>From: Jack Savage <[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: "self-sufficient work of art" >Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2001 15:07:36 -0800 > >>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: "self-sufficient work of art" >>Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2001 09:35:19 -0800 >> >>Your point is well-taken, but why use a term like "self-sufficient", which >>implies so much more? The terminology itself seems to have been invented >>in >>order to raise a certain type of work above others by imbuing these works >>with an ontological superiority. Why not just call them "straight-forward" >>or "accessible" or something like that? Could it be that, though >>accessibility is their touchstone, critics of this ilk wish to retain the >>mystery of the mantle of scholarship and to create an elitism of the >>anti-intellectual? >> >>-----Original Message----- >>From: Tim Romano [mailto:[log in to unmask]] >>Sent: Saturday, December 22, 2001 6:19 AM >>To: [log in to unmask] >>Subject: "self-sufficient work of art" >> >> >>Not that I agree with the critical stance taken by Garrick Davis ... but I >>think he had in mind the kind of work that makes no recondite or arcane >>allusions, when he used the term "self-sufficient". Take Hemingway's _ The >>Old Man and the Sea _, for example; it alludes broadly to baseball in a >>way >>that "everybody" would understand, not to its obscure statistics or to a >>particularly dazzling double-play in the bottom of the 8th inning of some >>game that has achieved legendary status among baseball fans, but in the >>form of beloved teams. >> >>To understand Hemingway's allusions requires a deep acculturation. To >>understand Pound's allusions, on the other hand, requires extensive >>book-learning and a cross-cultural, anthropological perspective. As I >>understood Garrick's question, it might be paraphrased so: for an epic to >>be a successful epic, doesn't it have to play to the deep acculturation of >>a People, not the to book-learning and polyglot abilities of the elites? >>The cross-cultural and the Epic don't seem to mix, do they? >> >>My reply to that question would be this: the fair critic must ask how the >>Cantos seeks to _transcend_ the epic genre with respect to Place, Time, >>People, Language, and the task set for its Hero. >> >>Tim Romano > > >" ... an elitism of the anti-intellectual" > >Yes. And let's consider the source of that distinctively >American attitude: -- fundamentalist Xtianity. > >The Puritan invaders, ironically imitating Mother Church (R.C.), >long ago established a deep-seated suspicion -- if not ouright >fear -- of knowledge. > >"Science is the criticism of Myth." .... Yeats > >Knowledge leads to Questions; questioning to Doubt ... >and there are still those among our fellow citizens (U.S.) >who maintain that the only Book one needs to read is >Ta Biblia. > >(Mr Pound "knew his Bible".) > >At any rate, if what we want in Art is that which will express >"emotion" to the greatest number in the simplest fashion, >we don't need to exert ourselves beyond the verse >of a Hallmark card. > >"It ain't just to walk around and sing -- >you gotta step out a little -- right?" > >Robert Alan Zimmerman said that > >Have a very merry winter solstice > >(I said that) > >the Zimmerman quotation "It ain't NOTHING just to walk around and sing" ... etc.______________________________________________________________ >MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: >http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx _________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com