Regarding the absence of Christ from the Cantos, recall: Christ follows Dionysus, Phallic and ambrosial Made way for macerations... Tim Romano ----- Original Message ----- From: "Burt Hatlen" <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Sunday, June 11, 2000 7:42 PM Subject: Re: Fwd: Re: EP & Religion > [log in to unmask],.Internet writes: > >>Robert Duncan said that Pound was "pagan fundamentalist." > >Where did Duncan say this. I would be very grateful if Burt Hatlen could > >supply the reference. > >Stephen Wilson. > > > Here's the full quotation: > > "Pound derives from the Neoplatonic cult of Helios, from the Provencal > cult of Amor, from the Renaissance revival of pagan mysteries after > Gemistos Plethon, and from the immediate influence of the theosophical > revival in which Yeats was immersed, an analogous tradition of poetry > as a vehicle for heterodox belief, a ground in which the divine world > may appear (with the exception of the Judeo-Christian orders). At the > thought of Jesus, Pound has all the furious fanaticism of the Emperor > Julian; he is a pagan fundamentalist. Aphrodite may appear to the poet, > and even Kuanon, but not Mary; Helios and even Ra-Set may come into the > poem, but not Christ. Yet these gods of the old world are not only > illustrations of a living tradition; they are, Pound testifies > throughout The Cantos, presences of a living experience. Does the poet > cast them as images upon our minds or do they use the medium of the > poem to present themselves? They come to the poet as he calls them up. > So, in the first draft of Canto I: 'Gods float in the azure air . . .' > 'It is not gone,' Metastasio > Is right, we have that world about us." > (II.5: 340) > > The citation refers to Part II, Chapter 5 of The H.D. Book. Published > in fragments during Duncan's lifetime, The H.D. Book, one of our > century's central works of poetic theory, is still not available as a > book, although the University of California Press is supposedly > committed to publishing it. The quotation comes from a section of Part > II, Chapter 5, that was published in the journal Stony Brook 3/4 (Fall > 1969), pp. 336-347. > > The quoted passage, by the way, also raises what seems to me the > central issue about Pound's "religion." Did he subscribe to a set of > "religious beliefs," pagan or otherwise, that stand apart from and > prior to the poem? Or is THE POEM ITSELF the locus of religious > experience, for him? Duncan suggests the later. The poet as theurge, > and the poem itself as the place where the gods show themselves. Now > that's an idea that really does challenge our assumptions about > religion and poetry and the relationship between the two. > > Syrette and Tryphonopoulos have, of course, been moving toward a > "Duncanesque" view of Pound, with their theory that he belongs within > the history of the "occult." But Surette at least shows no interest in > Pound's poetry, casting the issue entirely as a question of Pound's > presumed beliefs, within the context of 19th and 20th century > intellectual history. (Indeed, Surette says as much in The Birth of > Modernism: "The rationale of this study is much closer to the old > method of the history of ideas" (5).)And as long as we try to read > Pound as primarily a "thinker," we will, I think, miss the point. The > poet is a maker, and we need to be talking about what he MADE, not > about what he may or may not have "thought." > > Burt Hatlen > >