From ptrourke@mediaone.net Tue Mar 7 20:12:38 2000 Received: from mxu4.u.washington.edu (mxu4.u.washington.edu [140.142.33.8]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW99.09/8.9.3+UW99.09) with ESMTP id UAA44366 for ; Tue, 7 Mar 2000 20:12:37 -0800 Received: from chmls05.mediaone.net (ne.mediaone.net [24.128.1.70]) by mxu4.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW00.02/8.9.3+UW99.09) with ESMTP id UAA24635 for ; Tue, 7 Mar 2000 20:12:36 -0800 Received: from patricktrourke (h00500480cb85.ne.mediaone.net [24.147.80.93]) by chmls05.mediaone.net (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id XAA07273 for ; Tue, 7 Mar 2000 23:12:33 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <003001bf88b4$6ef4efe0$5d509318@ne.mediaone.net> From: "Patrick T. Rourke" To: "Classics List" Subject: The Most Beautiful Book in the Language (was Golding's Ovid) Date: Tue, 7 Mar 2000 23:11:51 -0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2919.6600 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2919.6600 [Once again, I contradict myself.] To answer DL's question directly, I would guess that Pound was drunk on the music he found in it. A number on the list have in the past complained about the unwieldiness of Golding's line (for instance, Prof. Green). Can one see from the passages Pound chooses to highlight in "Elizabethan Classicists" what he thought he was on to? While in this garden Proserpine was taking hir pastime [an ugly start, I think] In gathering eyther Violets blew, or Lillies white as Lime [almost sing-songy] And while of Maidenly desire she fillde hir Huand and Lap, Endeavoring to outgather hir companions there. By hap Dis spide her: lovde her: caught her up: and all at once well nere. The last line has the best movement to it - sharp, surprising, like the event it describes; it follows well from the rhythm of the previous lines, but it isn't really the kind of movement you can expect to find in Golding often. As for the rest, there's an order there for sure, but a bit more than we would like. Golding's not for small doses. I think that in reading Golding through the monotony glazes out and the broader movements of the language start to show through. And once in a while there'll be a good line like the last here. But of course in the statement DL has quoted, Pound's being as gratuitously provocative as possible, in a footnote, no less; footnoted [in 1929, 12 years after the essay was first written] to a sentence immediately preceding the statement that "Milton is the most unpleasant of English poets" and a few lines preceding "His [i.e., Milton's] real place is nearer to Drummond of Hawthornden . . . . His short poems are his defenders' best stronghold, and it will take some effort to show that they are better than Drummond's *Phoebus Arise*." QED? I think not. He'd 've been better off to have said "BLAST MILTON. His LATINIFICATION of the beauties of English, his PILED PERIODS breathless with boundless banality. BLESS GOLDING, his BRITTLE BOUNCING lines & PASSIONATE PURPLES" & been done with it.* I suppose if you read Golding as Uncle Ez' . . . With Golding himself I can't go into greater detail, as the reason I found out about the reprint is because I've been looking for a copy for a few years since reading a library copy for academic purposes. I know I have a few long swaths relevant to Shakespeare's narratives somewhere on this big beast of a computer (or its linuxized brother downstairs), but it would take too long to find 'em. Patrick Rourke *As at least a few of you know, I'm parodying the Vorticist Manifesto that opens Lewis's BLAST 1, of the big broad pink covers, the ugly blocky typography, and the equally blocky art. My point is that Pound is, well, pounding away here, his criticism in this instance being about as surgical as a hog butcher in late autumn snow. Subtlety of expression was not the strong point of Vorticist criticism (and "Elizabethan Classicists," coming about three years after BLAST 1, has a number of Vorticist vestigia), though it wouldn't be fair to deny the discernment of many of their observations. If you choose to read BLAST 1 - it's worth a GUFFAW or two - I should warn you that at least one of Pound's poems has what I consider to be objectionable content (anti-Semitic). Would've been better if I hadn't slid into that alliterative mode . . . J M for MULTICONSONANTAL Pfundstein has had his effect . . . .