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Re: Pale Fire and Eliot's Wasteland (fwd)
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To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum <NABOKV-L@UCSBVM.ucsb.edu>
Subject: Re: Pale Fire and Eliot's Wasteland (fwd)
From: Galya Diment <galya@u.washington.edu>
Mary Bellino wrote:
"As Modernism's post-mortem proceeds and we're able to evaluate it more
objectively it does seem to be the case that Anglo-American modernism in
particular lacked a sense of humor and leaned a little too far toward
pretentiousness and obscurantism."
As a great fan of Modernism, and especially its Anglo-American variety, I
have to rise to its defense. No sense of humor -- or irony -- in Joyce?
Woolf? Ford Madox Ford? Strachey? Mansfield?
Eliot may have taken himself too seriously at times but that was, surely,
a part of his personality, not something he had picked from the
cultural winds blowing his way. Modernism was, in many ways, all about
parody and deflating lofty cultural myths and heroes.
And even Eliot, when he is at his best, as in "Prufrock," for example,
does have a healthy share of modernist irony.
Eliot's endnotes were often ridiculed precisely because they were too
modest -- just a line or two, citing the work. He was merely
directing the reader to the sources, at least partially because he
was afraid that if he failed to acknowledge the sources, readers who were
not yet accustomed to this relatively new technique may accuse him of
plagiarism where none was intended.
It was Eliot, after all, who said that great poets do not borrow,
they steal. So whenever he borrowed, he made sure people knew he was not
stealing; but whenever he stole, he made sure no one would notice. No
endnotes for those instances, that's for sure.
Galya Diment
Subject: Re: Pale Fire and Eliot's Wasteland (fwd)
From: Galya Diment <galya@u.washington.edu>
Mary Bellino wrote:
"As Modernism's post-mortem proceeds and we're able to evaluate it more
objectively it does seem to be the case that Anglo-American modernism in
particular lacked a sense of humor and leaned a little too far toward
pretentiousness and obscurantism."
As a great fan of Modernism, and especially its Anglo-American variety, I
have to rise to its defense. No sense of humor -- or irony -- in Joyce?
Woolf? Ford Madox Ford? Strachey? Mansfield?
Eliot may have taken himself too seriously at times but that was, surely,
a part of his personality, not something he had picked from the
cultural winds blowing his way. Modernism was, in many ways, all about
parody and deflating lofty cultural myths and heroes.
And even Eliot, when he is at his best, as in "Prufrock," for example,
does have a healthy share of modernist irony.
Eliot's endnotes were often ridiculed precisely because they were too
modest -- just a line or two, citing the work. He was merely
directing the reader to the sources, at least partially because he
was afraid that if he failed to acknowledge the sources, readers who were
not yet accustomed to this relatively new technique may accuse him of
plagiarism where none was intended.
It was Eliot, after all, who said that great poets do not borrow,
they steal. So whenever he borrowed, he made sure people knew he was not
stealing; but whenever he stole, he made sure no one would notice. No
endnotes for those instances, that's for sure.
Galya Diment