Ps, I’ve not read it, but based on the section you quote, the Dee piece is not remotely convincing to me. Conflating art with cultural phenomena in general is about as basic an error as one can make. Any form of poorly remunerated but still attention-receiving performance or expression is “art”? Nah
Yes, I agree with you about conflating culture and art (that was Josipovici's point in his modernism book, which Weinberger disputed). I won't speak for KD, but—in theory—new cultural forms like new forms of media might be the basis for new art.
Great post. "I like to find the subtlety lurking in overstatement rather than the passion buried in understatement." < I see what you mean here but when the Poundian poem-including-history guys do this I always find it a bit risible. I don't really like Sebald or Labutut for this reason, you're reading about ancient China or cod fishing or whatever and there's a big neon sign in the middle flashing "THE HOLOCAUST" or "HIROSHIMA" -- it yokes the unclassifiable wonder and strangeness of the world back into the limitations of the European 20th century mind. A great strength of Weinberger on the other hand is he gives you the connections and you work out the meaning for yourself.
Also now that the dust has settled and Pound's direct inheritors are drifting out of the public consciousness a lot of his essays have this neat Borgesian quality -- a whole secret history of 20th century literature where we're all talking about Charles Olsen and Louis Zukovsky instead of Plath and Stevens. All these strange and lonely men laboring away on these gigantic, gnomic testaments. A lot of the actual output is too obscure to really be great but I never get tired of reading about them.
If anyone is curious I recommend all of his work but especially the gorgeous and unclassifiable linked essay/prose poem An Elemental Thing and the hard to find but entertainingly venomous early collection Written Reaction.
Thanks, yes that's a perfect description of the "Sebaldian" as a mode. (Never read Labutut, sounds annoying.) I mostly find the Poundians unreadable, except for Davenport, and would frankly rather read Plath, but I'm a novelist and a sentimentalist, so there we are; I agree with your somewhat romantic assessment of them as literary material themselves, as if they were Borgesian characters. I definitely need to read An Elemental Thing.
Always take my advice on art…
Ps, I’ve not read it, but based on the section you quote, the Dee piece is not remotely convincing to me. Conflating art with cultural phenomena in general is about as basic an error as one can make. Any form of poorly remunerated but still attention-receiving performance or expression is “art”? Nah
Yes, I agree with you about conflating culture and art (that was Josipovici's point in his modernism book, which Weinberger disputed). I won't speak for KD, but—in theory—new cultural forms like new forms of media might be the basis for new art.
Great post. "I like to find the subtlety lurking in overstatement rather than the passion buried in understatement." < I see what you mean here but when the Poundian poem-including-history guys do this I always find it a bit risible. I don't really like Sebald or Labutut for this reason, you're reading about ancient China or cod fishing or whatever and there's a big neon sign in the middle flashing "THE HOLOCAUST" or "HIROSHIMA" -- it yokes the unclassifiable wonder and strangeness of the world back into the limitations of the European 20th century mind. A great strength of Weinberger on the other hand is he gives you the connections and you work out the meaning for yourself.
Also now that the dust has settled and Pound's direct inheritors are drifting out of the public consciousness a lot of his essays have this neat Borgesian quality -- a whole secret history of 20th century literature where we're all talking about Charles Olsen and Louis Zukovsky instead of Plath and Stevens. All these strange and lonely men laboring away on these gigantic, gnomic testaments. A lot of the actual output is too obscure to really be great but I never get tired of reading about them.
If anyone is curious I recommend all of his work but especially the gorgeous and unclassifiable linked essay/prose poem An Elemental Thing and the hard to find but entertainingly venomous early collection Written Reaction.
Thanks, yes that's a perfect description of the "Sebaldian" as a mode. (Never read Labutut, sounds annoying.) I mostly find the Poundians unreadable, except for Davenport, and would frankly rather read Plath, but I'm a novelist and a sentimentalist, so there we are; I agree with your somewhat romantic assessment of them as literary material themselves, as if they were Borgesian characters. I definitely need to read An Elemental Thing.