My recollection is that Dorothy owned a set of the complete works or 
Voltaire, and Pound of course used De Mailla's Histoire Generale de 
la Chine as the principal source for the Chinese Cantos.  Yeats, I 
believe, once remarked that Pound's Confucius resembled an 18th 
century intellectual, powdered wig and all.  My own sense is that he 
was very much drawn to 18th-century political thought.
 
Cheers!
 
Tim Redman
 
On Mon, 24 Jan 2000 17:20:40 -0500 "R.Gancie/C.Parcelli" 
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
 
> Does anybody know if Pound got any of his Confucious/Mencius through the
> French Physiocrats? The Physiocrats are said to have introduced
> Confucian thought to the Enlightenment. Under Quesnay they also
> constituted an economic school of thought. Though the material I have
> read has been somewhat contradictory, it appears that they stressed the
> importance of the agrarian over the trade aspects of an economy. Some
> commentators somewhat contradictorily point out that the Physiocrats
> also stressed a laissez faire, anti-governmental approach to
> mercantilism.
> I'm familiar with Pound's connections to Fenollosa, Upward and his
> possible reading of Pauthier (Stock) who probably reprises Quesnay and
> the Physiocrats in his works, but does anyone know of a more direct
> route from the Physiocrats to Pound?
> The fact that they comprised an economic school would have appealed to
> Pound. Their texts and translations would have been readily availble to
> Pound. Their anti-government interference stance would have appealed to
> the rightist, libertarian dimension of Pound's nature. The Physiocrats
> thought was influential (along with Locke) as regards the American
> founding fathers e.g. Adams and Jefferson. They've got everything going
> for them yet I can't find any connection.  Carlo Parcelli    
> -- 
> ÐÏࡱ
 
Tim Redman
School of Arts and Humanities, JO 31
University of Texas at Dallas
P.O. Box 830688
Richardson, TX  75083-0688
 
(972) 883-2775 (o)
(972) 883-2989 (fax)