Civilization
July 24, 1943
If we were in normal times, that is to say if it weren’t for this tiresome war, I should be writing letters to a small number of people, say 10, 20, a dozen, two dozen, on what some of you would call rather special subjects.
For example, I should be writing to Mr. Otto Bird: I suppose he is now Doctor Bird, Ph.D. He was up in Canada, I forget which university but he was a studyin’ with Etienne Gilson, who has writ in French among other things an admirable history of medieval philosophy. And I had sent Dr. Gilson some very pretty photos of the manuscript, unique manuscript, containin’ Dino del Garbo’s commentary on Cavalcanti’s canzone “Donna Mi Prega.” Cavalcanti, a friend of Dante’s and that poem of very great interest. I spent a good deal of time translatin’, and editin’ Cavalcanti’s poems with paleography, I mean reproductions, of the manuscript so as to show what we really do know and can know, about one of the finest poets that ever lived, sortin’ out what is ascertainable from what is not ascertainable. How the stuff was first written down. No autograph stuff, but the earliest copies, and then the later manuscript editings: some of ’em under the general supervision, or stimulus, of Lord Medici.
All this may seem very specialized. However I found it of interest, and were it not for this tiresome war I should be writin’ to Mr. Bird, now probably Doctor O. Bird, as he was adoin’ his thesis on the above mentioned comment by del Garbo’s (no relation of Greta’s), to point out that whatever I said about Guido’s genial thought, his probably having read some Avicenna, and the general ideas entertained by the better minds of his time on the subject of LIGHT. That needed some attention to terminology. I should now want to add to what I printed, and to correlate it with Aristotle’s Metaphysics, I mean Aristotle’s particular treaties [treatise] called “Metaphysics,” and that Guido Cavalcanti might have taken his terminology from it, almost entirely.
del Garbo refers to Aristotle and to the treatise. So mebbe Bird has done so in any case. But the matter is interesting at least to a small number of people who think that precise terminology matters; and that that poem and comment give one a very nice chance for ascertainin’, gettin’ your idea clearer and more precise, as to the likenesses and differences between 18th century thought and our own. Have we got better at thinkin’? Do we think with greater clarity? Or has the so-called program of science merely got us all cluttered up mentally and pitched us into greater confusion?
No, the comment on a medieval poem don’t just stop there, any more than Frobenius’ research just STOPS with some bit of African sculpture, or with some prehistorical drawin’ on the side of a rock. Grosseteste writin’ on light, hooks up with the ideogram of the sun and moon at the start of Confucius’ testament. Incidentally, if medieval bishops in England were anything like as intelligent as Robert Grosseteste, it would look as if the standards of English episcopacy have declined. I’ll say DEclined since that date. Of course Bird wouldn’t be my only or even chief correspondent, I am just taking the point most recently come up in my personal business. Wars interrupt this sort of thing. They mostly lower the level of livin’, of the good life. Now as far as I am concerned, you have lost some of my contributions. I don’t say that matters much, but the sum of such European contributions to the good life, or the life of the American mind does matter. You got to lump ’em in with the deterioration of some of the American human material. My edition of the Great Learning is in Italian, not in American, as was my first edition. And it has the Chinese text facin’ it. And I know a good deal more now than when Glenn Hughes printed my first version in his University books. And you haven’t got my translation of Pea’s novel Moscardino. Carta da Visita is written in Italian. I believe something special was done about Geo. Santayana’s manuscript or proofs of something or other. But other voices are silent.
You say I also am losin’ something, I don’t deny it. I don’t hear from Mr. Eliot or Mr. Cummings. If they write anything, we got to wait for it. You’ve got to multiply that. After all immediate contacts probably count less for a man of my age than for a young man. One understands ’em more, but they probably incommode one less in one’s mental business. Eighteen or however many years ago S. Putnam was askin’ me about Italian writers, livin’ writers: and I knew considerably less. I finally got round to mentioning [Morelli?] (I mean of writers not known like Pirandello. And Basil Bunting). Wanted to translate Tozzi, but no English or American publisher had sense to let him. I now see some sort of clearance: clearin’ up in Italian style. Carlo Scarfoglio whose political notes you sometimes hear on this radio, did a preface that pretty well coincides with my views on writin’ (no collusion). Two men headin’ from different quarters, come to the same main conclusion. He startin’ with translatin’ Aeschylus, and doin’ it beautifully. Clear like a piece of glass. And his version of the Hymn to Demeter, homeric Hymn to Demeter. You may remember that Doc. Rouse calls Greek a necessity of civilized life. IT IS. So is Latin. Take time to go into these matters. I was layin’ for to point out the difference. The European and specifically Italian SENSE of these things. It shows in my bein’ here at this radio. That is due to [the] Italian sense of civilization, sense that special work like mine, and like that of other writers, Carlini, for example ought to go on. That communication OUGHT to be kept up war or no war. Like they go on having picture shows. Go on holdin’ up and improvin’ criterion in the arts. NOT universal in any country. But a field where competition is healthy. And I have before now said that from England and America I do not HEAR any indication of a similar sense of civilization. The best writers in England and America do NOT get to the microphone, which is the only way of communication left open. The American microphone descends to the level of Hollywood.
I could trace that back a good way to the decay of integrity in the BETTER American magazines. Decay of sense of responsibility, to and FOR the thought of the American nation. Sedgewick and other blights that I started objectin’ to 36 years ago. I got no time tonight to be political. I meant to be political, but nobody here ASKS me to be political. I wanted to make a little list of lies and swindles that are breakin’ down, not catchin’ coneys (that means catchin’ suckers) so plentiful. The swindles England put over on others; that she don’t like you puttin’ over on her. Mr. Welles bein’ pious, and trying to resell us the free trade hoax. And up jumps the Bolshevik threatenin’ to DUMP like all hell, according to the most rabid pluto Bolshevik methods.
All that is instructive but on a more popular (mebbe I ought to say in a certain sense less popular) plane.
