tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4821243838031243709.post7066251125058932686..comments2023-11-05T04:15:44.564-08:00Comments on Robert Frost's Banjo: “Mœurs Contemporaines”Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15687192784861682991noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4821243838031243709.post-72256874106649533922009-01-11T12:42:00.000-08:002009-01-11T12:42:00.000-08:00Hi everybody:Just in case anyone thinks the commen...Hi everybody:<BR/><BR/>Just in case anyone thinks the comment above is a sign of domestic discord, just let me assure you that Eberle & I had a rollicking & fun conversation about this post yesterday. She pointed out that in matters literary, I'm sorta the straight man & she's the gal with the punch lines; & she says both roles are crucial.<BR/><BR/>Thanks Eberle!Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15687192784861682991noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4821243838031243709.post-82185287671231347172009-01-10T07:27:00.000-08:002009-01-10T07:27:00.000-08:00Masculinism was another little problem of Pound’s,...Masculinism was another little problem of Pound’s, existing in him as a natural and fitting aspect of fascism. Of course he did not exactly lack for company in that realm—it was the rare man of letters who was able to overcome the handicap of gender privilege in those heady days when women couldn’t vote. This is one of the reasons that the work of women from this era is so much more interesting to read. In fact, reading their work can lead inescapably to the realization that the so-called canon has never been anything more than a buttressing of race, gender, and class privilege-- and with that awareness, a whole new landscape of literature opens up, that is so compelling, so alive, and so thrilling to explore that it’s hard for me to look back to a time when figures like Pound loomed in my literary landscape. Nonetheless, I do think that men of privilege, in spite of their inevitable handicaps, did produce work that is worth looking at. I really like the part in this poem about the satin infant-basket and the satin harp-bow, the parent/child beaming and rebeaming in the photograph. <BR/><BR/>Ginsberg is more generous than I am in a desire to even think about Pound in more than a passing fashion—and generosity is an admirable trait. On the other hand, Ginsberg is not without his own similarities to Pound, being a member of the group called the Beat-Off Poets by us girls in the heady days of 80s fem crit… <BR/><BR/>I assume that the Mrs. Ward referred to by Pound in his poem is the writer and activist Mary Augusta Arnold (1851-1920) known as Mrs. Humphrey Ward—a rather fascinating figure who managed to anger a truly impressive variety of people. She worked ardently for women’s rights and to improve the conditions of factory women and is credited with starting the first working-class day-care programs, and was opposed to suffrage for women. Her works were runaway bestsellers— her re-interpretation of Christianity along socialist lines spoke to burning issues of the time and gained her staunch supporters as well as bitter enemies—all very vocal. Henry James praised her, Virginia Woolf disdained her, Rebecca West attacked her, Gladstone was both enthralled and horrified. She is definitely worth reading. I recommend her 1894 novel Marcella, published by the Virago Press in 1984; I pause here to heap praises on Virago Press, my all-time favorite publishers-- for releasing editions of so many out-of-print women authors in the days before the internet gave us access to the works of writers who are so curiously prone to invisibility in more hallowed halls of greatness.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com