>You seem to object >that Pound >never surpassed Pound; since he himself confessed as much in his >last Canto, you >appear to beat a dead horse, rather than to thrill at his >steeplechases. dan, there's more' n a touch a theatre to ole ez, tho, eh? hubris,...the sparagmos of the tiger cage/trial/bughouse, and then (as you say) a self-recognition (maybe), ...the collonus anti-climax ...complete with women...nso on. trouble is the nagging suspicion itz not attic but hollowood. and ep's jazz, an unintended metaphor for merkan superficiality, (the iconoclasm seems too wholesale/subjective to qualify, the idolatry, too reactionary) and western pomo (unbearable-lightness-of-being) nihilism ...gainst which some (eliot) opposed a hand; others, trafficked. bloom must be neo-kantian, dismissing ari & co (also the psalms/proverbs author)...eh? not clear how the otherness of text could ever really originate in self...? anyway, just the tentatives of a perplexed and frustrated beginner flailing for that arch-trope, ep's ganzwelt ...grateful for any toehold. thanks, bob -----Original Message----- From: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]> To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]> Date: Wednesday, November 03, 1999 8:38 AM >Daniel Zimmerman >Professor >Middlesex County College >Edison, NJ > >+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ > >Bob, > >"Narcissism" seems too personal and too pejorative a judgment. >Pound appears, >rather, to embody two antagonistic but often ourobotic/symbiotic >impulses: >iconoclasm and idolatry. Perhaps his appetite for the ganzwelt >amalgamated >[often blurred] the um-, the mit-, the eigen-? Great men did once >tread [others >attest it] an earth now gone, perhaps, too spongy to sustain >them. > >[I asked my English Composition students, a few years ago, to >name their heroes. >After five minutes of dead silence, one tentatively said: >"The Pope?" Another said "Nobody qualifies." None had read *any* >of the writers >mentioned in _The ABC of Reading_ or (with the possible exception >of eec) >_Confucius to Cummings_]. > >Let me suggest [with Bloom] that every reader reads first as a >poet manque; >most--unlike Pound--never surpass themselves. You seem to object >that Pound >never surpassed Pound; since he himself confessed as much in his >last Canto, you >appear to beat a dead horse, rather than to thrill at his >steeplechases. > >Remember: charity begins at poem. > >Best, > >Dan Zimmerman