's leftist intellectuals feel no >need to write for a larger audience; colleagues, departments, and >conferences have come to constitute their world. -- Russell Jacoby ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com