Do I like Benjamin Britten? Some of the early stuff, and the song
settings, but not the anglo-Meyerbeer.
Hell is, to Pound, +for+ other people.
Congrats on the course, Roger
On 02/04/2008, Roger Day <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 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
>
--
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
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