Marginal

Ezra Pound airs his wit in his book ABC of Reading.

When he writes, "Fenellosa emphasizes the method of science, 'which is the method of poetry', as distinct from that of 'philosophic discussions,'" I cringe a little. Because despite the fact that this idea rings true, it identifies a certain conflict in my interests. What soothes me, however, is my realization that the method of the dialectic is the method of weaving. And that means that philosophy might touch art at some level--as I do believe it has.

Pound's ideas on generalizations are both lucid and diverting. Here:

"Any general statement is like a cheque drawn on a bank. Its value depends on what is there to meet it. If Mr. Rockefeller draws a cheque for a million dollars it is good. If I draw one for a million it is a joke, a hoax, it has no value. If it is taken seriously, the writing of it becomes a criminal act." hehe...

I was reading an essay on language this past week by Walker Percy. Interesting it was, as he marvels at the existence of language as a phenomenon in man and in no other animal. A Martian, he observes, (who would perhaps communicate telepathically and at the speed of light) would wonder at the constant chatter and gesturing in which man engages. Pound hits on the importance of language in ABC as well, observing that "Greece and Rome [were] civilized BY LANGUAGE" (his emphasis). Of course, the pressure arrives when he identifies writers as having "a definite social function exactly proportioned to their ability" and it increases when he says, "it doesn't matter whether the good writer wants to be useful, or whether the bad writer wants to do harm." So the primary way to be of use is to improve one's skill as a writer. How could I have forgotten?

Literary inertia is fuelled by those persons "who know a little more than the public, who want to exploit their fractional knowledge, and who are thoroughly opposed to making the least effort to learn anything more." Reminds me of a certain 20 year old aspiring writer in a book I once read, who didn't like sentences.

But it struck me that ABC of Reading included so little on prose. The sole reference was a pathetic, scribbled slip of a thing attached to page 61. He doesn't write prose so much, though, and maybe that's it. Here we go: "Had I written a dozen or so good novels I might presume to add something." As I suspected. But he says one only reads prose for the subject matter. Where did he get that idea? He continues: "Glance at Burton's 'anatomy' as a curiosity, a sample of NON VERSE which has qualities of poetry but that cannot be confounded with it." Should I be offended? His reading list: "Fielding; Jane Austen; the novelists that everyone reads; Kipling; H. James. James' prefaces tell what 'writing a novel' means." Yes, they do.

"Incompetence will show in the use of too many words." To live by.

More words: "The secret of popular writing is never to put more on a given page than the common reader can lap off it with no strain WHATSOEVER on his habitually slack attention." Vindication.

A friend was telling me of someone who left academia because of the influx of all the theories and critical methods that distract from the examination of the work itself. I didn't realize that other people disliked that academic tendency. I never spoke of it. How was I going to tell my other literary friends that I refrained from taking our literary criticism class because I didn't want anyone to tell me how to enjoy my literature? (I did do some reading on those theories later just for the sake of knowledge.) But here I find something that again speaks to this issue: "You can spot the bad critic when he starts by discussing the poet and not the poem." Thank you, E.P.