yes, but here, I think, I am alluding to what William Stoneking would take fromj Confucianism. It is also true that Pound's interpretation of Confucianism DOES fall in line with one of the two big branches of Confucian thought. Pound himself often praises Mencius--as did his source material--the Chu Hsi stuff behind De Mailla, for example. But in truth, all that Pound really seems to take from Mencius is his method of dividing labor and land in the field, so that a portion goes to the kingdom, a portion to the community and individual families. For the most part, his emphasis on precise language usage, his belief in history and social order, follow the more conservative Confucian line most identified with the work of Hsun Tzu. Hsun Tzu's Confucian views were in vogue for hundred of years, before they were eclipsed by those who espoused the far more liberal Mencian line. Hsun Tzu's ideas were transferred to his pupil Han Fei, who was one of two intellectual leaders of the Legalist movement in China, and upheld by the T'sin state, which came to brutally dominate the whole. the T'sin condemned Confucius for his backward ideas, but they implemented many of his programs as promulgated by Hsun Tzu's pupil Han Fei. And as Mary Cheadle, I think, notes, several people warned Pound about following the Confucian ideas of that 'chink bloke by the name of Han Fei,' it is true that Pound kept at it. He even tried to get someone to do translations of one Kuan tzu, and early legalist. Pound may habe appropriated what he wanted, but in many ways, he was a Confucian Confucian--not just a Poundian one.  
 
>>> Daniel Pearlman <[log in to unmask]> 08/27 10:19 AM >>>
EP took what he wanted from Confucianism, and he took what suited
him from the Mussolini regime--using blinders against the larger
contexts that failed to interest him or might have undermined the
details he clung to.  It is a standing critical question to this
day whether a poet's distortions of history--in support of his
own points of view--weaken the value of the total work.
 
==Dan
 
At 07:47 AM 8/27/99 -0500, you wrote:
>Perhaps I should remind you that Confucianism underwrote both human
oppression, and an entire set of exclusionary principles in China for many
a year. The Confucians prescribed the forms in which a painter could paint.
There were to be no other forms than those prescribed. The Confucians
prescribed the sort of clothes that were to be worn by people of different
occupations. The Confucians outlined a society in which a person, like a
word, could only have one meaning or relation at a time. To use Chad
Hansen's example, here is how something so noble as the Confucian belief in
the need to maintain terms played out:
>     As Confucius notes, a minister in relation to his prince is always a
minister; in relation to his son, he is always a father. Consequence?  if a
man is identified as a thief, then he cannot at the same time be identified 
as a human being. Thus to kill a thief is not to kill a human being.
>   jen?
>
 
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