/lit/ - Literature

>>20726766
Thoughts on pic rel? I'm currently an unemployed poorfag but this book will be the first thing I will buy when I get a new job. I read something called "Revolt Against the crepuscular spirit in modern poetry" and thought it was nice so I decided to get his complete non-Cantos stuff.

Thanks for answering my questions OP, I wondered why the thread got deleted. I will check out those books. So you think the charlatan accusations re: Chinese are total "bunk" (as Pound might say)?

Do you think prison shattered his mind or was he still intact in the end? To me it seems like they imprisoned him intentionally as psychological torture (I also think they illegally murdered William Joyce)

>>20726778
It’s fantastic. It’s the first book I bought of Pound and has all the Confucian stuff and a lot of the translations.
>>20726788
The accusations are just not nuanced and kind of full of shit, yes.
Prison almost made him crazy but there’s bits in the Cantos where he is going through his memories and keeping himself sane. It’s amazing what sources he remembered in full when he was finally given a writing desk and paper once they moved him out of the cage (where he was exposed to blacks and the weather, which he makes fun of at points).
I think this point where he focuses on the smallest insect in his cage cell was amazing; it shows how much the inner and outer world was constructed by Pound’s literary imagination and wealth of reading:
>The ant’s a centaur in his dragon world.
Which changes to an almost self examining mental state where he thinks he should become humble:
>Pull down thy vanity, it is not man / Made courage, or made order, or made grace, / Pull down thy vanity, I say pull down
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/54320/canto-lxxxi
https://youtu.be/lX0h1KSM5fs

Meds, NOW

>>20726917
Slaughterer of Cattle just arrived?

With Usura

With usura hath no man a house of good stone
each block cut smooth and well fitting
that design might cover their face,
with usura
hath no man a painted paradise on his church wall
harpes et luz
or where virgin receiveth message
and halo projects from incision,
with usura
seeth no man Gonzaga his heirs and his concubines
no picture is made to endure nor to live with
but it is made to sell and sell quickly
with usura, sin against nature,
is thy bread ever more of stale rags
is thy bread dry as paper,
with no mountain wheat, no strong flour
with usura the line grows thick
with usura is no clear demarcation
and no man can find site for his dwelling.
Stonecutter is kept from his stone
weaver is kept from his loom
WITH USURA
wool comes not to market
sheep bringeth no gain with usura
Usura is a murrain, usura
blunteth the needle in the maid’s hand
and stoppeth the spinner’s cunning. Pietro Lombardo
came not by usura
Duccio came not by usura
nor Pier della Francesca; Zuan Bellin’ not by usura
nor was ‘La Calunnia’ painted.
Came not by usura Angelico; came not Ambrogio Praedis,
Came no church of cut stone signed: Adamo me fecit.
Not by usura St. Trophime
Not by usura Saint Hilaire,
Usura rusteth the chisel
It rusteth the craft and the craftsman
It gnaweth the thread in the loom
None learneth to weave gold in her pattern;
Azure hath a canker by usura; cramoisi is unbroidered
Emerald findeth no Memling
Usura slayeth the child in the womb
It stayeth the young man’s courting
It hath brought palsey to bed, lyeth
between the young bride and her bridegroom
CONTRA NATURAM
They have brought whores for Eleusis
Corpses are set to banquet
at behest of usura.

>>20727960
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnV4ISrcykg
Music to my ears

Why was he a Sinophile? It’s a bit strange.

>>20728092
Confucius was his philosophical hero. Confucianism includes cleaning yourself up, cleaning your room, managing and being in union with your family, then managing and being in union with your city, ... etc. until you can be calibrated with your entire country. Although he liked to read and talk about Rihaku and other Chinese poets, I think he found Confucianism the answer to a lot of political questions that were perhaps left unanswered by the "cultured" dilettantes who only told you to read such and such Platonic dialogue with such and such order and secondary literature. Although he has a lot of elements of Platonism (including utopias, kallipolis, and Eriugena mentioned in The Cantos), Pound needed something very practical and less theistic. There are a lot of heroes, including Confucius, throughout The Cantos but most are similarly into governance (Sigismundo Malatesta was militaristic Venice, Arnaut Daniel et al were the heroes of proper love, Confucius was the hero of philosophy and reason, as well as politics, Adams was the hero of freedom and arguably some political economy, Dante/Virgil/Homer as the heroes of poetry and history-making, where there are cursory mentions of others). Since Confucius thinks you can arrive at divinity through reason alone, as well as through being a good statesman or family man, it makes sense Pound would jump to that, as he came from a relatively rich and influential family of Republicans where governance must have seemed important to him. But, generally, he was also very adventurous and loved to travel and read about faraway places. China in particular was one of his favourite place to read about and delve into its poetry, history, and philosophy, as well as view its art. However, I'd argue medieval France was his favourite place to think about. As it was what started his interest in the Romance languages which he explored with his Masters (and arguably his PhD, which he was kicked out of). He also wrote a lot about Troubadour poetry and I think that was his real obsession, at least when he was young, and throughout The Spirit of Romance.

>>20728092
>hy was he a Sinophile?
Why aren't you one?

>>20728202
China has no interesting books.

>>20726766
Pound's chinese is gay

I primarily read prose but I read a few poems a day. Currently reading selected poems by Pound, I think it's nice. Even with reading Fussell's Poetic Meter it is tough for me to appreciate all of what Pound is doing so I try to understand what I notice and merely feel the rest.

>>20728239
Start with the Tang Dynasty.

bui