Language, Sexuality, and Ideology in Ezra Pound's CantosEzra Pound's Cantos remains among the most influential and difficult of twentieth century poetic writings. But now, for the first time, Rabaté's powerful and original study presents a theory of reading adequate to the challenge of Pound's writing. Using elements from Lacanian psycho-analysis and Heidegger's powerful meditation of poetry and language, this book constructs a theory of reading which both gives full force to the strategies of writing deployed in the Cantos and to the historical and political situations to which those strategies are a response. This study provides a fresh reading of the familiar Pound canon: Homer, Dante, Ovid but also of the less well-known: Ruskin, Browning, Frobenius. Pound's practice of quotation is understood in the context of a new poetic discourse characterized by parapraxis, ellipsis, condensation and autonomous "voices" which refer the division of the speaking subject back to an "omniform" intellect capable of taking on any new personality at will. Crucial to an understanding of Pound's situation is the relationship between Chinese and Greek culture, an analysis of which allows Rabaté to elaborate the tragic dimension in Pound's life and works. This book also parallels and contrasts Pound with his major contemporaries such as Eliot and Joyce and with his immediate heirs, like William Carlos Williams, H.D., Zukofsky, and Olson. |
Contents
the Articulations of the Subject | 31 |
Seeds of speed | 40 |
Organic symptoms | 47 |
The masks of politics and | 57 |
No logic of discourse | 64 |
Ideogram and Ideology | 76 |
the Law of Quotation | 106 |
Between Reference and Reverence | 141 |
Towards a General Critique of Economy | 183 |
From Ethics to Hermeneutics | 242 |
the Legendary Rite Writing and Tragedy | 287 |
Notes | 299 |
320 | |
329 | |
Other editions - View all
Language, Sexuality, and Ideology in Ezra Pound's Cantos Jean-Michel Rabate,Jean-Michel Rabaté Limited preview - 1986 |
Common terms and phrases
American analysis appears Aristotle attempt becomes character Chinese chronicle circulation concept condensed Confucian Confucius culture Dante defined desire difference discourse dissociation division dynastic Cantos dynasty economic ego scriptor enunciation Ethics Eva Hesse Ezra Pound Faber father Frobenius function gods Gourmont's Greek Guide to Kulchur Heidegger Heidegger's Hell Hermes ibid idea ideogram ideology idiom instance interest John Adams Lacan language later Cantos London Marx Mary de Rachewiltz means montage Mussolini myth nature Nekuia Odysseus original Paideuma parataxis Paris passage Pisan Cantos play Plotinus poem poet poetic poetry political production quotations quoted reader reading reference rites sense signifier signs Sordello speaking speech symbolic symptom synthesis T. S. Eliot theme theory tion transforms translation truth unconscious Usura usury utterance vision voice Wandjina William Carlos Williams word writing