my dissertation looked at the slow turn toward the east that pound made. Just as there was always a distance between Pound's pronouncements of what he intended to do in poetry, so too there was a distance between the time he began to advocate Confucius and an Eastern sensibility, so to speak, and his ability to actually embody it. Mostly, Pound is a westerner.
 
I had a seminar with Benedict Anderson, and Nationalism is an avocation of mine. Walter Benjamin is Anderson's intellectual overseer, and what Anderson has to say about imagined communities derives from Benjamin's work, such as in his "Illuminations."  Sorry, don't have either Benjamin of Anderson in front of me.
   Anderson's basic idea of the imagined community points to the role the print media plays in creating a nation. Newspapers build a community because they deliver the same information to a group of people who live within a certain geogrpahical expanse of space. Any give newspaper reader, sat down with his coffee over the paper, does not know the other thousands, the other hundreds of thousands who are reading the same news as is he or she, but each reader knows those others are there, reading the same news. The net result is a community that is imagined in the minds of each individual, aware of those who know what he knows. Of course, the trick to creating a nation is simply to control the content of that daily newspaper. Mao knew this. Hitler knew this. Actually, all of those in control of imagined communities know this. By manipulating the news, it is possible to have a tear roll down the eye of a young troop as the national anthem is played, even though really, that nation has been simply created where none before existed.
   You can see lots of possibilities for working Pound into or against the idea of nation-building--and in fact, presentations to  the Pound society at the MLA two years ago addressed a few such possibilities.
 
>>> K Stevens <[log in to unmask]> 12/10 6:58 PM >>>
> Lucas Klein wrote:
>
> > but I've lost the topic of Pound. Pound's writing seems to me
> essentially Western, based on a great misunderstanding of Chinese
> and Asian philosophy, language, tradition, poetry, etc. I haven't
> done
> anywhere near the amount of research required to back up this
> kind of statement, but well, is there anyone willing either to refute
> or
> support the idea that Pound just didn't get Asia?
 
I have a question about a project based on this idea, that Pound was
essentially Western.  I wrote a brief thesis a few years ago using
Benedict Anderson's theory of imagined communities to argue that Pound
created his own "imagined community."  It began with his participation
in London/Paris newspapers and politics.  Later, his "nation" was
"populated" by his pen pals (or American politician recipients of his
letters) and "recipients" of his radio broadcasts.  His interpretation
of Confucius/Mencius and the writings of Jefferson/Adams fueled his
hope for an American renaissance.  In a way, Pound's misunderstandings
of Chinese philosophy reflect a westernization of it..
 
Throwing this at all of you in such brevity without explaining Benedict
Anderson's theory on nationalism is not fair.  As a non-academic now,
my research has slowed down.  But I would like some input from anyone
familiar with Anderson's theory on nationalism.  My impression of Pound
has been from this angle (Pound as expatriot patriot American with a
Mencius twist).  Any comments or suggestions?  And for those of you not
familiar with Benedict Anderson, what can you say about the utopian
Pound?
 
Thanks,
Kristen Stevens
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Thousands of Stores.  Millions of Products.  All in one place.
Yahoo! Shopping: http://shopping.yahoo.com