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 ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com