Also, for the "unjustifiable claims", your assertions are, equally,
assertions. Henry Swabey, and Perloff, have, I warrant, equally valid
positions. Each poet - particularly poets like Pound - attract their
devotees, and their over-zealous detractors. Trying to make a name?
Take a shot at Pound. And make sure you bring into question his
aesthetics via his politics. Isn't that a little easy? A little
obvious?
Just to make sure, I do not agree about the "seriously damaged" work.
To you, seriously damaged, to me, seriously gorgeous.
I like German and French culture, I used to be able to speak fairly
good French. To do so, means a certain ... accomodation, a growing-up.
I guess it was easier for me, my family hasn't suffered from any
European entanglements. I can read Celine without voting for his
cause, I can take away the best and use it for my own ends. Unless
your hero is Anonymous, all your heroes will have some bones rattling
somewhere.
Do you like Benjamin Britten?
Roger
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 10:45 AM, David Bircumshaw
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> The original issue, Roger, was the claim made for The Cantos by Marjorie
> Perloff. And therein lies the rub: that Pound scholars and devotees continue
> to make unjustifiable claims for the work and for Pound. {You'll get
> statements like 'Landor complained that Dante left his characters in
> skeleton form, but Pound is able to clothe them with a phrase' (Henry
> Swabey).}
> If you want to talk about The Cantos as work that failed grandly I'm ok
> with that, I think it's a fascinating but seriously damaged work, rather
> than being some kind of defining epic of our times it's on a par with
> Jubilate Agno, Blake's Prophetic Books, the poems Clare wrote when he
> thought he was Lord Byron, even Michael Drayton's Polyolbion: interesting
> oddball events that sometimes flash with brilliance.
> I didn't know you liked Wagner though: definitely no comment!
>
>
>
>
> On 02/04/2008, Roger Day <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> >
> > So what? Wagner's project was anti-semitic to the very core. He says
> > so very plainly in his writing. Yet I quite like Wagner, and so do a
> > lot of other people. I hear that Wagner's operas were staged in
> > Jerusalem. Celine was an out-and-out fascist thug, yet I like his
> > writing. I like Jorge Luis Borges.
> >
> > Sure EP doesn't measure up to his own standards ... who does? He may
> > not intend the work to be fragmentary ... again, so what? I intend my
> > work to be all kinds of things but it never is. What he says and what
> > he does maybe two different things. Again, so what? I like his work,
> > it speaks to me. I find sustenance in it when I read it. I wish I
> > could write a work which failed as grandly and as big-time as the
> > Cantos. All I ever seem to come out with is mediocre.
> >
> >
> > Roger
> >
> >
> > On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 9:15 AM, David Bircumshaw
> > <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> > > My point about Arvo Part was concerning a specific work of his, not a
> > > generalised comment on his or others music. Its context was what can be
> > done
> > > with unpromising language, indigestible prose.
> > >
> > > Pound's artistic project in The Cantos was political, it was a politics
> > > derived from his aesthetics and thus confused, disastrously,
> > categories. Its
> > > politics were specifically totalitarian. You don't have to take my
> > opinion
> > > on that - he states so himself in the 'Guide to Kulchur' which calls
> > for 'a
> > > new synthesis, the totalitarian'.
> > > His intentions were would-be universalist, in no way are The Cantos
> > supposed
> > > to fragmentary. That they are is an index of artistic failure. His
> > method
> > > does not approach a fragmented world as an reality to be experienced.
> > > As aesthetic law-giver in this Ezra-world he decrees, in 'The ABC of
> > > Reading' that 'poetry must be as well written as prose. Its language
> > must be
> > > fine language, departing in no way from speech save by heightened
> > intensity
> > > (i.e.simplicity). There must be no book words, no periphrase, no
> > > inversions'.
> > >
> > > If ever there was a case of man hoist by his own petard. His writing is
> > full
> > > of 'book-words, periphrase, inversions'. As for being as well written
> > as
> > > prose ... (The image of someone blowing themselves up with their own
> > > primitive bomb is quite apt in his case I think)
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > David Bircumshaw
> > > Website and A Chide's Alphabet
> > > http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/
> > > The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html
> > > Leicester Poetry Society: http://www.poetryleicester.co.uk
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > My Stuff: http://www.badstep.net/
> > "She went out with her paint box, paints the chapel blue
> > She went out with her matches, torched the car-wash too"
> > The Go-Betweens
> >
>
>
>
> --
>
>
> David Bircumshaw
> Website and A Chide's Alphabet
> http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/
> The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html
> Leicester Poetry Society: http://www.poetryleicester.co.uk
>
--
My Stuff: http://www.badstep.net/
"She went out with her paint box, paints the chapel blue
She went out with her matches, torched the car-wash too"
The Go-Betweens
