Carlo wrote: >Consider Pound in light of a poet who did literally believe in the Greek >pantheon, Friedrich Hoelderlin. (I've spent considerable time with >Hoelderlin because I've spent considerable time with Heidegger, and, >yes, Heisenberg and quantum figures largely in my work, so I'm very >experienced in arguing these questions with myself and others.) >Hoelderlin's intensity is palpable and led to a series of breakdown's >and eventual insanity. Bread and Wine is so lucid, so clear, that one >fears for the mind that wrote it. I am, as I often discover, in complete sympathy with Carlo when it comes to a purely aesthetic question. Heidegger was my first "philosophical love," so to speak. And the notion of Hölderlin's similarity with Pound is one that needs further elucidation. Cookson points to it when he writes, "Pound's belief in Greek deities is as strong as was Hölderlin's," citing as evidence lines from Canto 113: "The Gods have not returned. 'They never left us'. They have not returned./Cloud's processional and the air moves with their living." (787/113). >Pound, too, of course, has some of Hoelderlin's intensity. I agree, and would offer, as an example, the following from the same Canto, which concludes with a prayer to Helios. "Out of dark, thou, Father Helios, leadest,/but the mind as Ixion, unstill, ever turning" (790/113). This seems, viewed from a fully devotional perspective, to be as sincere as any recorded prayer in any religious tradition. Does anyone ---who knows the Greek tradition well--- know if the phrase "Father Helios," appears in any of the pagan hymns? In Pindar, perhaps? In a Homeric Hymn? We have heard "Father Zeus," but "Father Helios" seems rare if not unprecedented. Of course it makes both poetic and philosophical sense considering the role of light worship in the Cantos, and in Pound's general mode of apprehending the Divine. I want to add my voice to Carlo's in appreciation of Hölderlin's poetry. From what I gather, he sincerely did believe that he was a priest of the Greek Gods, and did break down (as a result of this belief??). That sharp edge to his later poems, which stems from, what must seem to many in modern Europe, an anachronistic belief in Greek gods, is so absolutely unique, that I urge all to experience it. It comes as close as anything I have read to the hymns to Dionysus contained in Euripides' Bacchae. I wonder if Pound's pagan sentiments (or beliefs) ran that deep, but were simply moderated by other factors which assuaged the sense of isolation which would normally attend such a belief system in a contemporatry Western culture? Regards, Wei ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com