Thanks to Tim Romano for his thoughtful reactions to my essay.

He poses some interesting questions regarding our underlying assumptions
as critics of Pound.

I will respond to them one by one.

>First, some minor points: I am not sure what was meant by the phrase =
"the sanctity" of the text.  Is "textual integrity" or "holiness" =
intended here?


This is a dig at text fetishism.  Some Confucianists, like some Biblical
scholars are text fetishists, in that they see one particular version of the
text as holy, definitive, or infallible.

To a lesser extent, this could also be said to be true of some Pound
scholars,
who when analyzing Drafts and Fragments, strive to see one particular
version
of that section of the Cantos as definitive, as the truest expression of the
author's
intentions.

>Regarding the use of the word "salvation" in the essay : =
is one speaking of the safe continuance of the peoples -- avoidance of =
annihilation in a nuclear age-- or of the spiritual salvation of the =
individual soul, in a religious sense?



Pound appeared to use the word salvation, I believe, toward the end
of his life in an almost Christian sense, in the sense of speaking of the
salvation of the individual soul.  This is what I think he meant in 1960,
when he said Confucianism could not serve as a religion of salvation,
and so abandoned Confucianism altogether, without replacing it with
any specific religious view.

>The essay quotes Pound, wondering whether, in light of the atomic bomb, =
he should be writing an apocalypse instead of a paradiso. Is there a =
place in confucian philosophy for the eschatological and the =
apocalyptic?  An excursion into the history of the confucian response to =
apocalpyse would be great.


This is a fascinating point.  A very, very difficult one to address, in
fact.
Confucianism has no response to the Apocalypse for the simple reason
that the notion is utterly foreign to the homegrown philosophical systems
of the Chinese.  Taoism, Confucianism, Legalism (Faxue thought), Moism,
and all the other philosophical schools exclude the very notion of
apocalypse.

The Sanskritic traditions, of course, do have apocalyptic conceptions, and
insofar as these were conveyed to China, via Buddhism, they have some
slight currency in the Chinese philosophical traditions subsequent to the
fifth
century AD, which is relatively late in Chinese philosophical history.

[Some Sanskritic philosophies posit the succession of ages which culminate
in cosmic cataclysms.  None of the catastrophes are utterly final, however.
Chinese Buddhism does not emphasize or deal with this issue in any detail,
as far as I know.  The pragmatic, rather earthly nature of Chinese
philosophy
compelled the importers of Buddhism to sheer off even the slightly
apocalyptic
elements of the Indian systems.]

Pound was thoroughly Confucian in as much as he believed in the
cycles of Chinese history, the notion that history went through periods
of moral ascension and moral decline, but excludes total destruction of
the cosmos.

Others could speak to this better than
I, but I don't believe that Pound seriously entertained the notion of an
apocalypse.  To the extent he was a Confucian, he would have found the idea
of an apocalypse irrational.


>If, near the end of his life, the poet comes to understand, from =
contemporary events, that history itself might come to an explosive end, =
there are two basic responses, it would seem: a redoubling of =
statecraft-poetry efforts (lifetime and poet's human energy permitting) =
or renunciation and surrender.  Right?

Yes.  That makes sense to me.  I would certainly argue for the latter in
Pound's
case.



>Or could it be that Pound saw a =
>poetry of tranquility as a continuation of statecraft, a mode that might =
do something to ameliorate international "tensions"?  Perhaps in this =
final phase of his poetry and his life Pound achieved a *synthesis* of =
confucian and buddhist thought? Contemplative poetry as political =
action.



That would be an attractive solution.  It may have been the solution
which Pound would have liked, under ideal conditions.

However, Confucianism and Buddhism are essentially impossible to reconcile;
or, at the very least, the sort of Confucianism which Pound embraced was
not consistent with Buddhism.

Clearly such an assertion requires me to elaborate further, but I believe I
have provided the evidence necessary to sustain the conclusion.

Thanks for your comments.
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