Date: Sun, 08 Jun 2003 15:21:47 +0100 Subject: downing the anti- From: michaelP <michael-AT-sandwich-de-sign.co.uk> In an article published in TheGuardian concerning the anti-semitism of TS Eliot, I came across this passage: > Eliot's anti-semitic poetry is deeply troubling. Writing my book, I was > searching for a way of respecting its integrity while recognising its > ugliness. I imagined a Jewish reader pushing one of Eliot's Jew-despising > poems away, affronted. I asked myself, how can this reader be persuaded to > return to it? > > I propose an adversarial stance. One maintains one's relation with the work, > but argues with it. This is not a prosecutorial reading, but it is one that > acknowledges the offence to the reader. It does not suppress the offence, or > wish it away. But nor does it reject the work. Indifference to offence given > by these poems is a failure of interpretation. They insult Jews, I argue. To > ignore these insults is to misread the poems. And if one is addressed as a > Jew, isn't it reasonable to respond as one? > > We ought not to seek to outlaw Eliot's poems, but neither can we submit to > them. We should not ban them; but we must not abandon ourselves to them. > Instead we must contest that poetry, with strategies that acknowledge both its > value and its menace. > > Refusing either to acquiesce in, or to rail at, Eliot's contempt for Jews, one > strives to do justice to the many injustices Eliot does to Jews. This is what > adversarial reading allows. It is an alternative to two kinds of silence: the > coercive silence of censorship, the passive silence of the submissive reader. > It combines resistance with respect. In the article, the author, Anthony Julius, expresses a deep disturbance concerning the supposed/real anti-semitism of the great poet (at least as present in a few early poems); he does not tar the man Eliot with the brush of anti-semitism so much but rather more the poems themselves. The language. More generally, given the episodic re-occurences of various anti- sentiments expressed on this list, might the approach of a Julius be more appropo than simple rant and rage, shock & awe, etc? Yes, "strategies that acknowledge both [the] value and [the] menace [of the speech/poem/writing]" Taking sides against something considered offensive is just another taking of sides and can be just as offensive; perhaps we should just attempt to not take sides of any kind and resist the temptation to rise to offence with defence&attack [and I know this is rich coming from me :-)]; instead to read&respond neither with censorship nor indifference, but... thinking? regards michaelP --- StripMime Warning -- MIME attachments removed --- This message may have contained attachments which were removed. Sorry, we do not allow attachments on this list. --- StripMime Report -- processed MIME parts --- multipart/alternative text/plain (text body -- kept) text/html --- --- from list heidegger-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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