What's /lit/'s consensus on these? The greatest work of modern poetry or just the ramblings of a mad fascist hack?
Both. Really.
>>7353990
>boohooo, he was on 'the wrong side of history' therefore his poetry is shit
>>7354053
/thread
/lit/ rarely discusses the Cantos. Or Pound, really
>>7354082
Yet everyone seems to think it's god-tier poetry
>>7354053
>he was on 'the wrong side of history'
We'll see.
Just finished the Malatesta Cantos. The man put several years into just those ten pages of poetry. 700 pages worth of notes. 65 drafts and fragments.
Was Pound the original autist writer?
>>7354109
*tips social justice*
m'pronouns
>>7354053
More like 'he was on the wrong side of history, and also his poetry was shit.'
Now architecture, that's where the fascists knew what they were doing.
>>7353990
Incredibly good in parts, but overall a conceptual failure.
Honestly I doubt more than 5 people on /lit/ have read even a selection from The Cantos.
>>7354604
We all just jump on his name because he was a fascist, which is cool and edgy when you're twelve and begging your mom to buy you a black trench coat.
>>7354109
/thread once again
Picked it up once and a lot of it seemed pretty impenetrable to me. Are there any good companions or criticisms to make sense of it?
Like >>7354604 says, some of it is just top-tier poetry. But it's uneven. There are some terrible poems in it. It coheres well, with a running economic critique through it, although it saddens me that the same observations he had could just have easily led to communist conclusions, rather than the conspiretard "muh jews" position.
I read the whole thing.
I write poetry as well, and Poetic Eggs is rather a good metaphor to what I think poetry should be, with Wallace Stevens as probably the epitome.
If he had chopped it in half, keeping the best: it would be a top-ten poetry book ever in the English language.
My favourite thing about it is how it weaves together all poetic tradition in terms of both time and space together, from the medieval troubadour tradition to Japanese spare forms to Italian forms, to free verse.
>>7354653
http://www.amazon.com/Companion-The-Cantos-Ezra-Pound/dp/0520082877
reminder Ezra didn't intend for you to read the Cantos with a guide
just ordered the full cantos thanks to this thread. read the first canto and thought it was dope.
thanks /lit/
>>7354604
I have. I didn't like them.
I had to write an essay on Pound once. Read more of his writing than anyone should. Was very relieved when it was all over. The man's a hack. His translations from Latin are really very awful, and I don't buy his excuse that he's "bringing a dead poet to life" or whatever it was that he insisted when anyone pointed to his mistakes
>>7354752
yeah and the thing holding them all together is that Pound sees his own reflection in all of them. his readings of literature, especially non-English literature, were incredibly shallow.
seriously, he's overrated. his only legitimate claim to fame is helping Eliot and Joyce get published. much of what remains of his reputation is due to anglos not knowing other languages, hence their willingness to concede how "learned" he is, etc.
both
>>7354089
[citation needed]
people also look for or create flaws in his work more than others because of his politics. most of the time without realizing what theyre doing
> Fascism is the authentic heir to Confucianism
yea ok there buddy
>>7357775
>implying you've even read the whole thing
yea ok there buddy
>>7357782
Harold Bloom told me not to bother, he says "it's a period piece" he says.
>>7357624
If you intentionally learn nine languages to enrich your own poetic tradition, of course you're not going to achieve depth. C'mon anon, that's a cheap shot and you know it. Do better.
>>7357805
Pound more than most other poets approached the English tradition as something that needed to be enriched. You buy into the idea; I don't. I don't think Confucius a more "responsible" or important teacher than the Galilean. I don't think the Victorians dusty and dull. I don't think our classicists are guilty of covering the classics with a Tennysonian gloss. I don't think the average man needs to move into the city and spend all his time at museums and libraries. I think Pound's philosophy was deplorable, his fascism inevitable, his womanizing pathetic. He was a dandy with a mean spirit, a perpetually bitter narcissist, a perfect example of the emptiness of giving one's life wholly to "art".
>>7353990
indecipherable and far too derivative. his poetry is basically a collection of the previous few hundred years, tied vaguely together with his shitty ideology sprinkled on top.
typical conversation about ezra pound
>I don't like Ezra Pound. I read a few poems of his in Lustra, Ripostes, Cathay, and they were mildly interesting but I don't care for his versification or his personality
>uhhhh have you read the cantos
>no
>then you cant talk
>well they add up to a massive tome of needlessly dense poetry which can only be read profitably by a savant or someone who enjoys reading poetry with a guide book
>haha you dont even understand them you dip. you probably just hate him blindly because of his fascism.
>>7358626
You know what assholes do, besides shit? They put words in others' mouths.
>>7361250
I haven't put any words into EP's mouth and if you think I have then you just haven't read as much of his prose and letters as I have.
>>7361271
Idiot.
>>7361271
I never wrote anything about English needing enrichment.
>>7354597
this
he was damn good at making an image for himself, though
