Pound vs. Eliot

[abu nuwas]

Ray,

That was what I was trying to say to you, viz. writers being readers of their own work. But it clashes with the idea you previously presented, viz. the reader has more say as to what a given piece of writing means.

Abu,

Yeah, this thread is kind of stupid. Ray and Billy have already convinced me as much.

I only mentioned Barthes, though, to relate to Ray, ultimately, that "readerly authority" can be a bunch of hogwash.

And yet, I still maintain that there were some powerful glimmers of the good stuff that ran through some of Pound's work. Call me crazy, unrefined, or whatever you may.

Best,
James

James,

Over the reader business, it would be plain silly to contradict the idea that when different people read the same thing, they may come away with different understandings. Let us take a bus time-table. We may miss an important asterisk, indicating the service we spend hours waiting for, runs only on Sundays. Or culture may do its worst. A younger generation of English people might imagine that ''9/11'' refers to the Ninth of November, because that I how we do dates. So, if over such brief things we may diverge, misconstrue, or what have you, it is only rational to suppose, that in any more lengthy text, even designed for clarity, 'misunderstandings' will rapidly grow exponentially, as the original reading will itself produce more and more divergences, even without taking into account the further 'misunderstandings' one would expect.

And yet. Although Pound is the worst example, as he was such a fraud, people do translate poems, and novels etc and these then become understood and loved in the new country. It always amazes me how many people rank Neruda as No1, so, however deficient, his translations must have got most of his meaning and essence across, or maybe added a little. This points more to poems having the ability to be sufficiently resilient, in the hands of a competent translator, to communicate a fixed meaning -- although of course the Barthes enthusiasts can say that the translator is just doing his best with what he understands, and then his readers begin all over. In other words, I think it is self-evident that no-one knows what anyone gets from anything, but it is likely to differ. That is no big deal. But the folly is to leave it at that, and pretend that clear communicate does not happen and is not possible. Your lap-top is made following instructions. You use instructions to operate it. de da de da .

I am no expert on Pound, or Eliot either. I wonder how many poets really live, on more than a fistful of memorable lines?