The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry
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This important and much-disputed essay edited by Ezra Pound from the manuscript of Ernest Fenollosa (and published in Instigations, London, 1920) has since gone through several editions, despite the ridicule of such sinologists as Professor George Kennedy of Yale, who called it “a small mass of confusion.The old theory as to the nature of the Chinese written character (which Pound and Fenollosa followed) is that the written character is ideogrammic—a stylized picture of the thing or concept it represents. The opposing theory (which prevails today among scholars) is that the character may have had pictorial origins in prehistoric times but that these origins have been obscured in all but a few very simple cases, and that in any case native writers don’t have the original pictorial meaning in mind as they write.Whether Pound proceeded on false premises remains an academic question. Let the pedants rave. An important extension of imagist technique in poetry was gained by Pound’s perception of the essentially poetic nature of the Chinese character as it is still written.
List of IllustrationsConventionsFenollosa Compounded: A Discrimination Haun Saussy Saussy, Haun 1The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry: An Ars Poetica: with a Foreword and Notes by Ezra Pound (1918, 1936) Ernest Fenollosa Fenollosa, Ernest 41App With Some Notes by a Very Ignorant Man Ezra Pound Pound, Ezra 61The Chinese Written Language as a Medium for Poetry: (final draft, ca. 1906, with Pound's notes, 1914-16) Ernest Fenollosa Fenollosa, Ernest 75Synopsis of Lectures on Chinese and Japanese Poetry Ernest Fenollosa Fenollosa, Ernest 105Chinese and Japanese Poetry. Draft of Lecture I. Vol. II Ernest Fenollosa Fenollosa, Ernest 126Chinese and Japanese Traits Ernest Fenollosa Fenollosa, Ernest 144The Coming Fusion of East and West Ernest Fenollosa Fenollosa, Ernest 153Chinese Ideals Ernest Fenollosa Fenollosa, Ernest 166[Retrospect on the Fenollosa Papers] Ezra Pound Pound, Ezra 174Notes 177Works Cited 209
