>From: [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: The Incoherence of the Cantos >Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2001 20:38:20 EST > >Dear Pound Listmembers, > >I would like to hear some discussion on the lasting importance of the >Cantos. >Is it the great epic poem of the 20th century or a complete mess? > >It seems to me that, in the end, it is the great garbage heap of >Modernism--a >vast accumulation of (now annotated) passages from which the reader (or, >more >probably, the scholar) picks at random. It has a vast reputation among >scholars and poets--and yet it is formless and incoherent by any standard. >Its reputation (and example) has been pernicious. 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. > >It is, in short, the perfect example of the excesses of Modernism and the >taste in poetry that it championed: nasty, obscure, fragmentary, and long. > >If I may be permitted to quote myself: >"Considered as an epic poem, as a unified work of art, the Cantos is a >failure according to any critical measure we wish to use. It is so obscure >that a small army of scholars has gained tenure by annotating its lines, >and >that enterprise has taken fifty years. It is so fragmentary that, even with >their notes, most of it seems willfully private in the worst way: like the >diary of an encryptionist, written for an audience of one. Without such >notes, of course, the poem is merely a terrifying, polylingual puzzle. It, >in >fact, depends upon the glosses of scholars to render it readable; it is >inscrutable without exegesis. The Cantos is simply not a self-sufficient >work of art." > >This question seems to be exemplified in the whole problem of addressing >the >Cantos in the singular or plural form. The Cantos is or the Cantos are? Is >it >one thing or a miscellany? > >Regards, >Garrick Davis >editor, >CPR (www.cprw.com) "Pay no attention to the criticism of a man who has never himself produced a great work." .... EP (or something to that effect.... we're working from memory here) as to reading ... or Writing ... poetry professionally: the only value poetry retains (which most of the other arts have lost) is to be found in its utter and absolute economic uselessness _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp.