At 06:54 PM 7/22/98 -0400, Robert E. Kibler wrote: >But more >importantly, I would like to suggest to you that the sadness and tragedy that >you imply links Pound to Taoism only goes as far towards understanding Taoism >as Kenner got. But Taoism is very dynamic, and filled with the rhythms of life >and living. Look at the examples in Lao tzu and Chuang tzu--the two primary >Taoist texts. Those are full of the celebration of work and action, living and >doing. Yes absolutely. Taoism is very vital and vibrant and full of jokes (especially in the Chuang tse--damn this Wade Giles Romanization), like a hole having seven holes drilled in it and dying (you know, not only am I translating here, but I'm paraphrasing, too. no one's going to think anything but it's just a weird story) or the whole "How do you know I don't know what the fish think?" story. And while I also find the Cantos vital and vibrant and, as you say, dynamic, and filled with the rhythms of life and living, and also celebratory of a lot of work and action (which the Taoists might or might not be so keen on, depending on what kind of work or action we're really talking about), living and doing, etc, I think I for one would be hard pressed to find much more than Taoist elements in the Cantos. Elements definitely, but is it a Taoist poem? No, I sure don't think so. I think there's too much logic in it, too much rationalism, too much strife, etc. Elements abound, always tugging at the corners and getting them wet, but most of the Taoists I know just aren't that loud most of the time. >Chad Hansen and several others would even suggest that it was a >terroristic political philosophy, one that sought to thwart the regimentation >of a dominant Confucianism. In this sense, trough their displacement of the >value of the precise and sacred Confucian word, Taoists were the original >desconstructionists. They would subert the surface interpretation of life, and >mock authority and its regulating status quo. Absolutely again. I've pondered over the similarities between Confucianism and Modernism compared with Taoism and postmodernism many times, usually with Pound as one of the key figures in my thoughts. But if you go for historical context, the Warring States, which produced both Confucius and Lao tse, were no easy time of peace. And neither has the twentieth century been. >Like Hardy, and like Conrad, >perhaps, who on the surface of their narratives seem embittered by the human >condition, but whose presentation of character shows a great love and >compassion for humanity nonetheless, Taoism talks withdrawal, negation, >subversion, and otherwordliness, but the very presentation of its argument >denies the surface. References to scores of trades, of crafts, of living >situations appear allover the Lao tzu and Chuang tzu. yes, I think this goes along with the Taoist focus on, as you note, deconstructing differences. The ten thousand things under heaven are born from the Being, and the Being is born from Nothing. But you know, I just realized it could also be translated (damn shame my Classical Chinese isn't a lot better or I'd know what I'm talking about here. . .) The ten thousand things under heaven give birth to Being, and Being gives birth to Nothing. But it doesn't matter anyhow, of course, because Reversal is the Tao's movement. There is, at any rate, an awareness that both the physical and the metaphysical exist, and also that the physical and metaphysical don't exist. >Taoist magic and hocus >pocus (save for a couple immortal potions and pills) for the most part came >later, when Taoism, like Confucianism, had to compete with Buddhism for >adherents (There are only so many spiritual dollars to be collected from a >group of people.) This is why Pound could condemn Taoism while being drawn to >Taoist elements. He had already embraced Taoist poetry in Fenollosa's >notebooks, and never made the connection between a Taoist aesthetics and the >Taozers whom he found condemned by de Mailla in 1936-7, for being incorrigible >social misfits and corrupt ne'er do wells. And it was never a philosophy that >came as a result of a failure of will--unlike Buddhism. But that is another >story. I think what a lot of people might be missing here, and indeed Pound probably missed it himself, is the difference between what's called in Chinese Dao Jia and Dao Jiao. Dao Jia is the Taoist philosophy, which is what most westerners think of when we hear the words Tao Te Ching, Lao tse, Chuang tse, etc, and Dao Jiao is the Taoist religion, which is somewhat based on Dao Jia but cares more about eternal life, and, as you say, errupted as competition with Buddhism's influence. When you quote whoever it is who said that the typical Chinese wears a Confucian cap, Taoist robe, and Buddhist sandals, we're also not distinguishing between the Dao Jia and the Dao Jiao. The robe is the philosophical one, I expect, because most people who would be educated enough to be wearing a Confucian cap I think would dismiss the Taoist religion as so much superstition, and the folks who believed seriously in the Taoist religion are what the Chinese call the Old Hundred Names--them commoners who probably couldn't read enough to know much about Confucius and the whole exact word thing anyhow. Lucas . . Lucas Klein [log in to unmask] 8080,8080,0000A young Muse with young loves clustered about her ascends with me into the æther, . . . And there is no high-road to the Muses. 0000,8080,0000 Ezra Pound, Homage to Sextus Propertius