From steven@sizcol1.u-shizuoka-ken.ac.jp Thu Mar 9 19:45:19 2000 Received: from mxu2.u.washington.edu (mxu2.u.washington.edu [140.142.32.9]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW99.09/8.9.3+UW99.09) with ESMTP id TAA41420 for ; Thu, 9 Mar 2000 19:45:17 -0800 Received: from ham.t.u-shizuoka-ken.ac.jp (sizcol.u-shizuoka-ken.ac.jp [133.33.105.11]) by mxu2.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW00.02/8.9.3+UW99.09) with ESMTP id TAA22019 for ; Thu, 9 Mar 2000 19:45:15 -0800 Received: from steven ([133.33.106.107]) by ham.t.u-shizuoka-ken.ac.jp (8.9.3/3.7W-98122215) with ESMTP id MAA13836 for ; Fri, 10 Mar 2000 12:45:31 +0900 (JST) Message-Id: <200003100345.MAA13836@ham.t.u-shizuoka-ken.ac.jp> From: "Steven J. Willett" To: classics@u.washington.edu Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2000 12:53:05 -0600 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: beautiful language Reply-to: steven@sizcol1.u-shizuoka-ken.ac.jp In-reply-to: References: <200003090248.LAA10327@ham.t.u-shizuoka-ken.ac.jp> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12b) On 9 Mar 00, at 17:40, James M. Pfundstein wrote: > SJW did not endorse Dante in his posting, but rather Gombrowicz, whose > essay, he said, would "anger Dante lovers." Now we have it that SJW is a > Dante lover. (I take SJW's word for this, but no one but a mind-reader > could tell it from his recent post, to which I was responding.) It is no > long step from here to the conclusion that SJW enjoys being angry, or at > any rate thinks it beneficial. No SJWologist would find this surprising, I > suppose, but it is not the sort of position that every reasonable person > (or, according to Seneca, any reasonable person) could be expected to take. > The problem doesn't seem to be JMP's inability to read (an over-used and > rather timid ploy of SJW's, when something he says comes up for criticism), > but SJW's inability to write what he says he means. This is becoming farcical. 1. I did not "endorse" Gombrowicz, I said that his essay on the Inferno would anger Danteans and was worth reading along with Beckett's "Dante and the Lobster" from _More Pricks than Kicks_. It would be a great exercise for students after finishing the Inferno. About that I was quite serious. 2. My view of Dante is contained in the archives. 3. One might construct an imaginary chain leading from my reading recommendations to my dislike of Dante, but only by a complete disregard of the ordinary meaning of words. Here is what I wrote, plain and simple: "If Gombrowicz angers poetry lovers and poets, he will certainly anger Dante lovers in his meditation on Dante. I suggest reading it first and then turning to Beckett's "Dante and the Lobster." One could engage the most somnambulistic students by having them go from the Inferno to Gombrowicz to Beckett. Too bad it's never been done before." There isn't the slightest suggestion of dislike for Dante. It's quite possible, of course, that many Dante lovers would not be disturbed by Gombrowicz' reflections on the Inferno. I may have overstated their power to irritate. ========================================== Steven J. Willett University of Shizuoka, Hamamatsu Campus 2-3 Nunohashi 3-chome Hamamatsu City, Japan 432-8012 Voice: (53) 457-4514; Fax: (53) 457-4514 Japan email: steven@sizcol1.u-shizuoka-ken.ac.jp US email: sjwillett@earthlink.net .