Ezra Pound - ABC of Reading

8/21/2019 Ezra Pound - ABC of Reading

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HE CAN

ELECED CAN

CLLECED HRER PEMCLLECED EARLY PEM

Edited Michae Jhn KingELECED PEM 1908-59

HE RANLAN F EZRA PUND

Induced Hugh KennePHCLE'ELERA

vesin Eza PundLERARY EAY F EZRA PUND

Edited S. EitELECED PRE 190965

Edited Wiiam CknELEC ED LEER F EZRA PUND 90741

Edited D D Paige

A B C of Reading

byZRA OUND

fbfbLONDON BOSTON


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Fst pubshed n 1934by George Rouedge Lmted

New edon pubshed n 1951by Faber and Faber Lmted

3 Queen Square London WClN 3AU

paperback edon rst pubsed n 1961Ressue 1991

Pnted n Great Bn by Cox & Wyman Ltd, Readng Berkshre

rgh reseed

Copyrgt the Ezr Pound Lte Propey T 1934 1951

ok so suea t the ntion tht it sh not, w oftoothee b t, ro hired out

othee crted without the publh' pr nst in n ofbinding or oth thn tht in whh it is

publh nd wthout simir ton inung thtn ng ios on the suut pus

ACIP rcord for ths bk is aviabe from the Brish braISBN 0 57 05892 2

Contents

ABC

OW TO STUDY lOTRY

WARNING

1CHAPTR ON

Laboratory ConditionsIdeogrammic Method

CHAPTR TWO

What is Literature?hat i the Ue of Laguage?

CHAPTR THR

CHAPTR FOUR

PtB 9

11

13

17

23

26

28

28

29

32

36Compass, Sextant, or Lanmark 41

CHAPTR FIV 50

CHAPTR SIX 58

CHAPTR SVN 62

CHAPTR IHT 63

Test nd Composition Exerie 6Second Set 66Further Tests 68

Bis71

Liberty 77Exercie 77XIXth Century 78Study 79Perception 81The Insuctor 83Taste 86

DISSOCIAT

DICT= CONDSA 92

7


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bitFo PioxStyle of a Pod Table of Dat

Otr DatTo RcpitulatWt

TB.TIS OK T

8

J 9532353

892

9AB

Or gus ssum, fr thos whmght k t . h bk ntadrss to tos wh hv rrv t fnowlg of th subjct wtout knwingte fact


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H Sudy Py

THE present book is intended to meet the need for fuller

and simpler explanation of the method outlined in How toRed. Ho o Rd may be considered as a controverspamphlet summarizing the moe actie or spiky parts of

te autor's ealier citial skmising, and taking count

of an enemy. Te pesent pages should be ipersona

enoug to sere as a text-book The author hopes to

follow te tadition of Gaston Pais and S. Reinah tat isto produce a text-oo tat can also be read for pleasu

as well as po y tose no longer in school; by those whohae not been to shool or by those who in their college

days suered those tigs wih most of my own enera

tion suered

A private word to teachers and professors will be found

toward the end of the volume. I am not idly sowing torns

in teir path. I sould like to make even their lot and ife

more exhilaating and to save een them from necessa

boredom in class-room

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Warning

1T longish dull stetch shortly fte the gn

f th ook. Th studnt wi hv to endu it I m tt plc trying by l mns to void mbiguity, in

p of sving th studnt's time lter

Glo d solemnity e enely out of plce in v mst igoous study of n t orginaly intnded to ld th hert of mn

Gvity, mystius crig of tbody t concl th defects of the mnd

LAURENCE STRN

3 T hsh tetmnt e ccorded nume ftoio wits is not imlss, ut proceeds om : covictin tht the ony wy to keep th est writng c, o t mk t st poety popu', ytic seprtion f th st o gret mss of witintt s n long considd f vlu, tht hs vightd cicul, nd tt to b lmd fo t veco cnt id t ood k must ofcssity dull on

c csic us it cfoms t ct1l uls, r ts r denitons (of whic it

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autho ha qte poaly nee ead) It s classc e

ause o a cetan etenal and epessle eshss

Italan state examne jolte y my eton o

Caalcant, expessed admaton at the almost ulta

oenty o Gudos language

gnant men o genus ae contntly dsoeng

laws o at wc t acadmcs a slad o dden

he autos concton on ts day o Ne Ye s tat

usc gs to atophy wen t epats too a om th

ance that poety egns to atopy en t gets too a

om mus ut ts must not e taen as mplyn that

algoo musc s dance musc o all poety lyc Bach and

Moat a nee too a om physcal oeent

unc est endum

Nunc pede leo

Pulsana tells

14

EIN E


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Chapter One

We live an age of science and of abudance caand reverence for hooks as suc, proper to an age wen ook as duplicated unil someone took te pains to copyit out b and, obiousl no longer suied to 'e nof society or to te conservaton of leing Te weedeis supremel needed te Grden of e Muse to perias a garden

T proper METHOD for uding poer and gooletters e eod of contemporar biologist, tat isarel rst-and examintion of te matter and continuCOMPARION of one 'slide or spcime wit anoter

No man equipped for modern g untl e aunderstood te anecdote of Agassiz and te s:

A post-graduate sudent equipped it onours and dilomas went o Agassiz o receive te nal and isintouces Te great man oered a small s nd tol

to describe itPos-Graduae Student: 'Tats onl a sunsAgassiz: 'I know tat Write a description of itAer a fe minues te suden reurned wit t de

iption of te cus eliodiplodokus, or watev t sed t conceal te common suns om vlg knledge, family of eicterinkus etc, as fod ttooks of te sbject

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here was goo deal o care for termnology and thegeneral exacttude n the ue of bstract term may hveeen (probaby was} hgher.

I mean a mediaeval theologian took care not to dee adog in terms that ould have applied just a well to a dogstooth or its hde, or the noise it makes when lappng water;

ut all your eachersw tel you that science developedmore rpidly afte acon had suggested the drect eamnation of phenomena and after ileo and others hadtopped dscussing things o much and had begun really toook at them and to nvt means (lke the telescope) ofseeing them better

he most useful livng member of the Huxley mlyhas emphasized the fact that the telescope wasn't merelyan idea, but that it was very dentely a techncal acievement.

By contrst to the method of abstractio or of denngthngs n more and stll more general terms Fenollosaemphasies the method of science, whch is the method ofpoetry ' as dstinct om that of phlosophc dscussiond is the way the hnese go about it in ther ideograph

or abbrevated picture wing.

o go back to the begnng of story you robayko that there is spoken language and witten languageand tht there are two nds of writte language onesed o sound ad the other on sight

You sak to an amal wth a few sle oise ad20

e Levy-Bruh ccou o rive a Aic rcord auae that e still ond u imc ad ete

e Etian ally used reiated ice orereet onds but the Chiese til e areied icre A ictures that i to say Chiee ideora doe o

t to e the pictur of a od or o e a rite iecalin a sound but it is til the icture o a thig; o thin i a ive ositio or reato or of a comiatio ots It man the tng or he action or situao orqait erae o te severa ins that it ic

Gaudier Breska who wa accustoed to oo at here ae o thgs cold read a certai mot oChiesewtwitout ANY STUDY. e aid O coeyou can seeits horse (or a wig or hatever)

I abes showing prmitive Chinese character n oecon and the preset coventioalied is i aotheryoe can see o the ideoram or n or ee or nrisedeveoped or wa ipied om or a reduced o teeetia o the t icte o t or urie

Tu

A*e

a

tree

n

sun tangled n the tree raches asat unrise eaning o he Et

Bu he the Cam aed o e ict e 21


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something more complcad, or of a general idea, how did

h go abou i?

He is to dne red. How can h do it in pict that

is't paned n red pan?

He pus (or his ancestor put) togthr th a bbreviatd

pictrs of

ROSE CHERRY

IRON RUST FLAMINGO

Tha, you se, is very much he kind of hing a bioloist

does (in a very much mor compicaed way) when he gets

togeher a few hunded or housand slides, and picks out

what is cessay for his genera saemen. Somethng

that ts the case, that appies in a of the cases.

h Chinese ord or ideogram for red is basd o

something everyone KNOWS.

If ideogram had devoped in Engand, th writrs

would possiby have subsituted the fro side of a robi,

or something ess exoic han a amingo.)

Feoosa was tling how ad why a anguage writ i

ths way simpy HAD TO SAY POETIC; simpy coudt

p bng and staying poetic in wa tha coum o

Es t might v w ot sta poetic.

H d bfo getting od to puishing and pro

c a mtod'.

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Ths is nvertheess the RIGHT WAY o tudy poet,

or iterature, or paintin. It is in fact he way the mor

inteignt mmbrs of the general public DO stud

painting. If you want o nd out somhinaout painting

ou go to the Nationa Galery, or the Salon Carr, or th

Brera, or the Pado, and LOOK at th pictures.

For every reader of book on a, 1,000 peope go toOOK at the paintngs. Thank haven!

LABORAORY CONDITIONS

SERIES of concideces has prmitted me (1933) to

demostra the How to Read thesis in a medium nearer to

poetry than painng is. roup of serious musicians

Gerart Mnch, Oga Rudg, Lui Sansoni), a town haat our disposition (Rapao), we prsented among oh

things the folowng pogrammes:

Oct. 10.

From he Chesotti MSS. Mnch transcription: Fra

cesco da Milano: Cazoe de Ucclli ', rcast om

Janquin.

Giovanni Trzi: Sui di Bao.

Corei: Sonata in La maj., to violins ad piano.J. S. Bach. Sonata in Do maj. dito.

Debussy: Sonaa pr piano e voino.

Dec. 5.

Coezion Chisotti: Svri: due Arie.

Rocai: Predo

igua, Passacag

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ence (omitng vaiou intemeiate tep) . encete almot tationa conition of nolege tougoutte idle age Abtat agument int get manindapil foa o apil extend te boe of noledge

THE IDERAMMI METHD R TE

METD F SIENE

a paintig b alo Dolci beie a omo TuaYou annot pevent M Buggin fom pefeing te f

me but ou an ve eioul ee etting up a

fale taitin of teaing on te aumptin tat Tuaa neve ete o tt te qitie te Tua e nn

etent o outide te ope of te pbleA gene tatement i valule l in REFERENE

to te non objet o fact

Een te geneal tatement of an ignoant mn i

tue it leae mout o pen itout an geat

valiit e oent KNW at e i ag Tat i edoent n it o mean it in anting lie te egee tat

a man of expeience ould o oe Tu a ve oung

man cn be que 'igt tout g onvition to anol man ong an o ma quite el be ong

and til no a goo eal tt te unge man oentno

ne of te pleaure of dle age i to out tat oneWAS igt an tat one a mu igte tan one neat a eventeen o tetee

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Ti ent n te lt le t t ue f lg o ogoo guee of ntuton and total peeption o of

eeing o te tg HA T BEIt a oeve a goo l to o it te eienc of

vebl mnettn an t te tanttablit of a

coniion

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Two

What s ltrur, ht u t??

Ltrtr is lagag hargd th maniGrat ltratr is simpl lagag argd wit

maig to th tmost possibl dgr (E. P. i How tod).

Bt langaSpokn or writtnSpokn languag s nois dividd p ito a sstm of

grts hisss t. Th all it 'artilat sph.Artilat mas that t is zod ad that a nmbr

of popl ar agrd o th atgors.That s to sa w hav a mor or lss appromat

agrmet abot th dirt noiss rprstd

a b d t.

Writtn lagg as I said i th oping haptr n

consist as i Erop t) of sgs rprsnting thsearios noiss.hr is a mor or lss approximat agrmnt that

roups of ths oiss or signs shal mor or lss orrspondith som ojt aton or ondito.

cat motion pin

he othr ind o lnguae strts by bn a pcte o28

e cat or of somthing movig or bin or of a group otings whh o ndr crtain irmstns, or icpartipat a ommon quality.

PPROACH

I dosnt i or otmporar world so mh mattrwhr o bgi th xamato of sjt so lon aso kp o tl o gt rond again to or startigpoit As t wr o start on a sphr or a b; yomust kp on ntil o hav sn it from ll sids. Or yo thik of or sbjt a s a stool or tal o mst kpon ntl it has thr lgs ad wll stad or for lgs and

wot tip ovr too as.

WHAT s th USE OF LAGUAGE? WHY STUDYLITERATURE

LN was oviosl ratd ad is obviouslyUSED for ommnatio.

Ltrat s nws that STAYS nws.

Thsthngs ar mattrs of dgr. Yor ommniationca mor or lss xat. h ITERES in a statmntcan mor or lss dral.

aot for xampl war ot m itrst n th TaHo of Cofis or i th Homr poms.

Its vr dilt to rad th sam dttiv sor tir lt u sa o a vry good t wl stand r-radinftr a vr long intrval and bas on as pid eo

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ltt attto to it that o ha lot oltl forgott t

Th ao ar atral hoa th r aargro or itrt For o to ol ar

th ar tal

Th rt ho ot a a roal tatt in rarth hlf ha a rl a rlalt H ot a arr bt a ratr of othr

rltKRINO to pick outfor onesel, to choose. hat hat

th wor a

o o o fooh oh to a to o a

hor or atool for hPallo t hor o that o rr thatg a h D of Mla t h to Boloa toU hor

Wh a lar of hor at al ith t of ltratr a ha ala b bo orho

Pallo ha to OOK at th horo wol th that ao at to ko at

otr wol o o of to thg or both E OOK Tt or lt to t H ght th aot t?

f h t a h wol go to oo hoKE othg abot t

If o at to kow othg abot a atoolwolo o to a a who ha a o a r t orto ma who ha rl har abot t

30

of to ho ha a atool ol ogo to o ho ha a a goo o or o ho ha aa both

ol o look at th atal ar or ol at t a

to?

th a of ot thr or to b a gooal to b look at thr to r fw aht ato aalal

Dat a: A azo a ooto of or t to

ot ko a bttr ot to tart fro

Colrg or D Q a that t qat of a'grat ot rhr rt a ohr bl a att xtt or othg of that ort

Th ol a or agro -ot t roal tr

Dat tatt th ttr la to bg ba ttart th rar or harr o hat h atall or

har ta of tratg h fro that ataltto othg hh a ol b aroxatl orojt FROM th atalt a for hh thvdenc a b othg a th atla a lt

tt of th atalt


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,

Chapter Three

1

terate does ot exist in vcuum Writers uve enite scia cti excy proportione t eiiity AS WRITERS T i thei main se A ther

ses are relave temrry, nd can be estimtey in reain t e vies f rticul estimtorPa f particu ie may vlue writers h

gree with them more thn writers who do not, the m,

nd en do vale bad writers of ther own party rreligin more than god writers f nother part r chrchBt there i ne basis suscptble f estimti a

nepenet of alquestion f viewpointd wrters re thse wh kee the nguge eciet

t i t sa, kep it ccute kee t ce It esn'ter hether the good writer wnts t e use reer the bd witer wants t do hm

Lnuage i the main means f humn ommuicai

H ms ervos system oe t amt se stimi the nim aphies

If 's iterture eclines, the nio phies

yYu etr c't egite fr the puli g y

mmner c't ommn y opuce (if yu be emai y) 't insuct its representtve'

ve y guge32

The fogged language of sndling classes serves ny temporar pups.

A limited amount f mmunicaton in re special sub-jects, passes ia mathematical formulae, a the plastiets, via dagrams, ia pu muscal fms, but no oneproposs sbttutng these for the commn speech, nrdes anone suggst that t would b ither possibl r

adisable.

UCUNQUE NGUA ROMANA, ROMA

G and Rome ciz ANGUAGE our

nguge is in the cre f our writers.

[nsult& o'er dull and speechless trbes']

but this langage is not merel for records of great things

ne orace and Shakespeare can proclam its monumentl nd mnemonc value, but that doesn't exhaust themtter

Rome rose with the idiom f Casar, Oid, and Tacitsshe dclined in a wlter of rhtorc, the plmats lan

guage to concea thought', and so foth.

The man of nderstandng can no more sit quet anreigned whle hs cunt lts its literate dc nd letgood riting meet with cntempt, thn a good otrould sit quiet and contente whil some gnorant chidws inectng tself with tberculosis undr the impressi

ht it ws merely eatng jam trts

c

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It isveydculttomakepeopleunderstandtheimper

sonal idignation that a decay ofwritig can causemen

who understandwhat it imples, and the endwhereto it

leads. It is amost impossible to epress ay degree of

such indignation without being cled embittered', or

somethingof that sort

Neertheless the statesman cannot goern, the scientist

canot participate is dscoveries, men cannot agee on

wise action ithout lauage', and their deeds and

conditions are aected by the defects or itues of idiom

A people that grows accustomed to sloppy writing is a

people i prcss of lsi grp on its empire and o itself.

nd this losness ad losiess is not an as sipleand scndus as arupt ad disordered sytax

It concers the relatio of xpression to meaning

brupt and disordered syntax can be at times very honest,

and an elabratel constructed sentence can e at ts

merely an elaborate camouage.

2

THE sum of humanwisdom is not contained i any one

languge, andno snglelanuage isCAPABLEof expres

sinal formsanddegreesof humancomprehension

Thisi a vey unpaatale and bitter doctine But I

cnnot omit it.

Peopleoccasionallydevelopalmostafanaicismco

bat the ide xed' in inglelanguage.Thee ae

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gener speai the prejudices f the ati (an

natio)

Dieret climates and derent bloods hae dierent

need, deret spontaneities, dieret reluctaces, dier

ent ratios betee dieret grups of ipulse ad unwi

lnness, deret cstructions of tt, d a thee

leae trace i the lauae, ad leae it r read admore unad for cetai cunicatis ad reistra

tio

THE REE AMBITON ma e edicre, adthe ambitos of no two aders wi e idetical The

teacher can ony aim hi nstructi at thse who mst

want to lear, but he can at ay rate str them wth an

appetizer', he can at least hd them a prted ist of thethings to be lered in lteratue, or i a ge section

thereof

The rst bg of inertia may be simple igorace of the

extent of the suject, or a imple ugness to moe

away om oe area of semi-igorace The greates

barrier is probably set up b teachers who ow a lttle

more tha the pubic, who wat to exloit ther actiona

knowledge, and who are thorughly oppoed to maing the

least eort to learn anythg more

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Chapter Fou

1

'Geat ltere mpl lge ched wh me

to the utot poe dgee

Dchte = codee

I beg h poey ece t the mot cocetated

orm of vel expreo Bl , g about

wth a Gema-Il dcoary oud tht t dea opoety as coceao s s old almost a the Germa

lange Dchte s he Germn vr corrpod to

the oun Dchug meag poetry ad the lexco

grph h redeed t by th Il ve meag 'to

code.

The chargng o languge s doe ee pcpal ways:

Yo receve the lguage you rc hs let he wordshav meags whch have 'grow the races skn ;

th Gemas say 'w i den Schnabl gewache as t

gow n hs beak Ad the good te chooses hs words

for ther mang but that meang s not a set cuo

thg lke the move of ght or pw on a ches-oard.

It comes up wh roots wth assoctons h how and

whr the word s famlarly used o where t ha en

d brllatly or mmorly.-

36

You can hardly say 'ncaradne wthout one or mor of

your audtors tg of a partcular ln of vrs.

Numrals and words refrrng to uman nvntion

hav hard cut-o meang That i, megs whch

mor obtrusv tha a wordsassocaton .

Bcycle now has a cto mang.

But tandem or bcycle bt for two w probblythrow the mage of a past decad upon the raders metal

scren.

Ther no end to the nmbr of qualtes whch som

pople ca assocat wh a ven wod or knd of wor

and most of thee vay wh the dvdual.

You have to go most exclsvely to Dates crtcsm

to nd a set o OBJECTIVE ctegories or words Dante

caled wordstted d shaggy bcause o th dr

nt OSES they make Or pexa t hirsuta, combed and

hiry.

H also dvded them by ther derent assocatons

EVERTELESS you l charge words wth mean

maly n thee wys, cd phopoea melopoealogopoea ou e a word to hrow a vsual mae on to

the readers magato o you charge t y sod or

yo ue gops o wods to do th

Thdy yo tke the eater k o us the word n

som specal elaton to 'sage that s to th knd of

cotext n whch the rede expcts or s accustomd to

nd t

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Thi i he la meas o eelop i a oly be ue y

he opicae.

(I you wa really o uera wha

bou you will hae o rea uimaely Properiu a

Jule Laforgue)

IF YOU ERE STUDYING CHEMISTRY you woule ol ha here are a cerai umber of eleme a

cerai umber of more uual chemial hemical mo in

ue or eaie . A for he ake of clariy i your

experime, you woul proly be gi hee uace

pure or a pure as you coul coeetly ge hem.

IF YOU WERE A CONTEMPORARY book-keeper

you woul probaly ue he looeleaf yem y whihbuie houe eparae arhie from fa ha are i

ue, or ha are likely o e frequtly eee for referece.

Simiar oveiee are poible i he uy of liera

ure.

Ay amaer of paig kow ha moern galere

ay grea re o goo hagg , ha i, of puing im

poran picure where hey ca be wel ee, a wherehe eyew o e cofue, or he fee wearie y ech

ig for he maerpiee o a a expae of wal cumere

wih rubbih.

hi poin I ca ey well avoi priig a e of

caegorie h oierably aeae y own H t

Rd

38

2

W you ar earchig for 'pe eleen i lieraure

you will ha lieraur ha bee creae by he follow

ig clae of peron:

1 veor. Me who fou a ew proce or whoeexa work gie u he r kow example of a proce.

2 The aer. Me who combie a uber of uchprocee, a who ue he a well a or beer han he

ivenor.

3 The iluer. Me who came afer he r wo ki ofwrier, n coul o he jo q uie a wel.

4 oo wrier wihou aien aliie. Men who eore enough o be br when e lieaure of a gve

conry i in goo working orer, or when ome parc

ranch of wriing 'healhy For exaple, en whowroe oe i Dae me e who wroe hor lc

Shakepeare ie or for ever ece hereer, o

who wroe Frech nove nd orie afe Fauber d

hown e how.

5 Wrer of beelere. a , en who d'teay ve yhng but wo peczd oe r

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cua pt of writing, who ouldn't be onsidered as greatmen o as authors who were trying to give a completepesentatin of e, or of their epoh

6 The starters of razes.

Until the reader nows the rst two ategories he never be ale to see the wood for the trees' He ay nowwhat he lies ' He ay be a opleat boolover' witha large lbrary of beautifully prnted boos, bound in themost luxurious indings ut he will neve be ale to sortout what he nows or to estiate the vaue of one book inelation to others and he will e ore onfused and evenless ale to ae up his ind out a boo where a new

author is reaing with onvention' than to for anopinion aout a boo eighty or a hundred years old

He will never understand why a speilist is annoyedwith hi for trotting out a seond- or thirdhand opinionabout the erits of his favourite bad writer

Unt you have made your own svey and your ownclose inspeton you mght at east beware and avoid

aepting opinions:

1 From en wh haven't themseves produced notabeork (vide p 7)

2 From men who have not themselves taken the risk ofpntin the esults of their own personal insption aney eve they ae seriously makin one

3

COMPASS SEXTANT OR LAND MARKS

L the student brae himself and prepae for the worst Iam oing to y st of the inium that a man would

have to read if he hoped to kow what a given new bookwas worth I ean as he would now whethe a givenpole-vault was rearay high or a given tes playat all liely to play in a avis Cup math

You mght think it woud be safe to prit suh a listor that it would be the last thing a reader oud isundestand' But there would see to be alost no lit to

what people an and msunderstad hen they areot doing their utmost to et at a wter's meanin

With regard to the foowing list one ingeous orngenuous attae suggeste that I had inluded etanpoes n ts list beaus I had myself translated themT dea that during twentyve yeas searh I had transa the poes BUS they were the key positions orth est ilustrations sees not to have ocurred to he surpassd hiself y suggestng that the poem ofBions was an afterthoght mentioned out of pae andhat I ha istaken it fo a poem of Moshus which hehimself had translated That is what oes of tobore eople as litte as possi1e and to put down onesmatter in the least possible spae

The Bion s separated by enturies om the ome anSappho In studing the eie parts of the list the ae-

1


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ion woud, I thi, have gone to the WRITING to thenaratve, to the clarity of expressio, but wol not have

natrally focuse itself o the melodic devices on th

ttng of the words, their SOUND ad utimately their

meaig, to the te.The Bio is put with those troubdours for the sake of

corast, ad i order to prevet the reader from thikig

tht oe set or a hf-doze sets of melodc devces con

stuted the whole of that subject

AT ABOUT THIS POINT te weakhearte reader

sy sts down the rod, emoves his shoes and weeps

at he is a bad liguist or that he or she cat possibly

e those laguages

Oe has to divde the readers who wat to be expertsom those who do ot, ad ivde, as it were, those who

want to see the world om those who merely want to

ow WHAT PART OF IT THEY LIVE IN

When t comes to the question of poetry, a great many

eope ot even want to know that ther own cony

oes not occpy ALL the avaable surface of the panet

The idea sees n some way to nsut them

Nevehess the mamum of phoa howng a

ua mage on the mnd] i probably reache by the

Ce, e n p t the particular n of writen

age.

I the anguages known to me which do not ncue

ersn and Arabc the mamum ofmeloias reache

i th cean devemets n Proven which

42

are ot in Greek, ad wch re of a deret KIND thante Gree

Ad t is my rm covctio that a ma can lear moreabout poery by realy knowg ad exa a few of

he best poems ta by meaderig about amog a

great many. At ay rate, a great deal of false teacg isdue to the assumptio that poems kow to te critic are

of necessity the best.

My liss are a startingpoit ad a challege This cal

ge has been ope for a umber of years ad o oe hasyet take it up. Tere have bee geeral comaits, but

o one has oered rival ist, or put forward particulr

poems as better eaples of a postulated vrtu or qualty

Years ago a musicia said to e: 'But ist tere a placewhere yo ca get it all [meaig all of poetry] as i Bch?

There st. I beeve a maw really e Greek he

can get nearly all of it in Homer.

I have never read haf a page of Homer without dig

meodic vetion, I mean meodic ivetion tht I didteady know. I have, on the other had, foud also i

om the magary spectator, whch n 198 I stil

hougt was Hery James particuar property

Homer says, an experieced soldier would havenoicd. The seer literar qualities i Hoer re such

that a physici has write a book to prove tt Hoer

must have bee a ary doctor (We he describes cer

ta blows d teir eect, te wouds are said to beaccurate, ad the descriptio t for coroers iquest.)

Aother Frech scholar has more or less shown that

the geography of the Odyssey is correct geography; not as

43


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23/103


24/103

telecual or 'coldy inlcual sigcanc. Th ow

much you man i, he how you fl abou manng i, can

ll be pu no lauag

I ook my criica if in y hand, so yas ago, whe

I suggsd a was in som ways a t wrir

han Sappho, no for lopoia u fo conoy of wodsI don in h las know wh his is u On should

sa wih an opn indTh snois of h naissanc hld ha al Grek

poy was han ANY Lain po T ost

inign of h Quaocno Lainiss, Basinio of Pama,

roclamd a vry dint thsis; h hld hat you coult

wri Lain poy ray wl unlss you knw GreTha s, you s, vry dn In h margins of is Lai

araiv you can sil s h ags of Homr ha he wasusing o kp his mlodc sns aciv

I don iv ha any Latin auho is i asal

disnc of Hor I doub if Caus is frio to

Sappho I dou i r is a infrio o h

Gk ancdns; Od is for us a so-hous of a vastmass of mar ha w canno NOW g fom Gek

H is unvn H is clar His vs is as lucid as prose

Micay h is no a pach on Cauus o PopiusPaps sudn now gin o s tha I am

trying to giv a lis of auhors who ar nsrpassd

IN THIR OWN DOAIN, whas is wom I

om are deonsraly INFERIOR o on o mo of he

wrirs I iclude, and hir infriory can be compud o

ome paricuar basis

8

HAVE PATINCE, I am t insising vn no ur laning a muliud of sang languags, I eetell you, n du course, wa you can do i yu ca rea

nly EngisTo put i anh way, I a, af ll hs y

akin a is of ooks hat I si -ad tha I ke m

dsk and look ino now and again.

49


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Chapter Five

1

Th ga ak in Eopan lar isor is cae

ov o incd o cd languag n a ga

al o ciical nonsns as n in popl w

did no aliz dinc

Gk and Lain a incd ta is nouns vrs an

adjcivs hav lil ags o wagging ail and ag

ll whh h noun is sujc o pdica indicae

a wic acs and a wic acd upon diecl r

indicl o ha whic jus anding oun n moe

lss causal laon cos hs ags w ogon as ou mdrn conm

pa Euopan languags volvd Grmn e la

dvlopd ains mos incionTh s wa o using a languag wi sin an

laels aacd wods is OT es a ue

languag whic as o win in a ca er i i i

o cla

I aks a dinc in Englis w ou sa man

ss dog [o] dog ss man

In Lain ir canis o canm m omin c

co s wihou snnc bein las i ai

uus

5

Whn ion wis

Hi wo isos m disos

h i quit ipl doing ong o h oh tgu. H

man

h di h di

I is prtl a o nand h did it ut hi

r prv tht Shkpr d rl d tr

n wr ttr pt Milt did it u h a hk

a lk h ti had tudid i Eglih t

vng ngug ut a shi hori

Who di im, di

dosn ak good vs Th oun i whr h

idio is d Whn h writig i mtrl d NOT

av o xcu i o o n p h aon o prptrtig

aw

2

M ls o diaval pos phaps had o jsiI onc go a an o s anlaing h r in

ins I ca ou alos dic ino Chins v

wh wo oid idogas in ac allin

pa o Saa I know no oh Eopan

pos o h piod ha o can ang up wth h 'El

o o displaing h W on pr ih he

Oin

51

:


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There are passages of Anglo-Saxon as good as paragrapof the Seafarer but I have not fond an hole poem of theame vale The Spanish Cd i lear narrative, and theaga of Gt and t Ni prove that narrativeapait didnt die out

I dont know that a ontemporr writer ould learn

anthing about writing om the sagas that he ouldntlearn better from Flaubert, but Skarpheddins jump andslide on the ie, and the meeting of rttir, or whoever it

was with the ber do not fade from ones memor Yount belive it is tion Some Ielnder on a ledge must atsome time have saved himself b lopping o the outsidepaw of a ber and so mking the brute lose its balaneThis is in sense phnopoei, the throwing of n image on

the minds retinaThe deet of erlier imagist propagand was not inmisstatement bt in inomplete sttement The dilterstook the hndiest and easiest meaning and thoght onlof the STATINAY image If o ant think of imagismor phanopoeia as inlding the moving image, o willhave to make a rell needless division of xed image andpraxis or ation

I have take to sing the term phnopoei to get awa

from rrelevnt prtiulr onnotations tngled wth apartiular group of ong people who were writing i n 1912.

I i mainl for the sake of the melopoeia that one nvestate toado p.

5

One might almost sa that the whole lture of the ge,at an ate the mass of the prel literar ltre of theage om 1050 to 1250 and on 1300, was onentrateon one aestheti prolem whih Dante put it nludethe whole '

That whole t onsisted in ptting together abot si

tophe of poes so that the words and the tune shouldb weded together withot joint and without wem

The best smith, Dante alled a e made thebirds ing IN IS W ODS ; I dont mean that he mereleferred to birds singing

In the anone be

aura amaraFals bruoills branutClarir

Quel dout espeissa ab fuoillsEls letBesDels auels ramenTen balp e mut

et

nd haing done it in that one strophe he kept them atit repeating the tune, and nding ve rhmes for eah ofeventeen rhme sonds in the same order

aing done that he onstruted another perfet stophehere the bird all interrupt the verse

CadahsEn son us

5


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Mas pel ussauc cus

Tha again for six srphs WTH h words maknsnse

The music of hse sns has been los, bu h rdiioncomes up again ver hee cenuries lae

Cemen Janequi re a chrus wih sounds fr hsngers of he diren pars f he chrus These sundswud have n ierary r peic vaue i yu k he musicaay u hen Francesc da Miano reduced i fr heue he irds ere s in he music. And hen Mnchrascried i fr dern insruens he bds ere sihere They ARE s here in he viin pa

Tha is hy he nuen uass he rnze casing

Aains his craf pu h quie denie inenin,he syncpain r he cunerpin f he Syrian GreekDe ah of Adonis ih shal e say on's jazz barunnin crssise

s insance f hw he lfe f a wrk f ar is some

hi ha us wn say naied dwn n a con: ThKennedyFrasers fund sme music n he ouer Heridesha s he Beuf, r a any rae ha some of heBewuf s. is he Ae. heard i concer andracked my ind o hik here i ed woudn go ohe Seafarer T ines ed a i of he Beowuf, hn hnex wuldn skipped a ine of h Bowulf, and wnon The KennedFrasers had oied lin of h u

.54

ha pon bcus i ddn' sm o hm o hav annhrn musical inr

The pon of he foreging srophes r a leas ondimension of heir rkanship, can e asped by anyone hher hey knw Prvenal r n

Wha is e said fr he quaiy f Vetdor in hbes mens r of oreo where here is nhn u hperfecin f he ovemen nhing saien n he hughor he rhyme scheme? You have have knn Prvenal long me perhaps befre yu perceive he derencebeeen his work and anoher

everheless if u are kn he dimensins of

ngsh verse melody a fe cenuries aer yu mus ndour masures r sandards in Prvence. The Miesnrswre cnemporary; you can cnras he nesse hesouh Lain ih he hicker pien f erc vonornen or Von er gi

rmans claim ha German pery has deveped sinch middle ages. My own elief is ha Gehe and Sefanorge a heir lyric es are ding nhing ha hadnlrady been dne beer or as Burchards es verse

oda is in his ranslains f he Via Nuva.ung seven cenuries a l f suec maer f n

gre resen ineres has been sued n German verseh no vry skilfu can see no reason why a foreignwrie should suy i

I se very reason for sudyn Prvenal verse (a ileof i sa h or fy pms) frm e de Pocters

55

,


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e o and oeo. o and i ty,

o and er in France and England, had their root

i Provence : ther rt, ther rtry, d ood de o

the hought.

European civilization or, to use an bomted word,

cultre can be perhaps best undertood a a mediaevarnk ith wash after ash of cassicism going over it.

That is not the hole story bt to understand it, yo mut

think of that seres of perception, as well o anyth

that ha existed or sbsisted unbroken rom atiquty

This book cant be the whole history. pecicay we e

oidering the development o lgage a mea o

egistration.

The Greek ad Romas sed oe set of device, oe et

o technique. The rovenals developed a eret oe,

not i respect to phanopoeia, but n respect to melopoei

AFTER a change in the anguage ytem (from nected,

to progreively les inected peech)

The quantitative verse o the acient wa repaed

yli ere, a they ay the hool ook. t woud

etter to ay that the theorie appled by grammr to

Lati verse, a the decendant of Greek, wer doppedAd that tting tz n o word to tue reped the

posedly regur pondee, dacty, etc

The quetion o the reative duratio o yllbe h

ever been neglected by men with uceptible er.

I particularly want to keep o these techca deta.

The way to learn the msic o verse i to ste to it

56

Ater that te tudent ca buy a metronome, or stdy

oge to perfect hi ene o relative duration and o

pitch. The preent boket is cocerned wth lnguage.

For the specic dierence betwen rovene and ta

or the progress ' om at Daniel to ordello, to Cava

cnti and Dante, the reader who cannot and not readItalian, can if he like refer to y dscriptive criticism.

Without knowing Dant Gdo Cavalcanti and Vilo,

o one can jdge the attained maxia of certain kind oiting

ithot the oregoing MIIMUM of poetry in otheranguages you imply not ko where Englsh poet

me'.

57


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Chapt S

For&hs wh rd y gh,

I have done what I can. have translated the A HIO so that they can learnwhere to start HINKING. And I have translated theSefarer ; so that hey can see more or less where Engshpoetry starts.

I don't now how they can ge an dea of Gree. Therere no satsfactory Englsh translatons.

Lti crb can do a good deal. If you read rench youn get the STORY ofthe Ilads and ofthe begnnng ofthe

dssey om Salel and J or rather you could therook weren' out of rnt. (I now no eton more recen 1590.) Chaman s somethng derent. See my noteson e Ezabetan translators.

You c ge Ovd, or rather Ovd's stores n Goldng'smrhss whch s the most beautful boo n theuage m oon and I susect t was Shaeseare's).

Marowe traslated the Amrs

d before that Gavn Douglas hd made somethng ofe eneids ha , any rate, e better than Vrl.

ro Cher ou can le (1) whaever cme overo he earie Englsh that one can read wthout a dion, bu for whch a glossar needed (2) and hee GLIS qui or oonen Lo

5

dialogues of Chaucer, Petrarch and Boccacco, are the besreal crticsm of Chaucer we have.

There are anthologes of early Englsh verse. Sdickhas made the best one I half remembr.

After Chaucer, come Gavn Douglas, Goldn and arlowe wth ther translatons .

Then comes Shaeseare n vson: the sonnets wherehe s, I thn, ractsng hs craft. The lyrcs where e slearnng, I beleve from Itaan song-boos in whch theWORDS were rnted WITH the musc.

The lays esecally te seres of hstory lays, whchorm the true Engsh POS,

as dstnct from te bastardEc, the taton, the constructed counterfet.

It would be artcularly aganst the gran of te wholedeogrammc method for me o mae a eres of generalstatements conceng Ezaethan atachrestca anguage.

The way to study Shaeseare's language s to study tsde by sde wth soethng derent and of eual extent.

The roer antagonst is Dante, who s of eual sze andDIFFERENT. To study Shaeseare's lnguage mereln comarson wth the DECADENCE of the sae thgdoesn't gve one's mind a leverage.

There Shaespearan song. There s the language adeo be SOKE, perhaps eve o be rted.

5

l Sch lli h s l d q t d th th r th t ll l d h


30/103

elx Schelli has evolved o quoted the theory that

espeare wated to be a poet, but that whe he could't

mke a caree of it, he took to wti tae pla, ot

toether lii the form.

f the student can't measure Shaespeare aaist Date,

te ext alteative possibl to measure is lauaeaaist the prose mafestatio of Voltaire, Stedhal,

Flaubert, or of Fieldiif ou canot read Frech.

You ca't judge a chemical's actio merel b putti

t with moe of tself To kow it ou have got to now its

mits, both what it is ad what it is ot. What substaces

e harder or softer, what more resiliet, what moe com

act.

You can't measue it merel b itself diluted with some

eutral substace.

O BRE UP THE BOREDOM, have suested

the reat translators for an anthology, shall e sa, of

the poems that do't put me to sleep.

The are passages of Marlowe. Doe has writte the

ol Englsh poem The Ecstas') that ca be set aainst

Cavcati's Dona mi rega. The two ae ot i the least

lie. Their prblems re uttel dieet.

The reat lc ae lasted while Campio made ow

music, while Lawes set Waller's verses, while verses, ot

actuall 1ung or 1t to music, wee at least made t he

ntentio of going to music.

Music rots whe gets oo fa from the dae. Poetatrophie hen it gets too far from music

There are three inds of melopoei, that , verse maeto sing; to chant or intone; and to spea

The older one gets the more one beleves i he rst

One reads prose for the subject matter

Glance at urton's anatom ' as a curiosit, a smple o

NON VR wich has qualties of poetry but that c

ot be confounded wth it

nglish prose is alve in Florio's Motagne ; Uquht's

Rabelais ;

Fielding; Jane usten; the ovelists that eveone

reads ; Kiplng ; H James James' prefaces tell what

writing a novel' meas.

1


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Chaptr Svn

t doesn't matter which leg of your table you make st, so

long as the table has fou legs and will stand up solily

when you have ished it.

Mediocre poetry is in the long run the sae in all counes The decaence of Petachism in taly and the rice

powder poey' in China arrive at about the same level of

eness despite the dierence n idiom

62

hapter Eigh

Comn round agan to te startng-pont

Lanuage is a means of communicaton To charge Iauage with meaning to the utmost possble degree we

have, as stated, the thee chief meas :

I towing the object (xe or movng) on to the vsualmainaio

IIinducin emotiona correlation by the sound adhytm of te speech

III iducing both of the eects by timating theassociaton (intellectu or emotioa) ta have remained

n the receiver's consciousness n eltio to te actua

words o word roups eployed(phanopoeia, melopoeia, logopoeia)

competence wil show n te use of too many words

The reader's rst and mplest test of an author wil b

o loo for word that do not function; that cotibute

othin to the meann OR that distract from the MOST

importt factor of the meanin to factors of minor impor

ce

63

O d f b ended ; hehe can be s ead as mean smehng


32/103

One denn f beauy s aness urse

Wheher s a gd denn r n, yu can read

see ha a gd de f D ccsm has been en

men wh asume ha an auhr yng d wha he

NO yng dIncedbe as nw seems he bad ccs f Keas m

fund wrng bscure, whc mean ha hecudn undesand WHY Keas e

s human ercens dae m a ng me ag, rare devabe m ecens ha gfed men have had

ng befre we wee b he race dscves, and red

cvers

SS ND COPOSIION XRCISS

I

1 Le he us exchange cmsn aers and seehw many and wha useess wrds have been usedhw

man wds ha cnvey nhng new

Hw many wrds ha bscure he meanng

3 Hw many wds u f her usu ace, and heher aeran mes he saemen n an way mr

neresng r mre energec

4 Wheher a senence ambguus wheher reaean mre han ne hng r me han he r n

ended ; hehe can be s ead as mean smehng

een

hehe hee s sehng e n ae, bu abgus f sen aud

II

I s sad ha aube augh De Mauassn e

When De Maassan ened fm a wa aue

ud as hm descbe smene, say a cnege hm

hey u bh ass n he nex wa, an descbe

he esn s ha aube wd ecgze, say, he

cncege an n msae her fr sme he cncege

nd n he ne De Mauassan had descbed

t d l f d t d t t


33/103

SECOND SE

1 Let the ul te the desrto of tree

2 Of tree thout mentonng the me of the tree(lrh ne, t so tht the reder l no mste t fothe desrto of some othe d of tree

3 r some obet n the lssoom

4 Desrbe the lght d shdow o the shoolroomlo or some othe objet

If t n e doe wthout breh of the ee thepul ould rite desrtons of some othe ul Theuthor suggests tht the ul should ot dsbe theistrutor otherwse the desrto mght beome ehle of emotio d subet to moe omlted uJes mosto th the lss s yet dy to oe wth

I a these desrtos the tst would e uy d

iidess the ul reeg the other's per ould ehe guge He would eoge ot eogze thebet or peso desrbed

Rodolf grol i edto dtg om ftee hued d somethng sys oe wrtes ut dt, ut mvt utt to teh to moe o to delght

66

gret del of d rtsm s due to me ot seewhh of these thee motes underles ge ompostio

he onerse roeses not osdered by the piotehers of ntuty would e to obsu, to bmbozle omsled nd to bore

he reder o utor s t lberty to rem pssiend st to these oertos he so hoose

67

The gaung u ho be ake o ecognze wha


34/103

FRHER ESS

t u ean a vn c of rtn ay, teay tra n a nar to e tr t rtr tryn to conca tn to ter vn ann tr ara t a at tn tr e tryn to aar to tn tout rayon any tnn.

etca rtng

1 t t u try to rte n t tre of any o

2 t wrte or to a enon tune

t try to rte or o t a tun n uc aay tat t or ot b torte n one ng

them

4 t te u rte a oem n oe tro form ee

5 t m aroy o m n rcuou, thebcau of faty n t tatnt, or faty n t oton of te rtr, or fr rtentoune of on n oanot r f any otr raon tat tr rbefacut, n of rony.

68

The gaung u ho be ake o ecognze whaautor aroe. An wheher he oe i on te aoe o he arot. Whetr the aroy eo a rafect, o mery ma ue of an autor' can ooe a moe trva conten

Note No har ha ve yet been one a goo em by

h oce. FtzGea' Rbaiyat ha urvve hunreof aro, ta are no reay aro tr of Omar orFzGera, bu ony oem rtn n tat form of troe

Note Tre a taton ta n ovnce t wa conere aarm to ae a an' for, ut a t nowconre aar o ta h ubct attr or o.

Poe fany wrn o anoter an' troe form oune ee ca Srvene ', an wr uuay atrca

FURTHER TESTS

1 Le he u n echangg teme uge whehehe teme bfoe tm ray ay anytng.

2 Le hem uge whethe t e tem anhg omae hem ee anytg' they han't notce befoe

ecy n regar o ome fama cne or obec

Vaian whether he wrte eay ha to KNOWomethg abou e ubec o cene befoe beng abe owrte h age e coeaon.

The eon of a wor or hrae beig uee' nomeey nmec obm

9

natoleFrance in crticzng rench dramatists pointed


35/103

g p

out that te ste the words must give tme for the

cto; they must gve tme for the uece to tae co

f what is gog onEven on te prnted page there s an anaogous ease.

Tactus in writng Latn can use ceran forms of con

densaion that don't ecessar transate advanageousyinto Engish

The reader wi ofe msjudge condensed wrer by

trng to read him too fast

The secret of popuar writng is never to put more o

give page tha the common reader can lap o t wh no

strain WASOEVE on his habua sack atteion.

natoe Frnce is said to have spet a reat de of tme

searching for e leas possibl varant that woud t hemost worout and commoest phrases of journaism into

somethig distguished

Such research is sometimes termed cassicsm.

This is the reatest possble remove from the usual

gsh stists trend or urge oward a ste dieren

from everyone elses.

70

BASIS

HR is no use, or amost noe in m pubser's asking

me to make Engsh Lterature as promnen as possble. Imean not i am o pa far wh the studet. You canot

ear to write b readng Engsh.

If ou are aeced er poes ou produce costumeof he period. Chaucer s incomprehensbe wihout a

gossar Ezabethanisms re easi recognizabe as ancet

ery

haucer did ot MAKE hs art hs doest detract

from hs glor as a great ad ver huma wrer e too

over his ar from the French e wrote about the stroabe.

Dnte wrote On the Common Tou, treatise o auage and versicatio

he aguage of the Elizabethns is uphostered. The

ge of Shakespeare was the GEAT AGE par excelece

it was the age whe the laguage was ot cut nd dre

whe the audtor liked the WODS he go probay a

much kc out of tituos ses icarade the

readers of the Yellow Boo go out of twisted epir.

Th wst a cass iterest in Spai t tht time themost eective critic of plays was cobbler. But the la

guage was made-up rtcial speech it s the age o

Euphues n Engla nd of Gongora in Spa.

ow dd it get that ay?

The cult of Latin ter the thiness the raparecy

f medeval uthors the readin world a oce agai

71

dn on antquty Geece and Rome ; the most educated tng, as dstnct from the boos a nowtin reader


36/103

ote n Latn; each wte wanted to show that he knew

moe Latn than the othe; there ae bales of the Latin

poems ; the Italans took ove the style and extended thevocaulaly, the Spanads and Englsh mtated the

Italans ; Camoens ted t n Potugal It was the gold ush

fo the lagest vocabulay I suspect that Malowe staedto paody hmself n Heo and Leande He had begun withseous ntentons

I ecognze that ths suspcon may be an error.The next phase n Fance and England was to atempt

to squeeze the katachestcal hetorc nto a sritwast

coat.

Ths doesn't mean that the reade can aord to be

ignoant of the best wok of ethe peod He an look for

real speec n Shakespeare and d it in plen IF e

knows what to look fo

The so-called pose of seveal centures s conceed

wtho at least you teachesw recommend t for

sentence stuctue.

If you can ead oly Englsh, sta on Felding. There

o havea sold foundaton. His lanuae is ether saitlacednoa trmings

Afte whch I suppose one should ecommend Miss Jane

Austen And that makes almost the list, ie. :

e lst of thins safe to read an o befoe o sta

72

g

can pese fo enjoyment

But aent thee wellwtten books and poems in

Enlsh? Thee ndubtably ae

But can anyone estmate Donne's best poems save in

relaton to Cavalcant?I do not beleve t.

Thee was a peod when the Englsh lyc qualty, te

junctue of note and melody was vey hh But to aue

hat heht, a knowledge of Povence s exemely useful.

If yo want to te stc couplets, or ambc coup

lets yo ndubtably can learn a ood deal om ope and

Crabbe.

Wordswoth got rd of a lot of timmins, bt here arevast stetches of deadness i hs tn Atsts are the

antennae of the ace Wodswoth vbates to a ve

lmted rane of stmul, and he was not coscios of te

f poblem of witn.

Te problem of setene stctre was ndeniabl dis

cssed durng seveal centuries

A carpenter can put boads togethe, but a good ca

pente would now seasoned wood fom een'

The mee questons of consructng nd semblclauses, of pasng and gammararenot enogh.Schsdyeded i a ame of oao, now paroded in detecveoris whentheygve the leaed cousel' sminup.

73


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that post hoc means propter hoc, t any rate the composi- The Goncours preface to Germinie Lacerteux gives the


38/103

tion of books iten in 1830 cant be due to those writenin 1933, though the value of old work is contantly aectedby the value of the new.

This is true not only of single works but of wholecategories. Max rnst's design send a great deal of psy

chological novel wriing into the discard. The cinemsupersedes a great deal of secondrate narrative, and agreat deal of theatre.

A lm form may perfectly well be a better form (intel-lectualy) than a stage form.

lm may make better use of 60 per cent of a narra-tive ramatic material. ach case can be decided on itsown merits.

n all cases one test will be, could this material have

been made more ecient in some other medium?'This statement is simply n extension of the 1914

orticist manifesto.

A distinguished novelist compained that no directionfor major form were given in How o Re.

In pology It is wste of time to lsten t peopletalkng of things they have not understood suciently to

perform.You can study part of the of novel consruction inthe novels of Trollope.

You can lean something of great writer's ttitudetoward the of the novel the prefaces o HenyJames' collected edition

Hd I written a dozen good nvels might presume todd somethin.

76

mos succnc satement of the views of the nineteenhcentury realsts. t is the declaration of the rights of mentryng to rcord Lhisoire morae conemporaine , thehsory of contemporary moral disposition, te history ofthe esimaion of values in contemporary behaviour.

n an inroductory work like the presen, you are notbeing asked to decide what theories are correct, but towhat degree dieren writers have been ecient in expres-sing ther though.

LBRTY

E liberty of the textook (as a form of writing) is that

i permits refrain, repeition.Bu, teacher, mustnt we read . . . Wordsworth?Yes, my chldren, you can and may read anything you

like. Bu instead of having me or anyone else tel youwhat is on the page, you should look for yourselves.

Does Mr. Wordsworth sometimes use words that expressnothing n paricular?

Mr. Swinburne is famed or infamed for having used a

great many which express nothing but colour' or splen-dour' It hs been said tht he used the same djecivesto descbe a womn nd sunet

XRCS

woud very good exercise to take paallel passgesof these two poets he st so very famous and the second

77

one so very much dcried at th preent time, and see how STUDY


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many uele word each ue hw many which contribute

nothig how many which contribute nothin very

denite

A simila exercie cod be performed on Swiburne and

Milton.XIXth Centry

NG neer or own time, te tudent who can readFrench i iited to veri my upicin that the technique

autier' early work Alers i about as ood as thatof the bet Engli vere in the 1890' The Enlih of that

erid added ttle to the um of knowledge in poetic

ractice

o udestand what was nvented afte 1830 I eco

mend:

hopie autie Ema e Cams obie RimbaudLaforue

o see ow a man cod rte a gle ne or a brief ara

rah of verse.n Eland Robert Brownng refreshed the fom of

monologue or dramatic monoloue or Perona , the ances

try of which goes back at leat to Oid' Heroides whc

re maginary letters in verse, and to Thecritu, and is

thence lost n antiquity.

7

FN very brief narrative pem of thi perid in the

authors lited

autier, Corbire, Rimbaud afrgue.

Character prented Brwing

H mch of Walt Whitan i well ritten?

If you were cmpiling an antholoy of Englih whatetter poet cld yu nd than

Chaucer.

ain Doula 12 Buke of Aeneidos

olding's Meamorphoses tranated from OidMarloe (mores) pasages of hi playsShakepeare (Hitories, and the lrics as tecnic

masterwork)Doe The ctas

Song writers errick amion aller Dore

Rochester.

Wites in native couplet ope, be.

Pick out the dozen best old baads.Pick out the twenty-ve bet lyrics ritten between

50 and 1700 om any of the avaiable anthologes

ry to nd a poem of Byo o Po thout sevn

serous efects

y to nd out why te Fitzerad Ruya as on7

into so many eitions afer havig lai unnoiced unti

R tti f d il f i d d i dIf so, that would mea that roe of those ties was in

i h h ?


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Rossetti found a pile of remaindered copie on a second

han booksta.

Di the 90s add aying o Eglh poery, or did

they merely prune Swiurne? and borrow a lie om

the Frech symbolites?

What was there to the Celic movement?Apart from, let u ay, the inuence of rih ballad

rhythm on Yeas metric?

I no case should the student from ow on be TOLD

that such and such thins are facts about a given body of

oey or about a iven oem.

e qestions i this exercise o not demand the sameser om any two puils. They are not asked in orer to

ra out plain yes and no answers

hy isnt Walter Savage Landor more read?

Did he write poetry as we as Robert Browning?

Ho uch of his poetry s oo?

Hs nand ever roduced an -roun man o etters

o equa statre?

If you are to nd a summary of the conscience of

a ive century, where would you o to n it?

I early period you might wel seek it in the try.

For the centuries after the reaissance you miht per

has have to n it n the prose?

0

some way more ecient than he poery?

You have, probably all of you, your favoure writers.Wha would hppe o you you arted riig im

mediatey afer yu had been readng

A,B,or C?

Do hey ue a dialect? and wod you ' cach i?

f you waned to ay omeing they hadt said, orsomehing of a dierent kd, would their manner of

riting make your statement more accae?

more interesting?

Do you know why you ike A

B

(upil can the blank n at hi own discretion).

Do you in any way distinguih btween iters who

you like and thoe whom you repect?

Why, and how?

PERCEPTON

'TISTS are the antenae of the race.

Can you be interested in the writins of men hoe

eeral ercepions e below he average?

I am afraid that even here the answer is not a straight

'No

.Before decidng whether a man is a fool or a good arist,

it ld ll k t l i h d d l


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No .

There is a much more delcate question:

Can yo binterested in the work of a man who is blnd to 80 per cenof the sectrum? to 30 per cent of the spectrum?

Here the answer is, curiously enough, yes IF . . hperceptions are hyernormal n any part of the spectrm

he can be of very great use as a writer

thogh erhapsnot of very great 'weight Ths is where the so-ce

crackbraned genus comes in The concept of genius as

akin to madness has been carefuy ostered by the iferorty compex o the pbic

A graver isue needs biological anaogy: artists are thantennae ; an anima tha neglects he warnings of its perceptions needs very great powers o resistance i it is

svvYour ner senses are protected he eye by bone soce

etcA nation whch neglects the perceptions of is atdeclines Mtr a whie it ceases to ac an merey svs

There is probably no use i g s p wcant see it wihout being told

Artists an pets obted ge excited an vrxcited abot tings ong before h genera pbc

82

it would e well o ask, not onl : is he exced unduly ,bu: ' does he see somethng we do?

Is hs curous behavour due to s feeling an oncomingearthquake, or smellng a forest re which we do not ye

feel or smell?

Barometers, ndgauges, cannot e used as engnes

THE INSTRUCTOR

I The eacher or ecturer is a danger He very sedomecognizes his nature or his position The lecter is a man

who must talk for an hour

Franc may possibly have acquired he intelectaeadership oope whn heir academc period was c

own to orty minutesI also have ectured The ecturers rs probem is to

have enogh words to l forty or sixty minutes Theprofessor is pad for hs me, his resuts are mos im

possible to estimateThe man who really knows can tell al that is rans

missble in a very few words The economic problem of theteacher (of voln or o language or of anthing ese) ishow to string it out so as to be paid for more essons

Be as honest as you ke, bu the danger is there evenwhen on knows it I have elt the chll even ths brief

booklet In pure good wll, but because one must make arough estimate the publishers sent me a contract: 40,000 5000 words I ma over it, but it introducs a

83


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I believe the ideal teacher woud approach any masteriec that he was presenting to his class s as i he ha

Demsey: I eer z Grn Due '


43/103

iec that he was presenting to his class s as i he haeer ee it befre.

TASES

ER is rea why the same man should lie theme books at eighteen and at forty-eight

here are certain divisions and dissociations that Ireain om making because I do ot think that at myge I should try t force the taste of a middleaged man the yunger reader.

hank heaven there re books that ne enjoys MOSbefore one is twetyve an that there are or bosthat one can STILL read at fortye and still hoe to be

ble to read in the sere and yellow

Realism romaticism men as they are seen men asthey are imagined or dramatized' men as they re quitesmply know NO to be

nsider the ecdote f Jck Dempse. Whe ueas being touted as the educated boxer a reporter aproached . Dempsey n the ubject of literature I thinhe metioed Cashel Byro r some ovel i hich theng ppea Dempsey wudn't hae it: Agh it tain'tLIKE t

Te repter berved that Demsey had lurid ovel

ut Russia Grad Duke He suggested hat i Dempe h bee Grad Duke he might hae fud s

crecies i he pyal f l Russian hh ife

Perfecty sincere peope say ou cant teach literate,ad what they MEN by that statemet is probably rue

You an qite distinctly teach ma t distinguishbetwee ne kind of a bok and another

Certin erbal manfestations an be employed smeasures sqares voltmeters r ca be used fr comparison ' a familiarity with them ca indubitably eablea man to estimate itig i general nd the relativeforcs energies ad perfections or imerfections of bo

You don' fh huse enirely th yard tck weighing machines

he uthr d b recmmed i tis inruc

to the tudy of letters ae t be cnsidere AS measugrds ad vltmeters

he oks isted are boos t hae min BEFOREyou r to measure evaluate e os e e

most emphaticly NO all the bs r

great deal tht yu e u simly ee t bothbout

On the other had u t f it the si

bism that has ruined hle hs of fc ters pteessaysts rened yung gents memers ltry cclend so weiter

There s one technque for the attres-aker and oe

for the bulder of lnotype achnes A technque of co


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DISSOCIATE

' Ma shoud be prouder of havng vented

the hammer an nal than of havng created

asterpeces of mtton Hegel quoted

b ernand Leger

'The ntellectual love of a thg conssts

n understandng ts perfectonsSpoza

A GAT deal of crtcal rancour has been wasted through

a falure to dssh between two totall dierent knds

of wrtng

A Books a a reads to develop hs cpactes : n orderto know ore and perceve ore and ore quckl,

than he dd before he read the

ad

B Book that are intended and that serve as REPOSE,dope, opates ental beds

You dont sleep on a haer or lawnmower, ou dont

drve als wth a mattress Wh should people go on

applng the SAME crtcal standards to rtgs as

derent purpose and eect as a lawnmower and a sofa

cuhion?

o the b de o notype ach nes A techn q e o co

ucton appes both to bedsteads ad autoobl.

The drtest boo n our language s a qute astute

anul telng people ho to earn mone b wrtng The

fact that t advocates the maxmum possble ntellectual

degradaton should not blnd one to ts costructve erts

Certan parts of the technique of narratve wrtng ARE

comon to Hoer Rudard Kplng and to M Kplngsstar dscple, the late Edgar Wallace

The onl ntellgent advere crtcis of Hw Read was not an attac on what was t, but on what had not been able to put there

One cant get everthng nto fortve pages But eve I had had 50 at m disposal I shod not have attepted

a treatse on major for n the novel I have not wrtte a

good novel I have not wrtten a novel dont expect to

wrte an novels and shall not tell anone ele how to do t

untl have

If u want to stud the ovel, go READ th best you

can nd All that kow about t have leed by

readng

Tm Jnes by FeldTrsram Shandy and The Senmenal urn b Ste

(and dont recoend aone ELSE to try to do anothe

Trsram ShandyThe novel of Jane Ate and Trollope

9

(Note : f you ompe the realism of rollopes novelsith the realism of Robert MAlmons stories you wl get

is is a long way fom n A C n fat i opens te

vista of postgraduate study


45/103

ith the realism of Robert MAlmon s stories you wl get

fair idea of what good novelist means by constrtionTrollope depicts sene or a person and you can lerysee how he leads up to an eect]

Contining:

he novels of Henry James AND especily he prefacesto is olected edition; wch are the one extant grettreaise on novel wring in English

n French you an form a faily good ideogram from

Benjamin Constants Adolph.he rst half of Stendhals Rou t Noir and the rst

eighty pages ofLa Chartrus d Parm.MadameLducation ntimntal Trois onts

and the unnished BouvardtofFAUBER

with Gonourts prefae to Grmini Lacrt.

Aftr that you ould do wel to ook at Madox Fords

allWhen you have read James prefaces and twenty of

other novels you wold do well to read Th acrd Fount

There or perhaps the rst time since about 3 riter has been able to deal with sort of ontent where

ith Cavalcnti had been conceedYou an get very brillint rosslight via Donne I

en the dierenes nd nuanes between psychoogy inGuido abstract philosophi statement in Guido the blend Donne and again psyhology Henry James and in lof them the underlying onept of FORM the struture ofhe whole work ncluding its prts

vista of post graduate study

.

Jealousy of vigorous-living men has perhaps led in ltimes to a deformation of crticism and a distorted glori

ation of the past Motive does not concern us but erroroes Glorers of the past ommonly err in their computations bcase they measre the work of a present DECADE

against the best work of pst centry or even of a wholegroup of centies

Obviously one man or six men cant produe as mnymetrical tiumphs in ve yers or in twenty as ve hn

dred trobdors with no cinema no novels no radio to

distrat em produced between 1050 and 1300 And thesame appes in al departments

he honest ritic must be content to nd a VERYE ontemporry work worh serious atenion

ut he must also e ready to RECOGNZE that tle andto demote work of the pst when new work srpasses it

91


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CHTEN CONDENARE

chapter heading is Mr tigs discoery and hisprime contribtion to contemporary criticis bt the ideais far from new t is as we hae said ngraned in the eryangage of Germany and it has magnicntly UNCONED billiantly fnctioned

isistrats fond the Homeric texts in disorder wedont qite know what he did bot it he ible is acompendim people trimmed it to make solid t has

gone on for ages becase it wasnt allowed to oerrn al

the aailable pachment; a Jpanese emperor whose name hae forgotten and whose name yo neednt remember

fond that there were OO NY NOH AYS hepicked ot 40 nd the Noh stage ASED from 400 or

wheneer ight down till the day the American nayintrded and that didnt stop it Umewaka Minor startedagai soon as the reotion wore o Oids Metamophoses are a compendim not an epic ike Homer's ;

Chacer's Cnterbry aes are compendim al thegood y Chacer knew he aes hae lasted throgh

centries whle the longwnded mdiaea narraties wentnto mms

1 A Jnee tent in Ameic on ein ke the eeetween oe n oety i: Poety conit of it n it

9

SECTION TWO


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EXHIBITS deal way o prese he ext secto of ths ookle

ould e o gve he quotatos WIHOU ay commehaever I aad that would e too revolutoary Byong ad wearng experec I have leared that n heree mperfect sate of he world oe MUS ell the

ader I made a very ad mstake my INSIGAIONS

e ook had a pla I hough the reader would ee

I he prese cas I shall o ell he sude everyg

mos tellge sude those who mos wa oEARN however ecompass ha ed ad edearemselves o he sruggl auhor i hey read hEXHIBIS ad o look a my fooot utl hey have

a eas red o d ou WHA HE EXHIBI IS ad oue hy I hav pred For ay rader of ucec hould a goo a gam a orqumada

ros-ord aomaos I do expec t o ecom ve opr u a dal REPUBIC would

9

EXHIBIT I that essay I also cted Stendhal's: Poetry th tobligatory comparisons, the mytho1ogy the poet don'tb l hi ll d d f l a l L i XI V


48/103

ra gia lore che volge l dsoA naviganti.

Purgatorio VIII, I.

Perch' io non spero d toa gi maiBallatetta in Toscan

Cvci

S'ils n'ayment fors que pou !'argentOn ne les ayme que pour l'heue.

Villon

he re that tr about her, when she stirs.

Yets

Ne maeg wergmod wyrde dhstondane e e hyg helpe geemman

for dhon domgeoe dreorigne oftn hyra breostcofan bindath faeste.

Th Wnderer

xample of deogrammc method used by . P. n ThSerious rtis& 1913beore havg access to the Fenollosapers

I wa to ndcate derence between prosemplcity of ttement, and an equ lmpidity n poetry,

where the pefectly smple verbl order s CHARGDwt a much hher potent, an emotonal potential.

96

bleve m, his so-called dgnty of tyle, a l LouisXI Vnd all that ta of what they cal poetic ornament, svastly inferior to prose if you are to give a clear andexact dea of the uvements du cur' ; i you ae to show what a man feels, you can oy do t by clarty.

hat was the great t. The great separation of theroads. Aer Stendhal saw that, and sad t, the poetc bunko the preceding centue gave way to the new prose, thecreation of Stendhal and FJaubert. Poetry then remainede nfeor a unti t caught up with the prose of thesewo wrters, whch t ultimately did qute largely on thebasis of DICHTEN = CONDENSARE.

hat dd NOT mean it was omething more waty admbecl than prose, but omethng charged to a higherotental

97

EX CUR 1414

1Soth s the root o much bad opinion. It is at

fcut or the author to ret speech within decoo


49/103

But Chaucer though he kan but ewedy1On meres, and on rmig criyHath seyd hm, i sich ngissh as he kanO ode tyme as knowe many a man

And he hve noght seyd him, eve2 brother,In o book, he hh seyd hm in anoe

For he hath tood o overi up and doun

Mo' Ovide made o mencioun

n Epistees youthe he made5 o Ceys nd Acione

l 3 M t p

Chaucers se-criticism paced the mouth o e Mo Lawe. He proesses himse untaught n metre mearobby quanttave verse. Skied n hyme. The meo a compendium comparbe to Ovd. He oows mediaev custom and goes on to give a catoge otaes Dio Aiadne Hero and Leander Laodamia, etc.

9

ounds.

once heard a man, who has some standing as rter and

whom Yeats was wont to deend, assert that Chaucers

nguage wasnt gsh, ad that one ought not to e it

s basi o dicusion, TC. Such was the depth o Londonn 1910Anyone who is too ay to master the comparativey

sm gossary necessary to derstand Chaucer deserves to

e shut out rom the reading o good books or ever.

to the reative merts o Chaucer and Shakespe

ngish opinion has been bamboozed or centuries by a

ove o the stage, the gamour o the theae the ove o

bombastic rhetoric and o sentimentg over actors nd

acesses; these, pus the nation ziness and uness to make the east eort have competey obscured the

vues.

Peope even read transations o Chauce nto a cuiou

compost which is not mode anguage but which uses a

vocauary comprehended o sapheas.

Wat se th kennath

Chaucer had a deeper knowedge o ie than Shakespea.

t the rear contradict that aer reading both authors he then chooses to do so.

He had a wide knowedge o ie, pobaby, he had atany rate a better chance.

We can eave the question o the reative chances to thei

bioaphers. Let us ook at the evdenc.

99

Chaucer wrote when reading was no disgrace He hd

ory book gahered probbly at coniderable trouble and

ded o England Chaucer ws the greaes poe of hi day

He w more comp&dous han Dane.


50/103

expene Shkepeare had at leat si good ones Chaucer

cite h sources. There wa no contemporary snobbsm to

ihbi hiBUT Shkepeare OWES e a much to his reding s

Chaucer dosMen do not undernd BOOKS until they have had a

cerain moun of life Or at n rate no man ndersands deep book until he has seen and lived at leat prt of its

conens The prejudice again books has grown from

oberving he upidity of men who have meeyread boos.Chaucer beyond thi wa a man th whom we could

have dicused Fabre and Fraer ; he had thought conider

bly about many hing which Skespeare has no vey

deeply conidered.Chaucer relly doe comprehend the hought s well a

he life of hi time

The Wife ofBath's heology is no a mere mear Her

attentionothe meanngofterms i greaer than wendin

Lorenzo Medii' imaginary dialogue with Ficino abou

platonm. T i, in Chaucer he remain of he middle

ges when mentook some care o their ermin?logy.

When he sys :

coneillng na comndement.

she has a meing in each o her terms.

Chucer wote while Englnd ws still par of Europe

There was one ue o Fer o Paris nd i een

100

e patcipated n he ame cuure wih Froiar nd

Boccacc the grea hmane clture that went ino

Rimini ht spoke FrancoVeneo that is in the rondels

of Froissar and in he doggerel of he Malet.

In Shkespeares ime England is alredy nowing.

Shakespere as supreme lric technician is indebed to he

Ialian ongbooks but they are already an EXOTIC.Chaucer ues French ar he ar o Provence the

erse come rom he robadour. In his world

here had lved boh Guiaume de Poictier nd Scotus

Erigen. Bu Chucer ws no a oreigner. I wa HIS

civiaion.

He mde fun o he mm hramm ru he decdenceo AngloSaon allteration the erse wien b hose who

had orgotte he WH o the AngloSaon rdi

narration d been o inslr to learn French. Tre

Chaucers name s French and not English his mind is hemind of Erope no he ind o n nne or n ouyng

proneHe i e Grand Trnle. He hd ond new ln

gge he had i largely o himsel wih the gand opporun. oting spoiled noing worn ou

Dane had had a simir oppotni and en i wh

loo oer shoder nd ew Lti epens

Chauer el hnce. The gl bewee Chuer d

Gower c e mesed Gower hesttion s

proed ungnes o ae a chnce. He had go

ecal eerises in all hee o he cen ones

101

English, French and Lain. Books used in the wrong way

The hunt for a subject etc.H h f f E i h d

lems Fraze broaches n a way that Sheseare cetaywas not.

Sh k l di H f


51/103

He was the perfect type of Engish secondy rcondemned recently but for time by Henri avray with

hs:

'Ds cherchent des sentiments pour le accommoder

leur vocabulaie

They hunt for sentiments to t into their voculay.

Chaucer and Shakespeare have both an insuperable

coge tackling any but absolutely any thing that

arouses their interest

No one eer gauge or measure English poetr ntl

they know how much of it how full a gamut of its qualitess already THERE ON THE PAGE o Chaucer

ogopoeia phanopoeia melooeia; the Enlish tech

que of lyrc nd of narative, and the full ich ow of

uma contact.

s last term has been degraded and demoted or

arowed dow unt t excdes the more complcated,

the less sa acivites of hman fel and der

stand. i

sd almost as t coud refer only to lowlfe.

hace i aware of fe aty wth Shespeae. He

omed, d nderstands the ntellecta conqest of

Erope a way that Wl Shakespeae robaly dd

not.

He oen mnded, let sa to fok-lore, to the rob

102

Shakeseare ws eatly ndierent. He was fanu

He was a techc master. The gross and tter stutyand obtuseness of Milton was never more apparent th

n h supercilous reference to Woodnotes wld.

The best tng I eer heard n r Schellngs class-roomwas the theor that Shakepeare wanted to be a oet bt

that he hd to take to the ing of plays.

He is, probably i term of magntude mean anythng,

'the worlds greatest damatst. ong th Ibsen and

Aeschyls.

But t would be very rash to say that he a better oet

than Chacer or that he knew more (or ? a mch) abot

lfe.

Cacers culture was wder than antes, Pearch s

mmeasuably nferor to both. Yo wold not be fa ot

you chose to consder Chaucer as the fater of litterae

humanores for Europe.

Not that the continent fond t ot. t for oses

we can perfectly well base the whole of ou study of the

renaissance on Master Geoey, the savant who knew amuch of the hostler as dd the deersnatcher of Stratford,

who knew probably a great deal more of the merchant

ceraly more of diplomacy and the ways of the world of

oer Wic doesnt mean that he has le a better record,

or anticipated the reolt of later time.

103

VION b ntrt

IF Chaucer represents the great melowng and the dawn of

1

e een edued to etn them to ic s oanslte them Swinbune and Rossetti have done some o

h i b t m Vi t ti t T


52/103

IF Chaucer represents the great melowng and the dawn of

new paideuma, Vion, the st voice o man broken by

bad econocs, represents also the end o a tradtion the

end o the mediaeval dream, the end o whole body o

nowledge, ne, subtle, tha had rom Anaut to

Gudo Cavcanti, that had lain n the secret nd oEurope or centres, and wch is ar too compcaed to

deal wth n a prier o readng.

The hardest the most authentic, the most bsolute poet

o France The under dog, the ealist, lso a scholr But

wth the medaeval dream hammered out o h

nsuperable techcian Whose art so cme rom

Provence

I have scamped tis pragraph I have used medaeval

dream to avoid witng a olo in 900 pages

I don't use the term to mean merely ancul ornamentation wth dasies and dckey bds ; I don't mean n escape

mechanism I mean vey complicated sucture o now

edge and pereption, the pardse of the human mind

under enlightenment A o whch, I repeat, cannot be

dealt wth in a rst book on edng

Technically speaking, translation o Vllon is extremely

dcut because he rhymes on the exact word, on a word

meang sausages, or example

The gand ogies or yong men who wnt really to

earn strophe wtng are Catus and Vlon I personally

1

hei own best poems ng Vion s starting-pont Te

net eslt is more lie Mre de Frnce, Cesten de Toyes

or Froissrt '

105

m CUR 000

I have of sorwe so grete woon1

Exum CUR 000

Bt as I roed p and don


53/103

I have of sorwe so grete woon1That joye gete I never noonNow that I see y ady bghtWch I have oved with y yght

Is o e deed and is a-goon.1

Aas, Deeth, what ayeth theeThat tho nodest3 have taken ean to toke y ady sweeteThat was so fa, so esh, so fre,

So good, that en ay we se goonesse she had no eete

f x l & l

Engish rc, the techniqe for s aready copeteno agentaon of singabity o Chacer's day to oown The French forteenthcentry ric ode, coonto Eope Iio has changed bt no greater has been attained Not even by Shaespeare withe ad o ater Itaian songboos

0

Bt as I roed p and donI fond that on a we ther wasThs written on a tabe of bras:I wo now synge, gif that I canThe ares and aso the anThat rst ca, rogh his desnee

Fgitif of Troy coneeIn taie

Ther saw I how the tepest stente

And how with a pyne he ente

And prevey took vage

In the con of Cartage

And on the ore, how that heAnd a nyght hght AchatMetten with Vens tat dayGoyng a qeynt array she hadde been an hnteresseWth wynd bowynge pon esse

Chacer givin tentative ipression of Vri07

Ccer derivig from Li is possily ookis He

er we rec, e is greaes i drwig he Prdoer,

Wife of Ba d live people pig oe e resls o

XIT ER 13401400

Hy Aslo hye gile resses clere


54/103

Wife of Ba d live people, pig oe e resls o

is ow REANG io heir mos, d drwg heircarcer i he wy hey mke se of i. Te prdoer

kes wo hudred lies o ge his sory By imee reader is very mc srprised h e s sory

Chcers oered chrcers re perps more rel os ha Shakespeare; drmaize gres, or come a oemor sddely from he page s lvg, wheres he cor

iervees or eeds o iervee, o recreae e Eliz

eha dramaic persoge.

This ms e ake s eive seme, wih

gres of fiess ad vividess impied

Hy, Aslo, hye gile resses clere

Eser, ey ow hy mekeesse al do,Hyd, Joahas, al hy fredey mere Peeope d Mcia Co,

Mak of youre wyfhod o compriso,

Hyde ye yore eeis, Ysode ad Eee,

Alcese is here h h may desee1

Ty fayre ody l i peere,

Lveye, d how, Lucresse of Rome ow

Ad Polexee ha oghe love o dere

Ek Cleopre wih hy pssiou

Hide ye yore roh i love d yore reo

Ad how Tyse, a hs for love swich peye,Alcese i ere l my eseye

Herro, ido, Lodamy le i fere2

Ek Phills hagyge for hy emophou

A Caace espied y y cere3

Ysiphie eraye w aso

Mak of youre rohe i love o os e so

Nor Ypermysre, or Adrie e pleye

Alcese is here l my deseye

1 overhow comny 3 fce

Provel rdiio, i rce, he mediaeval, hsed o Vilos ime. Cf Neiges dAa ; d oerlldes Villo or over cery fer Ccer, Eg-d o lggig eid rce

0

You do not have to apologze for Chaucer or say that ewas an Engshman o oly an Englshan, you can castabout n your mnd ithout nhbton when seekng cm

E CUR 1341

Lnv to Ki Rhr


55/103

about n your mnd ithout nhbton when seekng cmasons ether for h sngableness o fo h chaacte

dawng.Where, for exple, n anterr lterature can you nd

bette o as good?There s some such rawng n the sagas, less n Boccac

co less vaety n Petronus, i you y to tk of somethng ore r less 'lke t you ay be reded of Platshuour, for exaple n delng wth the apoplectc amaptn (colonel) who so annoyed wth Socrates because

the old nqrers nd happens to functon Pardoner andhost do not suer by coparson Daphns and Coeevnces probably a hgher degree of czaton a ore

ened but not a ore acte perceptonThee no need to nent or take fo granted a sp

and specy lenent set of LOCAL crtera when vng

Chaucer.

r raing. W. the convesaos f

Chauce Petrach and Bccacc.

10

Lnv to Rhr

pnce dese for to be honouableChersh thy fok and hate extorcoun!Sue no tng that may be epevle

To thyn estat, don n thy egounShew forth thy swed of castgacounDred God, do law, love trouth and wthynesseAnd dyve they fol ageyen to stedfasesse.

ven adon mtaed

Thu gan he mae a ro fhde

In whch he saw al holly her ge,

1 wl

ven adon we111

XHIIT HAER 3401400

Madame ye bn of beaute sryne

r ug division might peraps be trid1 es magnicnty maintiing Proven4a tdt


56/103

y y

As f as cerced is the mappmounde

For as the crist gorious ye shyne

And yk ruby ben your cheks rounde

Therwith ye bn so mery and ocounde

That at rve whan I se you daunc

It is an oyntement unto my wounde

Though ye to m n do no daiaunce

Ag t dubtf ps e d:

You yn two wo sye me sodeny

Tat might e by Froisat d h written n Engish

Chaucers work has ben ft us amost unsortd The

perspicacious adr not fa to tg it is a of

equa vau Having ft th bst it is probaby advisbe

smpy to browse and read wat on njoys ; there are

parts h mght have cut ad he ben usd to the mutipica

tion of books by the printing prss; parts that he coud

av rewritte had he thought it worth wie No good

purpose is served by merey fing ito an ecstasy ove

caic forms of the anguag

11

g y g 4

2 oems akin to those f s Frnch contempories

3 assags showing the particua Chaucrian erchmet o umanity

4 Infior passags whre he hasn't bothered to do metan a rough transation or as ft inective is

scuttrd ovr ss interesting atter

Intening writers can rad with fair safety n so fas no one now can possiby use an imitation of Cauces

mnn or the dtais of his spch Wereas hoibexampes of peope wearing Eizabthan od cotes pro

ect om whoe dcads of atr Engis and Aeic

wing

Te mod writr if h arn from Chaucer can

e om CHAUCER'S art its fundamentas

T qstion of using otr man's mnnr r sty

fairy simp Good witing is cotrminous with te writes

tught it has th form of th thought th form of te

ay the man fs s thought

No to mn think in precisy th same ay M.

Wyndham Lwis may hav an xcnt coat but it

oud not give satoria satisfaction on te back of M.

Joyce or M Eiot and so in varying degree ti a

writr uses a spch of h own there be odd bugs

sackness ovr narror shoudrs

3

The partcular Enlh component n Chaucer Fromnow on the tuent n computn the later poet an pro

wrter can ak hime

XIT

The battel the I ill crue


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wrter can ak hime

What have they tat wa not n on Georey? ou can

k thi o Shakepeare you can ak t o Feln.

Fra Troy boundi rt tt futieBy fate to tale come an cot Laune

Ouer lan and e cacht wth meikl pyne

Be force of od aboue fra eue

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Ezra Pound - ABC of Reading