jenks

thread death
its the one where he talks about etymology. my favourite is the knots chapter.
Just read that chapter - it fizzes with ideas and I think is really useful as a way of understanding modernism’s appeal. Also what it is that writers do within a tradition and what’s happening to the attentive reader when they are encountering this work
 

jenks

thread death
Just finished the Kenner which I really enjoyed, I don’t suppose there are critics like him anymore, learned in the extreme, unapologetically academi xc yet writing in a rather free and lyrical manner - he really helped with getting a handle on these Adams Cantos which are quite heavy going (looking forward to the Pisan Cantos) I’d have liked more on Eliot, Joyce and Lewis rather then the second half being overwhelmingly about Pound. Anyone heard of the ZBC of Pound by Christine Brooke Rose - I just got a copy and it looks quite promising.
 

luka

Well-known member
i dont know of any contemporary ones. guy davenport was a friend of kenners and worth a read for more of the same-ish, if you havent already.
kenner has seperate books on joyce, eliot and lewis.
 

luka

Well-known member
he was a big buckminster fuller guy and wrote about him too. kenner is one of those people you discover and realise you werent as clever as you thought you were after all
 

luka

Well-known member
ive got a book about the adams cantos which makes them seem more interesting but they still dont exactly
dance on the page
 

woops

is not like other people
Just finished the Kenner which I really enjoyed, I don’t suppose there are critics like him anymore, learned in the extreme, unapologetically academi xc yet writing in a rather free and lyrical manner - he really helped with getting a handle on these Adams Cantos which are quite heavy going (looking forward to the Pisan Cantos) I’d have liked more on Eliot, Joyce and Lewis rather then the second half being overwhelmingly about Pound. Anyone heard of the ZBC of Pound by Christine Brooke Rose - I just got a copy and it looks quite promising.
i've heard of that ZBC thing but never seen a copy. i do however have a compendium of four of her novels glaring at me from the shelf. she was a bletchley park codebreaker as well as modernist writer..
 

jenks

thread death
i've heard of that ZBC thing but never seen a copy. i do however have a compendium of four of her novels glaring at me from the shelf. she was a bletchley park codebreaker as well as modernist writer..
I enjoyed the ZBC - decidedly quirky which very much fits Pound - she’s not blind to his faults but does a really good job of tying in ideas from earlier works into Cantos. Also read Stock’s very grumpy short guide to the Cantos which reads like some act of revenge.
I’m now deep into the Pisan section - after the Adams section, they are of a much different tenor altogether.
 

woops

is not like other people
I enjoyed the ZBC - decidedly quirky which very much fits Pound - she’s not blind to his faults but does a really good job of tying in ideas from earlier works into Cantos. Also read Stock’s very grumpy short guide to the Cantos which reads like some act of revenge.
I’m now deep into the Pisan section - after the Adams section, they are of a much different tenor altogether.
Canto LXXXI is in sight
 

jenks

thread death
The Pisan Cantos are like a sudden explosion of radiance - enormity of his situation: prison camp, possible death sentence have been the impetus for our emotions to be engaged. Much of the previous 10-15 Cantos were erudite, intellectual and dry and even when he tells us his feelings it doesn’t always translate for us to feel it too. But in these Cantos there is both a warmth and a tragedy at work. He is an old man looking in a mirror, looking at a wasp hatch, looking at shadows on his tent and spinning verse out of his incarceration- it reminded me at times of Richard II when he has been imprisoned - the mind recreating the world.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
The Pisan Cantos are like a sudden explosion of radiance - enormity of his situation: prison camp, possible death sentence have been the impetus for our emotions to be engaged. Much of the previous 10-15 Cantos were erudite, intellectual and dry and even when he tells us his feelings it doesn’t always translate for us to feel it too. But in these Cantos there is both a warmth and a tragedy at work. He is an old man looking in a mirror, looking at a wasp hatch, looking at shadows on his tent and spinning verse out of his incarceration- it reminded me at times of Richard II when he has been imprisoned - the mind recreating the world.

Momentarily made aware of the consequences of his own toxic rhetoric and stupid choices and blocking it all out with art. His folly was, at least, good for poetry in this sense.
 

jenks

thread death
Momentarily made aware of the consequences of his own toxic rhetoric and stupid choices and blocking it all out with art. His folly was, at least, good for poetry in this sense.
Yes. He made many stupid choices indeed and got so obsessive that lost all moral sense. For someone who probably had never thought himself in the wrong it must’ve been a sobering moment.
 

version

Well-known member
Picked up the Kenner book again this afternoon and read 'Knot And Vortex'. Amazing. The rope/water/poetic image allowing us to see the knot/pattern of energy's one of those ideas that immediately takes root, like Burroughs' language virus.
 
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