>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: Mr. Davis Once More >Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2001 17:34:31 -0800 > >Mr. Davis: > >You say: "Never have I encountered so many questions begged, so >many assertions substituted for proof, so many denials supplied instead of >demonstration." > >Hmmmmm. > >Within your original message: "The Cantos is "responsible" for the other >unreadable long >poems of the Modernist era--like Olson's Maximus or Merrill's The Changing >Light at Sandover." > >Was this meant as a paradigm for your later (in time) statement? You did >not prove that Maximus or Sandover is unreadable. I found Maximus readable >in high-school and Sandover readable a couple of years ago. You have not >only made an assertion into a proof, you have done so in such an oblique >way >that it can't be untangled into more than air. Then you attacked other >people for not giving this air a full analysis with proofs and >demonstrations. > >Would you also assert, without proof, that, since the Cantos were >"responsible" for their own greatest achievements, Olson and Merrill found >the Cantos to be unreadable? > >My goodness! > >I prefer to refer to them , i.e., the Cantos, as plural description (there >are how many Cantos?) rather than as a singular title - yet this does not >lead to your reductio of either "one thing or a miscellany"/ "great epic >poem of the 20th century or a complete mess ". In fact, this >black-and-white way of thinking you employ toward poetry will merely lead >you into binary structures that shrink to infinity without arriving at >anything; cf Zeno. (By the way, you don't think that Zeno's Paradox is a >mooring on the Adriatic, do you?). You may have missed your calling as a >computer BIOS programmer, the realm of the pure binary. > >My goodness! > >Do your really expect to be given complete analyses by those responding to >your suggestions when you have either failed or refused to give complete >analyses yourself? Refer back to your original missive: "... the Cantos is >a failure according to any critical measure we wish to use." > >In light of your animadversions concerning the quality of the responses to >this statement by some of the esteemed members of this list (of whom I am >not one, that is, esteemed or OneHavingResponded), one must conclude that >you were merely jesting. Surely a jest employing such broad-ranging >generalities doesn't require a lengthy and detailed response from critics >whose published work on the subject is readily available. (I don't know >whether or not you've read, e.g., Mr. Pearlman's Barb of Time or not, but >if >you wish to engage him, you might at least give the man some respect by >countering assertions he has made there or elsewhere rather than expecting >him to give detailed responses to vague assertions you put forth as fact.) > >You proffer as evidence of this failure (that is, Pound's, not Pearlman's) >something slightly more specific: "...a small army of scholars has gained >tenure by annotating its [the Cantos] lines, and that enterprise has taken >fifty years." > >Is this the same charge you level at the Iliad to prove that it's a >failure? >Virtually every word of the Iliad was annotated by Hellenistic times - by >the time of Plato it had already been worked over more than the Cantos >have. >By your reckoning, the Iliad must have been (must be) even more obscure >than >the Cantos - people STILL get tenure annotating it -- and it's been nearly >3,000 years since it came to be! > >My goodness! Could this not be a result of people finding the poem >fascinating? > >And William Blake? (My goodness, that wasn't a sentence, was it?) Can you >read him (Blake, that is)? Since you seem to insist that a long poem be >digestible by some kind of rationalistic system before it can be deemed >readable, I suppose that you would find his e.g., i.e. Blake's, Milton >impossible to read, er, ah.... unreadable. In this you are in the company >of virtually every critic (with the exception of Swinburne, and even he >found them difficult) before the 20th Century. But I find Blake's Milton >charming and entertaining as well as very clear and - My goodness! - >coherent. Look under the microscope too long and you may not be able to >identify anything at all (that was a joke for fans of Swinburne's >criticism). > >Do you insist that art follow criticism? Shall we condemn Shakespeare for >having humor in his tragedies? Must a 20th Century poet conform to "unity, >wholeness, and variety"? Come to think of it, you haven't proven that the >Cantos don't fit these criteria which linger in the background of all of >your remarks. In fact, you seem most put out by the variety of the Cantos. >The gist of your position seems to be: "Since there is too much variety in >the Cantos, there can't be unity or wholeness [coherence, I am not a >demigod, I can not make it cohere]." But since, due to the teeming variety >of the Cantos, you find them unreadable, why would you even care if they >did >match the other two criteria? Would being supplied with a proof of their >unity and/or wholeness make them readable to you? > >And is it that, when you sought to apply the criticism of Horace (perhaps >unconsciously and in varied terminology), you forgot the third term >(variety) while asserting "... the Cantos is a failure according to any >critical measure we wish to use."? > >And.... Self-sufficient work of art? Before attacking the Cantos for not >being one, please give me an example of a poem that IS a "self-sufficient >work of art". Does that mean it doesn't need to be read? Or does it mean >that it has no direct ties to or dependencies on the culture in which it >arises? Really, I'd be thrilled to encounter one of these "self-sufficient >work of art". They must really be something! Is that sort of like a.... >like an... um, er.... I admit it. I'm at a loss. I can't think of a >single referent in the universe that is "self-sufficient". Wow!! >Self-sufficient art!!!! These must be great works indeed!! Please let me >know what they are so I can encounter them!!! > >My goodness! Can a self-sufficient work of art actually BE encountered? > >Regards, > >Dirk Johnson >Assistant Vice President >Kelling, Northcross & Nobriga >A Division of Zions First National Bank It is one thing to accuse Mr Pound of anti-Semitism ... another to accuse him of treason ... but to blame him for Olson -- well, that, ladies and gentlemen, is going too far _________________________________________________________________ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx