/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.23506251]

>Ezra Pound's reaction to reading the third episode of Ulysses (Proteus)
Kek. Kind of reassuring to know that even this guy felt intimidated by that text.

[Anonymous No.23506263]

>>23506251
>titanic intellect
>he said this unironically
He'd be a /lit/izen for sure.

[Anonymous No.23506283]

>>23506263
He was diagnosed by six psychiatrists with psychopathic personality disorder.
>The main feature of Pound's personality, he wrote, was his "profound, incredible, over-weaning (sic) narcissism"

[Anonymous No.23506312]

>>23506283
(((psychiatrists)))

[Anonymous No.23506317]

>>23506283
It's not hard to believe if you're read his poems.

[Anonymous No.23506323]

>>23506312
They’re pretty based as psychotherapists.

[Anonymous No.23506332]

>>23506283
Honestly, from a modern perspective, looking back on his life, it certainly looks much more like bipolar disorder. Fluctuating between the exuberant, expansive, grandiose, even megalomaniacal episodes (which would’ve been interpreted as “psychopathy”, also a phrase used much more by old-timey psychologists and in a slightly different, old-timey way), and the depression and despair that characterized the end of his life, sadly.

There’s also the fact, so obvious but strangely so often disregarded, that the very experience of being forcibly mentally institutionalized and finding it difficult or impossible to get out, can itself exacerbate one’s mental illness, and lead to (understandable, if regrettable) rage and lashing out against one’s “captors”. Especially considering this was at least partially a politically motivated institutionalization for his treason, supporting fascism outspokenly in his radio broadcasts during WW2. I’m not even a fascist myself but it’s hard not to see it as a case analogous to the Soviet corruption and weaponization of psychiatry and institutionalization against political dissidents in the Soviet Union.

[Anonymous No.23506361]

>>23506332
Honestly you might be onto something, I'm bipolar and "even my titanic intellect" is like something I would say to my friends during one of my manic episodes ("in my infinite wisdom" and "thanks to my peerless will" is what I used to jokingly say)

[Anonymous No.23506368]

>Gawd damn it, it is Writing, with a large W. and no C.

Genuinely what did he mean by this

[Anonymous No.23506405]

>>23506263
He was clearly being ironic while at the same time recognising his own high, and completely undeniable, intelligence. He's one of the greatest poets of the 20th century, of course he's leagues above the average /lit/izen.

ITT nothing but plebs enjoying picking apart a genius as if they're just as great as he.

[Anonymous No.23506430]

>>23506405
Calm down Ezra

[Anonymous No.23506435]

>>23506251
Lots of famous writers were filtered in some way by Ulysses. Add to that pile Virginia Woolf and JL Boreges. Ulysses was the closest that literature has ever gotten to an atomic bomb.

[Anonymous No.23506437]

>>23506405
Pull down thy vanity, I say pull down.

[Anonymous No.23506443]

>>23506368
Provided that I'm not stupidly missing a more obvious explanation, I think it's a (slightly lame) pun on W.C. Although maybe it's almost apt if Pound has in mind Stephen's line in the Proteus chapter about how the heretic Arius died in a toilet ("in a Greek watercloset he breathed his last"). Stretching it but nonetheless interesting to note, W.C.s are important symbol of Englishness/Romanness in the Aeolus chapter as opposed to Mulligan's view of a Hellenised or Jewgreek/Greekjew Ireland -- Stephen and Bloom notably don't use a W.C. for their final midnight piss.

[Anonymous No.23506468]

>>23506435
Tbf, Borges was ESL

[Anonymous No.23506473]

>>23506443
god! i knew i was right to call this pervert freak a fecalpheliac! he is obsessed with shit!

[Anonymous No.23506487]

>>23506473
You were almost right, you should have called him a coprophiliac or scatophiliac. Fecalphiliac is a solecism because it's mixing up Latin and Greek etymologies.

[Anonymous No.23506490]

>>23506317
Are there poems in the room with you now?

[Anonymous No.23506517]

>>23506473
Shit is a very European obsession. Germans and French, for example, are obsessed with shit. Jean-Luc Godard called shit "a very French theme".

[Anonymous No.23506546]

>>23506487
it sounds better my way.

[Anonymous No.23506549]

>>23506405
His stuff was ass and the precursor to all bad free verse poetry you see today.

[Anonymous No.23506565]

Poundians always discuss Pound and not his poetry

[Anonymous No.23506567]

>>23506546
nah, the middle part is awkward (clash between the L and the ph sounds)

[Anonymous No.23506569]

>>23506549
>His stuff was ass
No, it wasn't.
>ass construction
nigger detected

[Anonymous No.23506579]

>>23506487
>>23506546
>>23506567
Isolated, "scatophilia" is the variant that is most aurally pleasing and most satisfying to vocalize for the tongue.

[Anonymous No.23506626]

>>23506579
wrong wrong wrong, saying 'scat' is revolting. unless, as you've shown yoursefl to be, you yourself are a fecalfeliac like that freak Joyce.

[Anonymous No.23506649]

>>23506626
I compared the alternatives purely in regard to the sound the syllables make when enunciated. Perhaps you have some yet unexhumed and unexamined desires yourself if the word itself makes you so uncomfortable.

[Anonymous No.23506659]

>>23506626
>fecalfeliac
forced meme

[Anonymous No.23506677]

Fecalzone of copperfillets and scatterpillar. Dilletantish but notoritious.

[Anonymous No.23506680]

>>23506283
>The main feature of Pound's personality, he wrote, was his "profound, incredible, over-weaning (sic) narcissism"

Poet's are poets, water is wet.

[Anonymous No.23506685]

>>23506332
A soviet spy infested FDR administration pushed for treason and death penalty - a real possibility - and the 'insanity' plea was the only hedge against it. Had to play the part to some extent.

[Anonymous No.23507783]

[Anonymous No.23507839]

>>23506405
I must fight a suspicion of conspiracy against my brain when I see blandly accepted as great literature by critics and fellow authors Lady Chatterley's copulations or the pretentious nonsense of Mr. Pound, that total fake.

[Anonymous No.23507911]

>I confess that it is an extremely tiresome book but it is the only book which I am able to write at present.
at least he knowed

[Anonymous No.23507968]

[Anonymous No.23509165]

Looking around now for various artist's opinions on Joyce out of curiosity. We all love gossip after all, whether you admit it or not. Bob Dylan was filtered by Ulysses apparently:
>"I couldn’t make hide nor hair of it. James Joyce seemed like the most arrogant man who ever lived, had both his eyes wide open and great faculty of speech, but what he say, I knew not what."
He also admits to never having read Pound, despite mentioning him in Desolation Row. What a pseud.
>"What I know of Pound is that he was a Nazi sympathizer in World War II and did anti-American broadcasts from Italy. I never did read him." As for Eliot: "I liked T.S. Eliot. He was worth reading."

[Anonymous No.23509227]

>>23509165
>arrogant
Why is it that whenever a dimwit is confronted by something that escape his comprehension his reaction is to think that he is being trolled by someone who believes to be better than him?
Forget pound, Dylan would make for a wonderful /lit/izen

[Anonymous No.23510280]

>>23509165
Eliot and Pound always struck me as pretty similar poets, it's just that Eliot was far more reserved and melancholic while Pound was bipolar and extroverted. I can't think of anyone who would like one but not the other unless they're too butthurt to get over Pound's politics.

[Anonymous No.23510537]

pound sucks ass how does anyone read his shit genuinely

[Anonymous No.23510691]

>>23506405
And he's not even saying anything substantial about Joyce's text, not the content or style, only that it was too dense for him to read through in one sitting.

[Anonymous No.23510934]

>>23510280
eliot mogs though
>>23510537
this