Some people want to know why I am interested in Ezra Pound.

My reasons for being interested in Pound are not really necessarily relevant
to the validity or invalidity of the arguments I would make about Pound's
work.

Several people seem a bit puzzled by the fact that I would be interested in
Pound at all, given that my remarks seem to imply (to some, at least) that
Pound is not reading or studying.  But I have never tried to dissuade people
from studying Pound.

My own interest in Pound stems from the confluence  of a number of seemingly
disparate interests, which happen to find their convergence point at, or
near, the center of Pound's work.

I first encountered Pound at a time when I was extremely interested in the
relation between literature and socio-economic theory.  At that period in my
life, I was especially attracted to Byron, Blake, Shelley, Swinburne,
Carlyle and Ruskin,, and very devoted to the study of the use of radical
critical tools which could be used to elucidate the manner in which social
and political contradictions were embedded in, or used to ground literary
works.

My personal political outlook was formulated partly in response to the harsh
economic realities I had seen in Third World countries, especially in Latin
America, and in the Middle East.  When I came across Pound I was attracted
by his interest in economics, and especially his interest in Douglas.  My
familiarity with certain aspects of Chinese culture, prompted me to explore
what I (at first) thought might be progressive aspects of his interest in
Chinese history.  I began with a thorough study of that section of the China
Cantos, which recounts the tenth and eleventh centuries, and I focused on
Pound's depiction of the very controversial social reformer and minister,
Wang An Shih.   Even then, I suspected, from what I had encountered in Pound
so far, was in some way tainted by his association with fascism.  I had not
really studied Pound's fascism as an Issue, at that point; I was only aware
of it as something peripheral to the small bit of work I was doing.  The
more and more I studied Pound, the more I realized that his fascism (and
even more so, his Confucianism) resided at the heart of his belief system.

I eventually decided that I would be interested to study Pound's use of
certain aspects of Chinese culture, especially,  his use of Chinese history,
of Chinese written characters, of Confucianism, of  Mencianism,  of specific
classics, and of their Sung Learning "Incarnations", to the exclusion of
other Confucian schools, and with a deliberate eye to the denigration of
those other two important philosophical traditions, Buddhism and Taoism.

The results of my investigation can be read at the following web address:

http://www.geocities.com/weienlin/poundindex.html

In the religio-philosophical sphere, I had always been a strongly confirmed
atheist, during my adolescence though during my seventeenth year, I came to
develop a strong attraction to Zen Buddhism (especially as explicated in the
works of Suzuki).  By the time I came to Pound, I was very sympathetic to
various Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist, and heterodox Western religio-philosophical
thinkers, such as Plotinus, Spinoza, Hegel--- and sympathetic as well to
certain Christian thinkers, such as de Chardin, and the Liberation
Theologians.  Thus I found much of what Pound said about Religion and
Metaphysics of great interest.

Many of  the issues which concern Pound are (largely) the same issues which
concern me.  I speak of Chinese aesthetics, the struggle for a just
political order in Chinese history, the ideological struggle between
Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism, Economic theories (as applicable in
Europe, and in Chinese history), mid-twentieth century world politics,
trans-national cultural intercourse, the state of modern religious
philosophy (in a world where the barriers between cultures are falling
down), the linguistic and cultural significance of the Chinese written
character, and several other issues.  However, as it so happens, Pound and I
happen to be on opposite sides of the fence, on virtually all aspect of
these issues.

I hope that summary may explain to some, why I am interested in Pound, even
though I am critical of so very numerous aspects of his work.

As far as the "beauty of Pound's poetry" is concerned, I find his work very
interesting; but only bits of it, are I think "beautiful".  Each individual
finds "beauty" in different places.  When I seek aesthetic beauty, I go to
Beethoven's Quartets in Music, Milton and Shakespeare in English speaking
poetry, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky in novels, Michael Angelo and Monet in the
visual arts.    In modern literature, I opine that  the Four Quartets are
more beautiful than Pound's Cantos, and Finnegans Wake is far more
innovative in its use of language.   But such judgments are largely a matter
of personal taste.

----Wei









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