The critical field of Modernism and China has blossomed over the past decade or so. Numerous scholars have attempted to elucidate the importance of modernist writers' relationship to the culture, philosophy and texts of "China," which have influenced diverse Anglophone poets and critics. One of the prominent figures in these arguments is invariably Ezra Pound (1885 -1972), whose poetic engagement with China has been the focal point of this ongoing interest in East/West literary relations. The field exploring these intercultural exchanges has yet to address the philosophical and aesthetic significance of Chinese landscapes in The Cantos. The thesis thus focusses specifically on the Taoist and Confucian elements in the evocation of Chinese landscapes in Pound's Cantos. Because Pound never set foot in Asia, the Chinese landscape imagery of The Cantos was decisively shaped by his adaptation of artistic concepts and philosophical approaches from varied primary sources, such as paintings, translations of Chinese texts, and heirlooms owned by his family. Methodologically, this thesis investigates the extent to which Pound's evocation of these landscapes, when viewed in the contexts of these original materials, successfully recreates the aesthetic sensibilities and philosophical traditions of ancient Chinese poets and painters. I further argue that these landscapes represent the still points in the kaleidoscope of The Cantos and serve as signifiers of Pound's paradiso terrestre. It is important to note that Pound did not present this paradiso terrestre as a physical eternal resting place. In The Spirit of Romance of 1910 Pound declared, "There is little doubt that Dante conceived the real Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise as states, and not places" (128). Despite not visiting China, he often presented these landscapes as emblematic of Dante's concept of heaven. These glimpses of various Chinese landscapes offer The Cantos' fullest embodiment of a paradiso terrestre. This thesis will accordingly contribute to the intersecting fields of Pound studies, Chinese literary and visual culture studies, and new modernist studies.

The Modernist Response to Chinese Art is a work of both erudition and sympathy that reveals the root of modernist poets' otherwise baffling interest in and use of Chinese art. Most impressive, perhaps, is the depth of their embrace of it, as Qian has so convincingly documented. --Patricia C. Williams.

Cathay is a compilation of traditional Chinese poems translated into English by poet Ezra Pound. These fifteen poems are seen less as strict translations and more as new pieces in their own right.

First published in 1999. The subject of this book is the translation and appropriation of Chinese poetry by some English and American writers in the early decades of this century. The author explores the be concerned as much with English translation of Chinese poetry per se as with the relationship between this body of translation from the Chinese and the developing poetics and practices of what is usually referred to as "Imagism," as much with the question of historical influence or ascription as with certain interpretive and critical aspects of this correlative relationship. Focusing on the direct influence of Chinese poetry upon the theory and practice of Imagism, attributing to Imagist poets in general and Ezra Pound in particular the perception in Chinese poetry of the essential qualities and principles for rejuvenating English poetry in the early decades of the century.

DIVExplores Ezra Pound's long fascination with Chinese literature and culture /div

Provides translations of more than two hundred-fifty poems by over forty poets, from early anonymous poetry through the T'ang and Sung dynasties.

This selection from the Cantos was made by Ezra Pound himself in 1965. It is intended to "indicate main elements" in the long poem -- his personal epic -- with which he was engaged for more than fifty years. His choice includes, of course, a number of the Cantos most admired by critics and anthologists, such as Canto XIII ("Kung [Confucius] walked by the dynastic temple..."), Canto XLV ("With usura hath no man a house of good stone...") and the passage from The Pisan Cantos (LXXXI) beginning "What thou lovest well remains / the rest is dross," and so the book is an ideal introduction for newcomers to the great work. But it has, too, particular interest for the already initiated reader and the specialist, in its revelation, through Pound's own selection of "main elements," of the relative importance which he himself placed on various motifs as they figure in the architecture of the whole poem. Book jacket.