I accept what you say about issues of 'reading' Kent but still
intentionality lay with the authors of the Yasusada texts, unless of course
it spontaneously wrote itself, perhaps with the aid of Mrs Yeats, and then
posted itself to various literary magazines across the world.
Best
Dave
David Bircumshaw
Leicester, England
Home Page
A Chide's Alphabet
Painting Without Numbers
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/index.htm
----- Original Message -----
From: "KENT JOHNSON" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, February 20, 2002 10:10 PM
Subject: Re: Hoaxes and Heteronymity interview
David,
I'm really not sure I see in your reply what's supposed to stand as
riposte to the "Author" examples I mentioned. As for Yasusada
being a "counterfeit," as you put it, well, this is a somewhat
problematic issue, inasmuch as the work has been amply shown
to be overdetermined with glaring and self-conscious signs that
point up its fictionality. A counterfeit, of course, insists on hiding its
nature. You want to throw the "fault" for the "scandal" back onto
the work itself; I would repeat that issues of *reading* need to be
put at the center.
It's fine for people to want their literature served up in unambiguous
wrapping, and no doubt this is more comfortable for all concerned.
But perhaps it doesn't have to be that way, totally. Maybe there's
some room in poetry for gifts that come in strange and unexpected
packages. I hope so, anyway, for poetry's sake!
Kent
Which is the problem with Yasusada. If the poems had been
presented as a
fictional projection of a Hiroshima survivor they would have been
entirely
different. When I look at that 1996 issue of Stand I see an
example of
people being 'had'.
Anyhow, that's just touching the surface of all this, for instance,
can one
truthfully draw parallels between the uses of assumed names in
the Ancient
World and the present? Is it valid to see a precedent in the literary
practices of 17th and 18th century Japan and the notions of
hypertextual
authors (why do people abuse that word 'hypertext' so much?)
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