ABC of Contemporary Reading
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4375971 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Richard Kostelanetz (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1982 |
| Volume | 3 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 5 |
| Publication date | 1982-01-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Poetics Today (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0333-5372 • E-ISSN: 1527-5507 |
| Publisher | JSTOR (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/1772388 |
| OpenAlex | W2326369773 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 3 |
PREFACE Ezra Pound's purpose in his of (1934) was predisposing people to comprehend modernist poetry. As a longer, more resonant sequel to his earlier essay on How to Read (1928), this book could have been called ABC of Understanding. Pound wanted, with all the intelligence and passion he could command, to sensitize his readers to appreciate the new literature he loved and incidentally made. On behalf of this goal, his book recommends, explains, badgers, makes incisive discriminations and raises critical issues, in addition to offering guidelines, identifying precursors, and reprinting choice examples of the new poetry. Desiring succinct communication, he made the sentence, not the paragraph, the essential unit of his polemical criticism. In preparing a comparable essay, nearly a half-century later, I find that specific recommendations and explanations appear in critical surveys and anthologies published under my name. The badgering I would prefer to avoid. As in Pound's day, there are pernicious establishments that must be overcome, chiefly because their strictures lamentably narrow the minds of many literate readers. Whereas Pound made a concerted effort to pulverize artistic deadwood in his time, I would prefer to think that the current semblances are by now disintegrating of their own rot. By developing themes through a succession of pensees, this essay offers some general principles that will, I hope, sensitize perception and instill more percipient attitudes. At best, some of these guidelines will stick in one's head, for among my purposes are saving the reader's time, cordially ushering him into a new world of literary experience, ideally accelerating his acceptance and understanding of radically new art. The principal reason for writing an ABC of Contemporary Reading is that vanguard literature today is considerably different from what Pound had in mind. Thus, thinking about imaginative writing in our time must start again from the ABCs
Art · Linguistics · Literature · French Literature and Poetry · History · Philosophy · Poetry Analysis and Criticism · Samuel Beckett and Modernism
| Highly cited | No |
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