[lit-ideas] Re: August Thoughts on First Black President
- From: David Ritchie <profdritchie@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 3 Sep 2015 13:05:21 -0700
On Sep 3, 2015, at 2:06 AM, epostboxx@xxxxxxxx wrote:
Pound later defended himself by saying that the statement was “a clumsy
remark that was taken out of context and that in the particular French
expression used, ‘un pays de sauvages’, the French ‘sauvages’ was not
equivalent to English ‘savages’.”
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Pound#First_nations_comment]
The argument he was trying to make, as those of you who speak French will have
registered, is that "un pays sauvage" is merely wild, whereas a savage land
carries a threat.
The images accompanying this song make the point quite well:
https://search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?p=un+pays+sauvage&ei=UTF-8&hspart=mozilla&hsimp=yhs-001
But I agree that, "un pays de sauvages" is unlikely to have meant, "a country
full of people who are as interesting, valuable and attractive as wilderness."
Searching for examples caused me to stumble upon this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=928HEe3SWZo
The comment below says that if you've never watched this film you've wasted
your life--or some such claim. I tried the first few minutes. I think it's
possibly the worst opening to a movie I've ever seen. You?
David Ritchie,
Portland, Oregon
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