Dear Ali,
wasn't my impression Mark had it in for you, he has it in for epics.
Indeed, his objections represent one way of fleshing out my own. You are
happier with David's response, yet his pluses feed as readily into Mark's
negatives as his minuses.

maybe it would help to move this thread along if you said what it is about
the genre that seems most useful, attractive at this juncture?
Or have you already made this clear and I've forgotten?
                 Wystan

-----Original Message-----
From: ALI ALIZADEH [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Wednesday, 21 February 2001 2:07 p.m.
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: The epic: pros and cons


Dear Mark

I wish you had stayed at the bottom of your canyon. I really do. But then
again you
crack me up. Why didn't you stay there? Go on, go back...

I promised myself after a week at the bottom of a canyon that I wouldn't
enter into any really dumb topics,

Like I said, some people deserve more time alone than others; that means
YOU.
Mark, what do you have against me? I've felt your hostility from the minute
I joined
the chat group. As it is, I am quite familiar with the rites of passage, and
I have
been mentionining it in previous posts. As for Wagner and Nitzche, it's YOUR
assumption that Jung got his ideas from them, not anyone else's, including
Jung
himself. In his autobiography Jung cites Goethe as a significant figure when
it came
to developing the archetypes. His relationship with Nitzche was rather
fleeting.


Not in itself very nteresting except to those (like the above-mentioned) who
get off
on the fact that We're All the Same (for Wagner the We was Germans) except
for
those pesky Jews.

I'm trying not to take any of this personally. The hero myth has inspired
fascism as
much as it's isnpired socialism, capitalism, femenism, religion and any
other human
phenomenon. Like everything else it's been used, abused, etc. Take the myth
of Joan
of Arc in France; she was depicted as a hero by both the Vichy government
and the
Resistance during WWII. As for accusing ME of anti-semetism, I'm finding it
funny.
I have to say, you're way off the line.

So not a very good defining trait for a genre. It happens that the epic as
understood in the West was conceived...

the epic was concieved in the East a long time before your Greek
heritage-makers.
And that's the tradition that I grew up with. Frankly, I care very little
for
the 'origins' of the form because they are absolutely unattainable. I'm more
interested in its various manifestations.


What relevance does this sort of project have to the world as most of us
know it? Why would any sane human being want to do this now?

It obviously has no relevance to you, and I hate to break the news here; but
you,
Mark are NOT the world. I know you may think you are, but...And I didn't
claim to
be 'sane' either. And please stop trying to get a reaction out of me by
offending
me. It won't work. Now, if you have a serious question about my project,
feel free
to ask properly.

Cheers
Ali