luka

Well-known member
well once you get bored of it dont assume that all his essays are boring. mostly they are not boring. its just that one and a few of the others.
 

jenks

thread death
I’ve been reading a few every day (up to XXII) and I would really recommend reading them as all part of one long poem - themes come and go then return, characters pop up and disappear. Sometimes a canto feels like a dud only for Pound to pass by later returning to those themes - like a painter or a sculptor returning to a form or subject.

There also seems to be a lot of overlap with the Wordsworth thread - what is being fought over is the determination for the primacy of imagination in all its manifest forms. Psychedelic in the sense of what is deep within the mind and also that sense of revelatory power of art. I’m guessing it’s what’s best about Prynne too but I can’t always get there with him.
 

version

Well-known member
This is one of those ones where you absolutely do not need to read them, not even in a "know your enemies" way.

For my sins I have read the Fountainhead and it is bad on almost every level. You would learn more about philosophy from Richard Allen's skinhead novels and the most abstruse post structuralist academics have better plot and characters.
Who would you say you should read in that way?
I think that’s a good question and probably would be an interesting thread. I’ve not done nearly enough of it (I guess few people who read for pleasure have).

Not exactly enemies but Dworkin and Nietzsche are great writers I don’t agree with.

Also white supremacist stuff - but you need to read it with anti stuff to hand.

I feel I should read Adam Smith, Hayek and all that. But probably won’t.

Joe Muggs’ book on sound system culture. (jk).
I guess Pound would be one of these people.
 

version

Well-known member
That Robert Anton Wilson bit again,
... Pound offers a hierarchy of values, in which he gives you a panoramic picture of human history, very much like Griffith’s Intolerance, only in it, Pound shows levels of awareness, levels of civilization, levels of ethics and levels of lack of all these things. And you realize that you have a hierarchy of values too, but you’ve never perfectly articulated it. Every writer gives you a hierarchy of values. But by making this the central theme, Pound makes you face the question, “Will I accept this as the best hierarchy of values?” I can’t, because the guy had a screw loose. Great poet, but a little bit funny in the head at times, trying to synthesize Jefferson, Confucius, Picasso and Mussolini. So what you’ve got to do is struggle with Pound, and create your own hierarchy of values to convince yourself that you grok more than he did...
 

jenks

thread death
I have now finished the first 30 which make up the first volume of The Cantos. I’m still enjoying them especially as various characters reappear and start to represent certain touchstones for him. Also to get the values which underpin the poems - Belief as Paradise - seeing accurately and feeling intensely, nature not to be cast aside - redeeming what is redeemable in nature. The reach for the transcendental moment - fleeting. This set against Error and ignorance which are a kind of Hell but the worst are those who knowingly and willingly perpetuate the error system at the cost of Knowledge. Despite stylistic differences there is something Blakean in there.
 

jenks

thread death
Every so often I get a bit bogged down - ones where they are verbatim extracts from some American President’s memoirs. But then one appears like the sun from behind a cloud and it sparkles and shimmers - it insists to be read aloud. I must admit that so far the American stuff hasn’t been as effective as the Renaissance references but maybe I haven’t synced to his rhythm yet for this section.
 

jenks

thread death
Got The Pound Era yesterday - lovely old Faber edition, ex-library stock hard back. I like the first chapter already showing Pound in relation to James.
 

jenks

thread death
I am really enjoying the Kenner book. Was it written as one thing or a collection of essays? I like the way he has such a playful way of writing. I read Sinking Island and that was quite straight but this is more flighty - somehow matching the tone of those he’s writing about.
Also I think the approach is interesting - very much influenced by Empson and before ‘Continental post modernist’ criticism arrives over here. It’s very much about the readers relationship to the text and the hard focus on language, sound and sense is particularly engaging.
I like the way that each chapter is another swerve - the reading of Eveline (a story I’ve taught for years) opens it up in a new way, the scrappy nature of Sappho chapter is genuinely illuminating and the chapter I’m reading now on etymology (something I’ve also taught for my whole career) clarified something about how to read Pound for me.
 

luka

Well-known member
its an amazing book. mind expanding. grateful to craner for recommnding it to me 200 years ago.
 
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