Burt, I've written to you about this before, but without receiving a reply. I hope that, this time, I've sent my post to the right address. I want to post the following reply to a message from the Pound list; could you please forward it, and grand me permission to post to this fascinating listserv? Thanks, 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 bob scheetz wrote: >> doesn't everything about ep point to raging narcissism? >> the great man/poet thing, the sequence of picturesque personae >> beginning with bertran, mandarin, jefferson/adams, etc >> ...the impregnable self-assurance, >> ...luxuriating in self-fantasy, exhibitionism, >> and poetry qua self-promotion? >> ...the imperviousness to umwelt & mitwelt, >> except qua stage and audience? >> >> is ep the laureat of the age of narcissism? >> the cantoes a kinda lotus-eater-land poetry, >> wherein all we can indulge >> our personal poet manque narcissism? >> -----Original Message----- >> From: Jonathan Morse <[log in to unmask]> >> To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]> >> Date: Monday, November 01, 1999 5:33 AM >> Subject: A summary for Richard Caddel >> >> >In "Ezra Pound: 'Insanity,' 'Treason,' and Care," _Critical Inquiry_ 14 >> >(1987): 134-41, William M. Chace writes: >> > >> >"[A] blend of compassion and outright annoyance characterizes the attitudes >> >of a great many of Pound's acquaintances over the years. As early as the >> >1920s in Rapallo, his visitors and correspondents, among them Ernest >> >Hemingway, W. B. Yeats, and James Joyce, tended to note the same thing: the >> >poet was embarrassingly self-congratulatory, impervious to advice or >> >criticism of even the mildest kind, and high-handed in every regard. >> >Hemingway wrote that the poet 'makes a bloody fool of himself 99 times out >> >of 100 when he writes anything but poetry.' Archibald MacLeish, later to >> >rally to Pound's assistance, reported early on that he was 'a bit fed up >> >with the Ezraic assumption that he is a Great Man.' Joyce saw him as a >> >fellow writer who turned up 'brilliant discoveries' but also 'howling >> >blunders.' Over the years, Pound put all his friends to the test, the test >> >of complying with his wishes, agreeing with his findings about all matters >> >under the sun, and surrendering their will to his. It was a strong will, >> >but in the end it overwhelmed none of his friends. Those closest to him, >> >particularly Williams, who had known him longer than anyone else, did not >> >give in but watched with dismay: 'This ain't the old Ez I used to know,' >> >Williams wrote in one of the most charged of his letters. 'You're in the >> >wrong bin. Your arse is congealed. Your cock fell in the jello. Wake up!'" >> >(136-37) >> > >> >Chace draws all his examples from Torrey's _The Roots of Treason_. >> >Williams' letter is dated April 7, 1938. >> > >> >And this is the same issue of _Critical Inquiry_ that contains Conrad L. >> >Rushing's "'Mere Words': The Trial of Ezra Pound" and Richard Sieburth's >> >"In Pound We Trust: The Economy of Poetry / The Poetry of Economics." How >> >much we lost when the PC Police mounted their coup against that journal! >> > >> >Jonathan Morse X-SMTP-From: [log in to unmask] X-SMTP-To: [log in to unmask] Received: from maine.maine.edu (maine.maine.edu [130.111.2.1]) by voyager.umeres.maine.edu with SMTP id MSGYEYMS; Wed, 3 Nov 1999 05:08:47 GMT Received: by MAINE.maine.edu (IBM VM SMTP Level 310) via spool with SMTP id 1450 ; Wed, 03 Nov 1999 00:06:19 EDT Received: from MAINE.MAINE.EDU (NJE origin LISTSERV@MAINE) by MAINE.MAINE.EDU (LMail V1.2c/1.8c) with BSMTP id 6585 for <[log in to unmask]>; Wed, 3 Nov 1999 00:04:22 -0500 Received: from MAINE (NJE origin SMTP3@MAINE) by MAINE.MAINE.EDU (LMail V1.2c/1.8c) with BSMTP id 6395; Wed, 3 Nov 1999 00:01:31 -0500 Received: from u2.farm.idt.net [169.132.8.11] by MAINE.maine.edu (IBM VM SMTP Level 310) via TCP with SMTP ; Wed, 03 Nov 1999 00:01:30 EST Received: from idt.net (ppp-52.ts-1.hp.idt.net [169.132.73.52]) by u2.farm.idt.net (8.9.3/8.9.2) with ESMTP id AAA06881; Wed, 3 Nov 1999 00:01:34 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <[log in to unmask]> Date: Wed, 03 Nov 1999 00:01:20 -0500 From: Daniel Zimmerman <[log in to unmask]> X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.61 [en] (Win98; I) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: [log in to unmask], [log in to unmask] Subject: rejected posting Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit