Once again, I suggest to Garrick to read some of the best criticism on the Cantos. To say that a work is not self- sufficient if you need to refer to external sources is patently absurd. We on this list, who have had many disagreements of a pretty sophisticated nature about the Cantos, their form, their value, etc., have often had encounters with uninformed, close-minded newbies who attempt to insert screws using hammers. But everyone has a screw loose, I guess. ==Dan At 06:52 PM 01/14/2002 -0500, you wrote: >Dear Pound Listmembers, > >I should apologize for my tardy response to so many emails but I just >returned from vacation. I would like to respond to a few emails in public and >in particular. I will begin, however, with a few general comments: > >1) I am puzzled by the misunderstanding produced by my remark >"self-sufficient work of art." In the context of the paragraph it appeared >in, I believe it is clear. The Cantos are not self-sufficient because they >require the aid of other books to understand. A student must purchase >Terrell's Companion to the Cantos to have any idea what the references >mean--the references and the glosses being essential in many places to attain >the meaning of the passage. Thus, it is not an autonomous work of art. >Pound's later poetry has not only involved--it has required--the explication >and annotation of scholars (a la Joyce in Finnegan's Wake--a work Pound >disparaged) to a remarkable degree. > >2) There are many competing theories concerning the form/structure of the >Cantos. It seems clear to me that the Cantos have no form or structure. It >[i.e. The Cantos considered as a unified work of art, and as an epic] has no >plot, no central figure, no linear time or chronology, and no fixed verse >form. To the obvious retort--that the Cantos have many plots, characters, >chronologies, and verse forms--I would merely say it's not unified then is >it? > >3) The consequences of the insight #2 above are as follows. A century full of >American poets has taken Pound's lead in escaping poetic forms and >structures. The so-called Free Verse movement has often used Pound's poetry >(and particularly the Cantos) as a guide to "making it new." This has led >(and I can hear the screaming begin already) to mountains of unreadable free >verse--which has mistaken obscurity for profundity, and fragmentation for >form. Viewed as an example of the 20th c. epic, the Cantos has led many a >poet to ruin. Were it viewed as a cautionary tale, a mitigated triumph, an >epic failure--it might have spared us LANGUAGE poetry, for example. This is a >problem which Pound scholars will ignore, but for poets it's essential--how >does one get beyond Modernism? To do that, you would have to diagnose what >was good--and, most of all, bad--about the movement Pound started and the >poetry he wrote. > >4) A great number of responses have disregarded my main proposition [i.e. The >Cantos are a mess.] because reading the work has been "enlightening, >educational, profound, etc." Such remarks side-step the main charge, of >course, but I sympathize and agree with their position. The problem, I >believe, is that scholars are attempting to elevate the Cantos as the >foundation of Pound's poetic legacy--an attempt which will fail. Pound >matters for many reasons--the least of them, I propose, is the Cantos. > >5) A few specific replies to emails follow: > > From Mr. Pearlman, >"Garrick, Is literature supposed to be easy? Is it supposed to make >perfectly good sense on a first, second, or third reading? I don't know, >I've struggled with Melville's "Bartleby" for a good many years before >finally coming up with a sense that I've mastered it--and that text can't be >fully understood without annotations either. In any case, skipping to our >postmodernist writers, those who have waved away those elitist-obscurantist >modernists, do we not see in many of them, in their very ironizing of every >cultural artifact, the same elitist-obscurantist tendencies reborn with a >different look?... (admittedly, with a greater sense of humor). And how >about Dante, who can get through the Paradiso without falling asleep?" > >The error here, I believe, is to mistake obscurity for complexity, depth, >deep meaning. We have learned to enjoy difficult poetry--poetry which does >not yield its meaning or its pleasure easily--because we believe that >difficulty is one sign--usually the first sign--of complexity and depth in a >work of art that we have yet to fully comprehend. In art, complexity >misunderstood reveals itself first as difficulty, as the tendency of the >reader to feel that the work of art is beyond his powers of comprehension. >Dante is difficult reading--but he was never being obscure--because his >thought was deep. Whereas Pound's Cantos are obscure--not from the complexity >of his matter or his argument but from the inaccessibility of his references. > > > From Mr Parcelli: >"I can't go into this in depth now, but there is always the notion of the >epic as a >voyage of discovery. In the Cantos the epic is process, the poet in the >intellectual and historical landscape as they unfold. What difference does the >structure make? What example of 20th century epic would one propose as a >counterweight example of a 'coherent' epic as opposed to the Cantos? Look what >happened when Dr. Williams tried the form of the Cantos." > >This view assumes a certain ambiguity of definitions. The epic is a literary >genre. A literary genre cannot itself be a "voyage of discovery." This >statement does, however, imply that Pound didn't know where he was going with >the Cantos and I agree. Secondly, I would not propose any 20th century long >poem as a coherent epic--there aren't any. As for coherent long poems, I >would cite The Four Quartets and Vikram Seth's The Golden Gate. Variants and >translations of Pushkin's verse novel, Eugene Onegin, are enjoying a revival >at the moment. > > > From Mr. Romano: >"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." > >I must admit that I have no idea what Mr. Romano is proposing here. How do >the Cantos seek to transcend the epic genre? Perhaps he can answer this for >us. I am merely proposing that the Cantos are a mess: nasty (in a few >places), obscure, fragmentary (as in devoid of a unified poetic technique), >and long (to no purpose). Pound wasn't trying to "transcend" the epic; he was >simply trying to write an epic, which he did not do. He wrote something else, >and it isn't a unified work of art but a miscellany, in my opinion. > >I hope to respond to Mr. Korg's and Mr. Bray's letters later. > >Regards, >Garrick Davis >editor >Contemporary Poetry Review >(www.cprw.com) > > > > Dan Pearlman's home page: http://pages.zdnet.com/danpearl/danpearlman/ My new fiction collection, THE BEST-KNOWN MAN IN THE WORLD AND OTHER MISFITS, may be ordered online at http://www.aardwolfpress.com/ "Perfectly-crafted gems": Jack Dann, Nebula & World Fantasy Award winner Director, Council for the Literature of the Fantastic: http://www.uri.edu/artsci/english/clf/ OFFICE: Department of English University of Rhode Island Kingston, RI 02881 Tel.: 401 874-4659 Fax: (253) 681-8518 email: [log in to unmask]