Prepositions (1967)

 

Notes to Prepositions

 

Publication History

The publication history of Prepositions is fairly complex since LZ edited and arranged the essays for the collected volume, of which there are three distinct editions:

 

Prepositions: The Collected Critical Essays of Louis Zukofsky. London: Rapp & Whiting, 1967; NY: Horizon, 1968.

Prepositions: The Collected Critical Essays of Louis Zukofsky. Expanded edition. Foreword by Hugh Kenner. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981.

Prepositions+: The Collected Critical Essays. Ed. with introduction by Mark Scroggins. Foreword by Charles Bernstein. Wesleyan UP, 2001 [reprints the Expanded edition and adds the first four essays in the 5 Statements for Poetry (1958) versions plus several short pieces].

 

See Scroggins’ Introduction to the “Additional Prose” in Prepositions+ (177-181) on the different editions. 5 Statements for Poetry was a lightly edited reprinting of LZ’s most important statements on poetics, and Scroggins indicates textual variants in Prepositions+. For Prepositions (1967), LZ severely condensed three of these statements into “An Objective” (see below).

 

The following chronological list according to year of composition gives titles used by LZ in Prepositions, followed by details according to original periodical publication. The following information comes primarily from Celia Zukofsky’s bibliographies.

 

1924    Henry Adams/ A Criticism in Autobiography (additions 1928/1929) [this is an edited version of LZ’s M.A. thesis]. “Henry Adams: A Criticism in Autobiography”—Parts I, II, III, Hound & Horn (May, July, Oct. 1930).

1927    Him. “Mr. Cummings and the Delectable Mountains,” The Exile 4 (Autumn 1928).

1928    William Carlos Williams [part III]. “Beginning again with William Carlos Williams (Postscript to ‘Henry Adams’),” Hound & Horn 4.2 (Winter 1931).

1929    Ezra Pound. “Ezra Pound: Ses Cantos,” Échanges (Paris) 1.3 (1930); “The Cantos of Ezra Pound (one section of a long essay),” The Criterion 10.40 (April 1931) [revised as part III]; “Ezra Pound: His Cantos, parts I & II,” The Observer 2.2 (Jan.-Feb. 1934).

1930    An Objective [part II]. “Sincerity and Objectification, With Special Reference to the Work of Charles Reznikoff,” Poetry 37.5 (Feb. 1931).

            Influence. “Imagism” (review of René Taupin, L’Influence du Symbolisme sur la Poésie Américaine de 1910 à 1920), The New Review (Paris) 1.2 (May, June, July 1931).

            Poetic Value.

1931    An Objective [part I]. “Program: ‘Objectivists’ 1931,” Poetry 37.5 (Feb. 1931).

            An Objective [part III]. “‘Recencies’ in Poetry,” Preface to An “Objectivists” Anthology (1932).

            American Poetry 1920-1930. “American Poetry 1920-1930,” The Symposium 2.1 (Jan. 1931).

1935    Lewis Carroll. “Review of Lewis Carroll, Russian Journal,” The New Masses (8 Oct. 1935).

1936    Modern Times. “Modern Times,” Kulchur 4 (Nov. 1961).

1942    Dometer Guczul. “Dometer Guczul,” View 3.3 (Fall 1943).

1943    Basic. Basic (A report on Ogden & Richards, Basic English), NY: Hazeltine Electronics Corp. (Dec. 1943).

1946    Poetry/ For My Son When He Can Read. “Poetry/ For My Son When He Can Read,” Cronos 2.4 (March 1948).

1948    William Carlos Williams [part II]. “An Old Note on W.C.W.,” Poetry 76.3 (June 1950) [incorporated complete into “Poetry in a Modern Age,” ostensibly a review of Vivienne Koch’s Williams Carlos Williams]; The Massachusetts Review (Winter 1962).

            Work/Sundown. Statement in The Case of Ezra Pound, ed. Charles Norman, NY: Bodley Press, 1948.

1950    A Statement for Poetry. “Poetry (1952),” Montevallo Review 1.3 (Spring 1952).

1951    The Effacement of Philosophy. “The Effacement of Philosophy” (review of George Santayana, Dominations and Powers), Montevallo Review 1.4 (Summer 1953).

1958    William Carlos Williams [part I, “A Citation”]. “The Best Human Value,” The Nation 186.22 (31 May 1958).

            Prefatory Note. “Forward” to 5 Statements for Poetry, SF State College, 1958 [Slightly revised for 1967 edition of Prepositions (dated 1965) and again for the expanded edition of 1981 (dated 1976)].

1961    Bottom, a weaver.

1962    Found Objects (1962-1926). Preface to Found Objects, Georgetown, KY: H.B. Chapin, 1964.

1965    Golgonoozà? “Pronounced Golgonoozà?” Poetry 107.1 (Oct. 1965) [ostensibly a review of four scholarly books on William Blake, which LZ names in passing: Hazard Adams, William Blake: A Reading of the Shorter Poems (1963); Harold Bloom, Blake’s Apocalypse: A Study in Poetic Argument (1963); Sir Geoffrey Keynes, A Study of the Illuminated Books of William Blake: Poet, Printer, Prophet (1964); John Middleton Murry, William Blake (1933, rpt. 1964)].

 

Added to the Expanded Edition of Prepositions (1981); all except the index first published as “Addenda to Prepositions” in Journal of Modern Literature 4.1 (Sept. 1974): 91-108:

1970    With Little/For Careenagers. Introduction to reading from Little for “Spoken Word Program,” Radio Station WNYC-FM (15 Sept. 1970).

1970    About the Gas Age. Remarks made at the US Embassy in London (21 May 1969); corrected version of the unauthorized publication by Ultima Thule Book, 1969.

1971    For Wallace Stevens. Wallace Stevens Memorial Lecture at U. of Connecticut, Storrs (29 April 1971); edited version of taped lecture.

1976    Index to Defintions.

 

“Additional Prose” in Prepositions+ (2001), edited by Mark Scroggins:

1958    5 Statements for Poetry. San Francisco: San Francisco State College (25 June) [lightly edited reprint of LZ’s major statements on poetics presented in chronological order; published while he was poet in residence at SFSC at Robert Duncan’s invitation].

1961    Translating Catullus (Louis and Celia Zukofsky). Kulchur 5 (Spring 1962).

1967    Foreword to “A” 1-12. “A” 1-12, NY: Doubleday, 1967.

1968    Interview (with L.S. Dembo). Contemporary Literature 10.2 (Spring 1969).

 

Notes to Prepositions (1967)

 

Poetry / For My Son When He Can Read (1946)

3          When you were 19 months…: PZ was born 22 Oct. 1943, so he was 19 months in April-May 1945. According to manuscripts dates, LZ actually began this essay in May 1945, although not finished until the end of 1946.

3          atomic bomb: dropped on Hiroshima on 6 Aug. 1945.

4          translation of Confucius…: from the Analects found in The Wisdom of China and India, ed. Lin Yutang (NY: Random House, 1942). LZ included this remark in “Other Comments” appended to the original version of “A Statement for Poetry 1950” (Prep+ 223), and in a letter to WCW, in which he also recommends Yuan Chen’s “The Pitcher” (see next note), despite Arthur Waley’s mediocre translation (WCW/LZ 317).

4          “The Pitcher” of Yuan Chen: translation by Arthur Waley; according to Ahearn, LZ found this in More Translations from the Chinese (NY: Knopf, 1937) (WCW/LZ 318).

5          bolts and bars of the motto of Kansas: the state motto of Kansas is Ad Astra per Aspera (To the Stars Through Difficulties), probably adapted from Virgil. The phrase “bolts and bars” is from Nehemiah 3:3: “The Fish Gate was rebuilt by the sons of Hassenaah. They laid its beams and put its doors and bolts and bars in place,” and repeated in the chapter thereafter.

5          “Dick the shepherd blows his nail”: from the “Winter Song” that concludes Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost.

6          President’s remarks of 1932…: in the original printing of the essay, LZ explicitly identifies the President as Roosevelt.

6          Plato’s generalization…: from Plato, Philebus 55: “Socrates. ‘I mean to say, that if arithmetic, mensuration, and weighing be taken away from any art, that which remains will not be much.’ Protarchus. ‘Not much, certainly.’ Socrates. ‘The rest will be only conjecture, and the better use of the senses which is given by experience and practice, in addition to a certain power of guessing, which is commonly called art, and is perfected by attention and pains’” (trans. Benjamin Jowett). Qtd. “‘One oak fool box’;—the pun” (CSP 85).

6          Lucretius: Roman poet of De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things), which versifies the atomistic philosophy of Epicurus; qtd. particularly in “A”-12.165.1-19 and 12.165.28-167.31.

7          eosere: with regard to plants, the development within each geological era. eo- = early, primeval (< Gk. eos, dawn) + sere = a stage in a ecological succession of plant communities (< L. serere, to join in a series).

7          motion of Lorentz’ single electron…: this passage qtd. in the notes to Anew 29.

8          an historian shaping a sum of events to the second law of thermodynamics: Henry Adams in two late essays collected posthumously in The Degradation of the Democratic Dogma (1919): “A Letter to American Teachers of History” and  “The Rule of Phase Applied to History.” The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that for any self-contained system there is a constant dissipation of energy or entropy.

8          an economist subsuming under a fiction of value a countless differentiation of labor processes: Karl Marx’s labor theory of value, particularly in Capital; in this case, the “fiction of value” would refer to “exchange value.” See especially the first half of “A”-9.

8          Singing like Gower…: from Shakespeare, Pericles opening prologue; Gower serves as the chorus throughout the play, LZ’s favorite.

8          ‘the business of every science…: from Dante, De Vulgari Eloquentia I.1: “But because the business of every science is not to prove but to explain its subject, in order that men may know what that is with which the science is concerned, we say (to come quickly to the point) that what we call the vernacular speech is that to which children are accustomed by those who are about them when they first begin to distinguish words; or to put it more shortly, we say that the vernacular speech is that which we acquire without any rule, by imitating our nurses. There further springs from this another secondary speech, which the Romans called grammar. And this secondary speech the Greeks also have, as well as others, but not all” (trans. A.G. Ferrers Howell).

9          ‘to whom the world is our native country’: from Dante, De Vulgari Eloquentia I.6: “But we, to whom the world is our native country, just as the sea is to the fish, though we drank of Arno before our teeth appeared, and though we love Florence so dearly that for the love we bore her we are wrongfully suffering exile—we rest the shoulders of our judgment on reason rather than on feeling.”

9          ‘the exercise of discernment as to words…: from Dante, De Vulgari Eloquentia II.7: “The next division of our progress now demands that an explanation be given as to those words which are of such grandeur as to be worthy of being admitted into that style to which we have awarded the first place. We declare therefore to begin with that the exercise of discernment as to words involves by no means the smallest labour of our reason, since we see that a great many sorts of them can be found” (90-91; qtd. “A Statement for Poetry” (Prep+ 224) and paraphrased “A”-12.162.32-163.1). Dante then goes on to describe types of words, including those that are “combed-out” and “shaggy,” concluding the section: “And what has been said on the pre-eminent nature of words to be used may suffice for every one of inborn discernment.”

9          as when breathing the new life he warned against metaphor…:

9          ‘highest common speech—all that flows…: from Dante, De Vulgari Eloquentia II.4: “Also, in works of art, that is noblest which embraces the whole art. Since, therefore poems are works of art, and the whole of art is embraced in canzoni alone, canzoni are the noblest poems, and so their form is the noblest of any. […] But the proof of what we are saying is at once apparent; for all that has flowed from the tops of the heads of illustrious poets down to their lips is found in the canzoni alone.”

9          ‘nothing else but the completed action of writing words…: from Dante, De Vulgari Eloquentia II.8: “And such words, even when written down on paper without any one to utter them, we call canzoni; and therefore a canzone appears to be nothing else but the completed action of one writing words to be set to music. Wherefore we shall call canzoni not only the canzoni of which we are now treating, but also ballate and sonnets, and all words of whatever kind written for music, both in the vulgar tongue and in Latin.”

10        Dante called the ‘secondary speech’…: see note at 8.

 

An Objective (1930, 1931)

12        Egyptian pulled-glass bottle in the shape of a fish: referring to the title of a 1924 poem by Marianne Moore.

12        oak leaves: image from WCW’s A Novelette (1929), see quotations at 148.

12        Bach’s Matthew Passion in Leipzig: first performance of J.S. Bach’s St. Matthew Passion in 1729; see “A”-1.1.2.

12        rise of metallurgical plants in Siberia: almost certainly alludes to speech by Lenin; see “A”-6.32.2.

12        the Chinese sage who wrote, ‘Then for nine reigns there was no literary production’: this remark comes from EP (see EP/LZ 74).

13        Aten: ancient Egyptian sun god, particularly associated with the sun worship of Akenaten (Pharoh Amenhotep IV).

16        meaning of science in modern civilization as pointed out in Thorstein Veblen: Thorstein Veblen (1857-1929), “The Evolution of the Scientific Point of View” in The Place of Science in Modern Civilization and Other Essays (1919); LZ quotes from this essay in both “A”-8.56.13f and “A”-12.257.7f.

17        poets who see with their ears, hear with their eyes…: LZ is echoing a number of favorite sources, most obviously Bottom’s speech in Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream IV.i (qtd. Bottom 9, 15, 35), but cf. Hamlet III.iv (qtd. Bottom 47, 279, “A”-12.127.6-12, 12.158.29-30) and Lucretius (qtd. “A”-12.166.31-167.5).

17        ‘Recencies’: part III of “An Objective” was originally given as a talk and published as “’Recencies’ in Poetry” (1932).

17        Dante’s literal, anagogical and theological threefold meaning…: as outlined in the letter to Can Grande.

17        Shakespeare’s ‘when to the sessions,’ his working out of love as bookkeeping: Sonnet 30 (“When to the sessions of sweet silent thought”).

18        Donne’s ‘Valediction,’ his ‘two twin compasses’: John Donne, “A Valediction Forbidding Morning”; qtd. Bottom 166 and TP 127-128.

 

A Statement for Poetry (1950)

19        Thus poetry may be defined as an order of words […] wordless art of music as a kind of mathematical limit: Cf. “A”-12.138.1-8.

19        A contemporary American poet says: ‘A poem is a small…: WCW in the “Author’s Introduction” to The Wedge (1944), a volume edited by and dedicated to LZ.

19        George Hardy: G.H. (Godfrey Harold) Hardy (1877-1947), prominent mathematician associated with the Bloomsbury group; for general readers he wrote A Mathematician’s Apology (1940) on the aesthetics of mathematics, in which he compares mathematics with poetry and art, arguing for mathematics’ “uselessness.”

19        Hideki Yukawa: (1907-1981), Japanese physicist who won the Nobel Prize in 1949.

19        Homer’s heavenly singer…: see comments appended to the original version of “A Statement for Poetry” (Prep+ 223) and “A”-12.162.29-30.

19        Lucretius: in De Rerum Natura, which figures prominently in “A”-12.

19        The parts of a fugue, Bach said…: LZ’s source for this Bach remark is as yet unidentified, although Charles Sanford Terry includes a paraphrased remark that is similar to this quotation, which also appears in “A”-12.127.24-25. In speaking of Bach’s practice in teaching counterpoint, he told students “that each part must be regarded as an individual conversing with his fellows, who, when he speaks, must speak grammatically and complete his sentences, and if he has nothing to say, had better remain silent” (Terry 100).

20        Egyptian Chapters of Coming Forth by Day…: the Egyptian Book of the Dead; LZ quotes from the translation of Robert Hillyer, “The Dead Man Ariseth and Singeth a Hymn to the Sun.” See “A”-14.357.26f, where at 358.5-6 he mentions the same title for the Book of the Dead.

21        Homer’s puns on the name of Odysseus…: the best-known name pun is that in the Cyclops episode when Odysseus calls himself “No Man,” which in Greek actually puns on Odysseus’ common epithet meaning “cunning” or “clever.” In the opening passage of the Odyssey, Homer also puns Odysseus with the word for “hated,” i.e. by the gods. LZ alludes to both these puns in Bottom 353.

21        Homer’s ‘a dark purple wave made an arch…: from Odyssey, Book XI; LZ is quoting from W.H.D. Rouse’s prose translation.

21        Longinus (213-273), On the Sublime XV, 2: trans. W. Hamilton Fyfe (Loeb Classical Library). This same passage qtd. The Writings of Apollinaire 164/165.

21        ‘Bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang’: from Shakespeare, Sonnet 73; qtd. 136.

22        ‘Who loses and who wins, who’s in, / who’s out’: from King Lear; qtd. “A”-13.293.16, TP 141 and Bottom 312.

22        Campion: Thomas Campion (1567-1620), English poet who composed music for his own poems.

22        Shakespeare’s songs—which have been set to music by Purcell, Johnson, Arne: Henry Purcell (1659-1695) composed music to several adaptations of Shakespeare, including John Dryden’s The Tempest. Robert Johnson (c.1582-1633), associated with The King’s Men, wrote the music for a number of the songs in Shakespeare’s later plays, including “Full Fathom Five” and “Where the bee sucks”; Thomas Arne (1710-1778), composed music to many of Shakespeare’s plays.

23        He looks, so to speak, into his ear…: Cf. “Look in your own ear and read” in “Peri Poietikes” (CSP 213).

 

For Wallace Stevens (1971)

25        Luis De Leon’s book called The Perfect Wife: Luis Ponce de León (1527-1591), Spanish poet and author of the prose La perfecta casada (The Perfect Wife), instructions to newly wed women. He also translated the Book of Solomon, which along with some of his commentaries on the Bible got him into trouble with the Inquisition, resulting in imprisonment. The Perfect Wife was translated by a “distant cousin” of WCW’s, Alice Philena Hubbard (Sister Felicia, O.S.A.), and WCW gave a copy of the translation to the Zukofskys in 1944 (see WCW/LZ 344).

25        my lesser trial to sound their Hebrew in English: referring to LZ’s homophonic rendition of passages from Job in the opening section of “A”-15.

26        Mallarmé: Stephen Mallarmé (1842-1898); “A”-19 evidences LZ’s interest in Mallarmé’s meditations on the idea of the Book (Le livre).

27        X understands Aristotle instinctively: from “Five Grotesque Pieces” in Opus Posthumous 75).

27        The Book of Joel…: from Joel 2:28: “And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions.” Qtd. Bottom 152, where LZ indicates he found this in an essay by Francis Bacon.

28        The Boy Electrician: by Alfred Powell Morgan (1913), a classic boy’s book on electricity with numerous simple experiments.

28        the Letters: Stevens’ Letters, ed. Holly Stevens, published in 1966.

28        the Others group in New York: Others: A Magazine of the New Verse, edited by Alfred Kreymborg from July 1915-July 1917, was a major American outlet for experimental poetry including WCW, EP, Wallace Stevens, Marianne Moore, Mina Loy and many others.

29        Harriet Monroe’s anthology The New Poetry…: Harriet Monroe was founding editor of Poetry magazine and published The New Poetry in 1917, edited with Alice Cobin Henderson.

30        The Purpose of History—a man named Homer Woodbridge: Frederick J.E. Woodbridge, The Purpose of History (NY: Columbia UP, 1916).

30        Dewey: John Dewey (1859-1952), American pragmatist philosopher, who taught at Columbia University when LZ was a student.

30        Eisteddfod: ancient Welsh tradition of poetry and music festival; mentioned in Little 40.

31        “The essential thing in form is to be free…: from “A Note on Poetry” (1938) in Opus Posthumous (240).

31        not doctrinal in form tho in design: from “The Comedian as the Letter C”: “Score this anecdote / Invented for its pith, not doctrinal / In form though in design, as Crispin willed […]” (Collected Poems 45).

31        National Industrial Conference Board: LZ worked for the NICB from Oct. 1927-March 1928.

31        the Duomo: the main cathedral in Florence, Italy, which the Zukofskys visited in the summer of 1957.

31        state of the Charter Oak: i.e. Connecticut. King Charles II had given the first settlers of Connecticut a charter ensuring their rights to the colony, which James II subsequently attempted to revoke, but the charter was hidden in the trunk of a large oak tree that became known as the Charter Oak.

33        poetry is the subject of the poem: from “The Man with the Blue Guitar” in Collected Poems 176; LZ is mistaken about the date as this poem was published 1937.

33        Winslow Homer’s palm tree…: the American painter Winslow Homer (1836-1910) has quite a few works featuring palm trees in the Bahamas and Florida.

34        this most excellent canopy, the air, look you: from Shakespeare, Hamlet II.ii.

34        eye . . . not dim . . . nor . . . natural force abated: from Deuteronomy 34:7: “And Moses was an hundred and twenty years old when he died: his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated.”

34        the magazine Imagi […] included a poem of mine…: i.e. “As to how much” (CSP 129).

35        The Century Dictionary: in ten volumes, LZ acquired a set for PZ around 1950 and often used it thereafter.

37        The other day, in the middle of January…: from Opus Posthumous 252-253.

 

Golgonoozà? (1965)

Title      Golgonoozà: William Blake’s city of the imagination in his major prophecies. On LZ’s added accent mark, see 43.

41        ‘a fierce desire as when two shadows mingle on a wall’: from Blake, The Four Zoas (Vala, Night the Ninth, lines 27-28):
Recievd her in the darkning South their bodies lost they stood
Trembling & weak a faint embrace a fierce desire as when
Two shadows mingle on a wall they wail & shadowy tears
Fell down & shadowy forms of joy mixd with despair & grief
Their bodies buried in the ruins of the Universe
Mingled with the confusion.

41        All that Blake says here has been attributed to his actual conversation or comes from his writings: this is literally true and covers the full sweep of his poetry, but also to a large extent the Visitor’s remarks are attributable to Blake as well.

41        Why do you say frightened?: the preceding sentence refers to a Blake remark recorded by A.H. Palmer: “I can look at a knot in a piece of wood till I am frightened of it.”

41        Spinoza […] how to read Genesis…: this refers to Spinoza, Theological-Political Treatise (1670), which in arguing for civil tolerance and freedom is largely taken up with matters of Scriptural interpretation and is a pioneering work in historical criticism, thus anticipating the demystifying and anti-priestcraft views of the Enlightenment. LZ was given a copy of the R.H.M. Elwes translation of Spinoza’s complete works by PZ in the 1960s, whereas previously LZ’s reading of Spinoza was mostly confined to the Everyman’s Library edition of the Ethics and Treastise on the Correction of the Understanding translated by Andrew Boyle.

41        Voltaire…: Voltaire discusses Spinoza in the Philosophical Dictionary and as LZ suggests is generally dismissive.

42        Gibbon laughed at the useless research into filioque: filioque, L. and from the Son. The clause of the Nicene Creed in its western form which asserts that the Holy Ghost proceeds both from the Father and from the Son. The doctrine of the “double procession,” as it is called, has been generally accepted in the Latin Church from a very early period; and this clause was frequently added to the creed before it was authoritatively incorporated in it in the eleventh century. The Greek Church, on the contrary, has always maintained the doctrine of the single procession, as expressed in the original form of the Nicene Creed, in accordance with John 15:26, “the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father”; and the controversy on this subject (called the Filioque controversy), continued to the present time, was one the chief causes of the schism between the two churches (CD). Edward Gibbon describes this controversy with his usual sarcasm in the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

43        Hazard and Harold and Geoffrey and John Middleton: “Golgonoozà?” was originally written and published ostensibly as a review of four scholarly works on Blake: Hazard Adams, William Blake: A Reading of the Shorter Poems (1963); Harold Bloom, Blake’s Apocalypse: A Study in Poetic Argument (1963); Sir Geoffrey Keynes, A Study of the Illuminated Books of William Blake: Poet, Printer, Prophet (1964); John Middleton Murry, William Blake (1933, rpt. 1964).

44        . . . The citizens of New York close their books . . . : from Blake, America: A Prophecy, Part 3.

 

William Carlos Williams (1958, 1948, 1928)

45        Hume who wrote ‘My Own Life’…: David Hume (1711-1776), English philosopher and historian.

46        Blue at the prow of my desire: from WCW, “Postlude” in The Tempers (1913) (Collected Poems I 4).

46        Hamlet says: If it be now, ‘tis not to come…: qtd. Bottom 46, 106, 302, 358 and “A”-18.406.20-22.

46        Ezra, early in March […] 1928…: see EP/LZ 7. LZ used the phrase “best human value” as the title of this first part on WCW when originally published in the Nation in 1958 (see bibliographical information above).

46        Your Easter letter of that year…: see WCW/LZ 5.

46        you have just presented me with a foreword…: for the Origin Press publication of “A” 1-12 (1959). Paterson V was published 1958.

47        ‘less volatile . . . I have gotten older…: see WCW/LZ 6.

47        ‘I never knew To was a noun gosh…: from Jan. 1932 letter (WCW/LZ 119).

47        like Puck…: the mischievous fairy character in Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

47        The visits to your home entailed…: for the references to the Erie Railroad and to C.F. Adams’ “An Erie Raid,” see “A”-8.76.9-22, particularly the detail at 76.21.

47        Aristotle first wrote about the unnatural evil: Politics I.10 (1258a-1258b): “There are two sorts of wealth-getting, as I have said; one is a part of household management, the other is retail trade: the former necessary and honorable, while that which consists in exchange is justly censured; for it is unnatural, and a mode by which men gain from one another. The most hated sort, and with the greatest reason, is usury, which makes a gain out of money itself, and not from the natural object of it. For money was intended to be used in exchange, but not to increase at interest. And this term interest, which means the birth of money from money, is applied to the breeding of money because the offspring resembles the parent. Wherefore of an modes of getting wealth this is the most unnatural” (trans. Benjamin Jowett).

47        ‘Floss going back to plant…: adapted from 1 Nov. 1941 letter of Florence Williams to CZ (WCW/LZ 297); the same letter mentions the walk in the rose garden of the Bronx Park, directly across from which the Zukofskys lived at the time; see “No it was no dream of coming death” (CSP 85) and “It Was” (CF 181).

48        I told mother this afternoon…: letter dated 15 Sept. 1948; (WCW/LZ 403).

48        I can’t stand the full restraint that X…: X is EP (WCW/LZ 221-222).

48        Aristotle knew that ‘the argument of the Odyssey is not a long one’: see Poetics 17 (1455b), as translated by Ingram Bywater.

48        Chapman spurred by the job…: George Chapman (c.1559-1634), published his famous verse translation of the Odyssey in 1614-1616. In “The Epistle Dedicatory” he remarks: “And that your Lordship may in his face take view of his mind, the first words of his Iliads is ..., wrath; the first word of his Odysseys, ..., man: contracting in either word his each work's proposition. [… ] The return of a man into his country is his whole scope and object; which in itself, your Lordship may well say, is jejune and fruitless enough, affording nothing feastful, nothing magnificent. And yet even this doth the divine inspiration render vast, illustrious, and of miraculous composure. And for this, my Lord, is this poem preferred to his Iliads; for therein much magnificence, both of person and action, gives great aid to his industry; but in this are these helps exceeding sparing, or nothing; and yet is the structure so elaborate and pompous that the poor plain ground-work, considered together, may seem the naturally rich womb to it, and produce it needfully.”

49        Raquel Hèléne Rose: WCW’s memoir of his mother, whose full maiden name was Raquel Hèléne Rose Hoheb, which was eventually published as Yes, Mrs. Williams (1959): 27-28; LZ is quoting from a section that was published in Twice a Year 5-6 (Fall-Winter 1940).

49        ‘The province of the poem is the world’: from Paterson III (100); LZ included this among the comments on poetics appended to “A Statement for Poetry 1950” (Prep+ 224).

49        The horse moves / independently…: WCW, “The Horse,” quoted complete from The Clouds (1948) (Collected Poems II 141-142).

50        Phidias: the great 5th century BC Greek sculpture credited with the work in and around the Parthenon.

50        ‘If politics,’ as Williams says, ‘could be the science of humanity’:

50        Williams’ Sam Patch…: refers to an account WCW includes in Paterson I (1946) concerning a drunk who became a professional jumper after leaping at the Paterson falls, but who eventually made a jump too many (Paterson 15-16).

50        Apollinaire’s Couleur de Temps: more properly Couleur du Temps; a late play by Guillaume Apollinaire, from which LZ quotes in the Writings of Apollinaire (202-207).

50        Gris in Williams, of Klee, Demuth, Sheeler…: all painters who interested WCW, especially the latter two about whom he wrote frequently.

50        Lucretius’ ‘Spring goes on her way and Venus’: from De Rerum Natura, Book V as translated by Cyril Bailey; qtd. “A”-12.165.1 and Bottom 86.

50        As Gertrude Stein (one of Williams’ interests) remarked…: from “What Is English Literature?” in Lectures in America (1935); LZ quotes the latter half in “A”-12.168.26-29. WCW wrote a 1930 essay on Stein (Selected Essays 113-120), which Quartermain points out was written in collaboration with or at least with many suggestions from LZ (67, 102; see also WCW/LZ 38-45, 47-50).

50        Einstein: ‘Everything should be as simple…: quoted “A”-12.143.27-29.

51        Aristotle? ‘An herb peddler…: WCW’s remark in “The Clouds”: “Aristotle, / shrewd and alone, a onetime herb peddler?” (Collected Poems II 172). The following quotations from Aristotle, Metaphysics XII.7 (1072a-1072b): “(The one and the simple are not the same; for 'one' means a measure, but 'simple' means that the thing itself has a certain nature.) […] That a final cause may exist among unchangeable entities is shown by the distinction of its meanings. For the final cause is (a) some being for whose good an action is done, and (b) something at which the action aims; and of these the latter exists among unchangeable entities though the former does not. The final cause, then, produces motion as being loved, but all other things move by being moved. Now if something is moved it is capable of being otherwise than as it is.”
Metaphysics I.9 (990b; precisely the same statement also appears at Metaphysics XIII.4 (1079a)): “And in general the arguments for the Forms destroy things for whose existence the believers in Forms are more zealous than for the existence of the Ideas; for it follows that not the dyad but number is first, and that prior to number is the relative, and that this is prior to the absolute-besides all the other points on which certain people, by following out the opinions held about the Forms, came into conflict with the principles of the theory” (trans. W.D. Ross).

51        his Stein-ish definition of substance ‘a this’: qtd. “A”-17.381.33; see note at “A”-12.163.22.

51        [Part III]: this section was originally published in Hound & Horn (1931) as a “postscript” to “Henry Adams,” which had been published in three issues of Hound & Horn the previous year. This explains the nature of this section, which is a review of WCW’s A Voyage to Pagany, published 1928 when this section was actually written, considered as a contemporary revisiting of Adams’ encounter with the Old World.

52        Of all the elaborate symbolism…: from Henry Adams, Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres; see longer quotation in “Henry Adams” (Prep+ 116).

53        of Bach’s St Mathew Passion—‘I heard him agonizing…: see “A”-1.4.17.

 

The Effacement of Philosophy (1951)

54        Santayana: this essay is ostensibly a review of the Spanish-American philosopher George Santayana (1863-1952), Dominations and Powers: Reflections on Liberty, Society and Government (1951). It is perhaps relevant that according to Ahearn (105) the Everyman’s Library edition of Spinoza’s Ethics (including On the Correction of the Human Understanding) that LZ used throughout much of his life listed no translator but had a preface by Santayana, who LZ assumed to be the translator as well, although in fact it is Andrew Boyle.

54        We do not admire, said Spinoza, the architect who…: from On the Correction of the Human Understanding 108; qtd. Bottom 21.

54        He also said, to perceive a winged horse is to affirm it: from Spinoza, Ethics II, Prop. 49, Note, qtd. “A”-12.234.32-235.6 and Bottom 76.

54        there cannot be too much merriment: from Spinoza, Ethics IV, Prop 42, qtd. “A”-12.184.15-16, Bottom 78, 192; see also “A”-9.109.18.

55        hymn of creation in the Rigveda…: from ancient Indian Rig Veda, Book X, Hymn 129; LZ includes the same following lines from the hymn in “A”-12.126.24-125.1. See also Bottom 104.

55        Greek word ruthmos…: Cf. “A”-12.126.10.

55        Aristotle zealous for things scolded Plato for his Ideas…: refers specifically to Aristotle, Metaphysics I.9, see quotation at 50; qtd. “A”-12.170.6-16. On Aristotle’s critique of Plato see Bottom 42, 54, 73-75; for Plato’s “whorl of the spindle of Necessity,” see Bottom 83 and “Pamphylian” in CSP 133.

55        Bach’s Art of Fugue: see “A”-12.127.23.

55        Bach’s remark: The order which rules music…: qtd. “A”-12.128.2f. It is highly unlikely that Bach made such a remark, and LZ’s source is almost certainly an extract from an autobiographical work by Margaret Anderson; see note and quotation at “A”-12.128.2.

56        . . . many errors consist of this alone, that we do not apply names rightly…: from Spinoza, Ethics II, Prop. 47, Note; see “A”-12.235.7 and “A”-11.108.25.

56        takes the title of his book from Colossians…: dominations and powers are orders of angels; Santayana’s title is taken from the Epistle of St. Paul to the Colossians 1:16: “For in him were all things created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones, or dominations, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him and in him.” LZ alludes to 3:16: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you abundantly, in all wisdom: teaching and admonishing one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual canticles, singing in grace in your hearts to God.”

56        ‘The superstitious, who know better…: from Spinoza, Ethics IV, Prop. 63, Note 1.

 

Modern Times (1936)

57        Mark Twain (over the embalmed Egyptian): ‘Is he dead?’: refers to a scene in Mark Twain, Innocents Abroad (1969); the American “innocents” touring Europe are impervious to the glories of the Old World, and when visiting the Vatican are shown a mummy: “‘Born in Egypta. Never heard of Egypta before. Foreign locality, likely. Mummy—mummy. How calm he is—how self-possessed. Is, ah—is he dead?’”

57        Modern Times: Charlie Chaplin film released in 1936; Chaplin was not only the star, but also wrote, directed, produced and even composed the music score for the film. According to Slate, LZ saw the film with Jerry Reisman in early Feb. 1936 (124).

57        Survey of the Film in America…: LZ and Jerry Reisman attended the Museum of Modern Art’s “A Short Survey of the Film in America” sometime before 18 March 1936 (Slate 124), which consisted of a series of historical films. Assuming LZ saw the first series, it included The Great Train Robbery (1903), Queen Elizabeth (1912), Sunrise (1927), All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) and Steamboat Willie (1928).

58        Ben Turpin: (1869-1940), silent film comic who early worked with Chaplin for Essanay film studio based in Chicago, although they did not get along. Like Chaplin he had a vaudeville background.

58        Byrd’s Wolseys Wilde: a popular keyboard tune by William Byrd (1543-1623), also mentioned in the contemporaneously written Arise, arise 9.

58        Dali’s Le Chien Andalou: Andalusian Dog, perhaps the most famous surrealistic short film, produced by Salvador Dali and Luis Buñuel in 1929; has a notorious opening scene of an eyeball being sliced open.

58        Frank Powell: Canadian silent screen actor and director, discovered Theda Bara (1885-1955) when he directed her in A Fool There Was (1915), which made her internationally known as “the Vamp” and the great sex symbol of the period.

58        Thomas Ince…: (1882-1924), American silent screen actor and director, particularly of early Westerns. Bill Hart (William S. Hart, 1964-1946), one of the greatest early Western actors, directed and starred in The Fugitive (The Taking of Luke McVane), which Ince wrote. LZ mentions Hart’s last film, Tumbleweeds (1925), in “A”-12.255.12.

58        Cocteau…: Jean Cocteau (1889-1963), made his first film, Le Sang d’un Poete (The Bood of a Poet) in 1930.

59        René Clair…: (1898-1981), French film director; À Nous la Liberté (Freedom for Us, 1931), about an escaped convict who rises up the capitalist ladder, contains a scene in which the audience, bored by a politician’s nationalistic speech, prefers to chase after money that is blowing about after accidentally escaping from a bag. The film also contains satiric scenes of industrial working conditions, which Chaplin was later accused of copying in Modern Times. Le Dernier Milliardaire (The Last Millionaire, 1934).

59        stratigraphic: stratigraphy is the study of rock strata, especially the distribution, deposition and age of sedimentary rocks (AHD).

60        Swift has the Laputans build from the roof down or prescribes how gloves…: from Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels, Part III (see Prep+ 160, also mentioned in “Symposium” in the “Objectivists” issue of Poetry 37.5 (Feb. 1932): 288).

60        The Pawnshop…: all the titles mentioned in this paragraph are early short film starring Chaplin: The Pawnshop (1916), Behind the Scenes (1916), Shoulder Arms (1918), Easy Street (1917), A Dog’s Life (1918).

62        Paulette Goddard: (1910-1990) lived with and perhaps was married to Chaplin through most of the 1940s. Modern Times first brought her stardom and she would also star in Chaplin’s The Great Dictator