On Tue, 27 Jan 1998 18:55:01 -0500 wrote... > I just wish that I was one of these scholars who was fucking around more. i second this. >the problem that many people of this (my, i'm about to turn 23) vastly >misunderstood (and greatly marginalized) generation have with pound is not >availability, but help. there is no easy resource for pound as there is for >eliot or joyce. so much is either overly (psudo)intellectual, or incredibly >reactionary. and there is so much of it. pound is not hard to understand so >much as the stigma surrounding pound is hard to get thru. >so much of what i have read concerning pound has been the same things stated >over and over again in what seems to be a vast hope to prove that the author >is -also- an intellectual because -they- can write about pound. but no new >ground is broken. it's disgusting. the fact that poetry going into the 21st >c. is incresingly stagnant proves that there is more need for pound now than >ever. but us youngins are not given the help we need because there are too >many pound scholars fucking around instead of thinking. >but i guess it's up to us to find new ways of dealing with pound, everyone >else is too busy trying to impress one another. >i'll not rant. >jeff. > > >>As a lurking member of the so-called "twenty-nothing and thirty-nothing >>generation," I resent the condescension in this thread. Not all Poundians >>are over forty, and it seems to me that younger Poundians should be >>encouraged, not mocked. We are all on the same side here aren't we? I >>thought the point of the list was to engage in a discussion about a poet >>whose work interests all of us. >> I hardly think that the reason younger scholars and stdents of >>literature have "hardly even heard of [Pound]" is because the Cantos aren't >>available on the Web. While electronic access might be convenient, it isn't >>preventing students and aspiring scholars from reading EP. Perhaps a more >>likely reason is his conspicuous absence from the classroom--whether because >>his poetry is "too difficult" or because many instructors find his politics >>distasteful or inappropriate for the classroom. As an undergraduate, I was >>always curious about Pound, but never got the chance to read him. It wasn't >>until my second semester of graduate school that I found his work on a >>syllabus, and even still, I find that the pre-dominant attitude among >>professors and students is one of grudging appreciation--yes, he was an >>important figure, but his poetry is difficult to understand and often best >>left to interested individuals with lots of free time and additional >>references. Availability of texts, in my opinion, isn't the problem--it's >>Pound's troubled position within the institution. >> >>Erin Templeton >>Dept. of English >>Penn State University >>University Park, PA 16802 >> >------------------------------------------------------------------------------ - > > There are no hierarchies, no infinite, no such many as mass, > there are only > eyes in all heads > to be looked out of > > -charles olson, from "letter 6" (of the maximus > poems) > > Robert E. Kibler Department of English University of Minnesota [log in to unmask] fortunatus et ille, deos qui novit agrestis, Panaque Silvanumque senem Nymphasque sorores.