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CATHAY REVISITED: THE CHINESE TRADITION IN THE POETRY OF EZRA POUND AND GARY SNYDER.

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CATHAY REVISITED: THE CHINESE TRADITION IN THE POETRY OF EZRA POUND AND GARY SNYDER.

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Content INFORMATION TO USERS This dissertation was produced from a microfilm copy of the original document. While the most advanced technological means to photograph and reproduce this document have been used, the quality is heavily dependent upon the quality of the original submitted. The following explanation of techniques is provided to help you understand markings or patterns which may appear on this reproduction. 1. The sign or "target" for pages apparently lacking from the document photographed is "Missing Page(s)". If it was possible to obtain the missing page(s) or section, they are spliced into the film along with adjacent pages. This may have necessitated cutting thru an image and duplicating adjacent pages to insure you complete continuity. 2. When an image on the film is obliterated with a large round black mark, it is an indication that the photographer suspected that the copy may have moved during exposure and thus cause a blurred image. You will fina a good image of the page in the adjacent frame. 3. When a map, drawing or chart, etc., was part of the material being photographed the photographer followed a definite method in "sectioning" the material. It is customary to begin photoing at the upper left hand corner of a large sheet and to continue photoing from left to right in equal sections with a small overlap. If necessary, sectioning is continued again — beginning below the first row and continuing on until complete. 4. The majority of users indicate that the textual content is of greatest value, however, a somewhat higher quality reproduction could be made from "photographs" if essential to the understanding of the dissertation. Silver prints of "photographs" may be ordered at additional charge by writing the Order Department, giving the catalog number, title, author and specific pages you wish reproduced. University Microfilms 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor. Michigan 48106 A Xe'ox Education Company Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. I I 73-787 WAND, David Happell Hsiji-Fu, 1931- CATHAY REVISITED: THE CHINESE TRADITION IN THE POETRY OF EZRA POUND AND GARY SNYDER. University of Southern California, Ph.D., 1972 Language and Literature, modem University Microfilms, A XEROX Company, Ann Arbor, Michigan (£) Copyright by David Happell Hsin-Fu Wand 1972 THIS DISSERTATION HAS BEEN MICROFILMED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CATHAY REVISITED: THE CHINESE TRADITION IN THE POETRY OF EZRA POUND AND GARY SNYDER by David Happell Hsin-Fu Wand A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (Comparative Literature) August 1972 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA t h e g radu ate s c h o o l UNIVERSITY PARK LOS ANGELES. CALIFORNIA S0007 This dissertation, written by David Happell Hsin-Fu Wand under the direction of h . . X S . . Dissertation Com mittee, and approved by a ll its members, has been presented to and accepted by T h e Graduate School, in p artial fu lfillm en t of requirements of the degree of D O C T O R O F P H IL O S O P H Y Dean D ate . . September 1972 DISSERTATION G Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. PLEASE NOTE: Some pages may have indistinct print. Filmed as received. University Microfilms, A Xerox Education Company Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This dissertation ewes its inspiration to Earl Miner's The Japanese Tradition in British and American Literature (1958) and Wai-lim Yip's Ezra Pound's Cathay (1969), two pioneer works in the area of Oriental-Western Poetic Relations. It owes its development to Professor David H. Malone, now Dean Malone of USC's School of Humanities, without whose constant encouragement and occasional prod ding this dissertation would never have been completed; to Professor Hugh Witemeyer, of the University of California, Berkeley, who care fully went over the first draft of my Pound chapter and suggested cor rections and clarification; to Professor Wai-lim Yip, who pointed out to me Stevens' interest in Chinese art and poetry and brought to my attention certain bibliographical sources; and to Gary Snyder, who pro vided me specific information and corrected errors in my chapter about himself. It owes its final shaping to my colleague, Professor Dante Thomas, who took painstaking care in proofreading my entire disserta tion; to Professor Peter D. Clothier for helping to shape my final ver sion of the Snyder chapter; and to ny associate,Professor Jay Semel, for making suggestions for sane changes in the Stevens chapter. To al~ 1 these people, ny dissertation owes its inspiration, development, and final outcome. I am deeply indebted to each and all of them. I would also like to thank Professor James Scholes, ny office- mate at Geneseo, and Professor Hans Gottschalk, the former Chairman of ii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. of our English Department, for their encouragement and moral support. And I would like to acknowledge the helpful information about Gary Snyder provided by Professor Peter Boodberg and Professor Cyril Birch, both of Berkeley's Department of Oriental Languages, as well as by Professor Thomas Parkinson of Berkeley's English Department. In ad dition, I must thank Professor Ta-hsia Kuo for correcting my mistakes in Chinese and Mrs. Luella Schumaker for typing and retyping the dis sertation. To the librarians at the Oriental libraries of the University of California, Berkeley and Los Angeles, I want to express my thanks for allowing me to leaf over rare and complete editions of the works of Li Po and Tu Fu. If they would care to accept it, I would like to dedicate this dissertation to Wai-lim Yip and Gary Snyder, ny esteemed friends, who are, respectively, accomplished poets in the Chinese and the American languages. nr Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS...................................... CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION................................. 1 Wallace Stevens and Marianne Moore Post-Imagist Interest in China II. TO THE SUMMIT OF TAISHAN...................... 36 The Ideograamic Method Frcm Image to Image The Use of Chinese Mythology III. THE SELF-TRANSFORMATION OF GARY SNYDER........ 109 Snyder's Chinese Studies The Buddhist Orientation of Snyder's Chinese Translations Snyder's Rhythm and Form Snyder's Myths and Texts The Ch'i of Gary Snyder IV. CONCLUSION................................... 179 BIBLIOGRAPHY........................................ 195 iv Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION The purpose of this dissertation is threefold. First of all, it will try to show how certain Chinese ideas contributed to the de velopment of the poetics of Ezra Pound and Gary Snyder. These Chinese ideas include the concept of the Chinese language and Chinese aesthet ics. Secondly, it will demonstrate how certain classical Chinese al lusions, including selected symbols and myths, function in the origin al poetry of these two American poets. For instance, we will examine -rT how Kuan-yin g , the Chinese goddess of mercy, serves as a guide to lead Pound out of the hellhole at Pisa into his "paradiso." Third ly, it will attempt to illuminate and interpret seme of these poets1 "difficult" works in the light of the Chinese tradition. The word "tradition," when employed by Sinologists and as ap plied specifically to classical China, signifies the wide domain of art, literature, philosophy, religion, and government. Such a broad interpretation of the Chinese tradition is implicit in Sources of Chinese Tradition (1960) a work much used in American colleges and universities. The recent date of the publication of Sources of Chinese Tradition points to the relative unavailability of such source books 1See William Theodore De Bary, Wing-tsit Chan, and Burton Watson, eds., Sources of Chinese Tradition (New York: Columbia University Press, 1960). The text is also available in a two-volume paperback edition published by Columbia University Press in 1964-. 1 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 in the English language prior to its appearance. We are reminded that Sinology was only introduced into English-speaking countries around the turn of the century. The first Chair of Chinese Studies was estab lished in England in 1838. But the first "history of Chinese litera ture" written by Herbert A. Giles, the British Sinologist, was not pub- 2 lished in the United States until 1901. The big names among Sinolo gists in the United States, such as Burton Watson, Cyril Birch, and James Robert Hightower, all belong to this century. The initial block to a specialization in Sinology may be attributed to the prevalent Western attitude that Chinese is a difficult language to master. De spite Otto Jespersen's demonstration that Chinese is the easiest lan guage to learn fran the grammatical point of view and Rene Etiemble * s 3 insistence that Chinese must be studied by all serious oomparatists, the learning of Chinese has not beccme widely popular in Western nations. The absence of Chinese Studies in American universities before the twentieth century does not necessarily indicate a lack of interest in things Chinese, since as early as 1650, Anne Bradstreet, the first transplanted American poet, praised the culture of the Chinese in these lines: o See Herbert A. Giles, History of Chinese Literature (New York: D. Appleton S Co., 1901TI 3 Otto Jespersen, Language: Its Nature, Development and Origin (London: G. Allen S Unwin, 1922), pp. 369-373. For Rene Etiemble's view, see his article, "Connaissons-nous la Chine?" (Paris: Gallimard, 1964) and his book, Comparaison nTest pas raison: le crise de la litterature canparee (Paris: Gallimard, 1963). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 . . . those Chinoes rare, whose wealth cUTcS Hath bred more wonder than belief in hearts.4 Anne Bradstreet’s respect for Chinese culture can be traced back to the vogue of Chinoiserie in Europe. The 17th century Chinoiserie movement, which reached its peak during Louis XIV’s reign and which "lingered on fitfully and survived into the Napoleonic era,"^ was spread from France to England. And, about the time that Anne Bradstreet left Eng land for the American continent, the English were seized with an in terest in the jardin chinoise and the collections of Chinese objets d’ art in Western museums. Like their French predecessors, English connoisseurs of art placed high value on Chinese porcelain, cloisonne and, occasionally, scrolls. The culmination of the Chinoiserie move ment in England was marked by the pseudo-Chinese architecture of Horace Walpole’ s Strawberry Hill and the Chinese Letters of Oliver Goldsmith. Though in retrospect neither the Strawberry Hill nor the Chinese Let ters appears to us genuinely Chinese in form or spirit, they stand, nevertheless, as landmarks in the West's attempt to assimilate and re interpret seme aspects of Chinese culture and tradition. Just as Vol taire in his enthusiasm for Chinese culture had touched off a craze g for things Chinese among French aristocrats and literati, Walpole and Goldsmith brought Chinese culture into the English drawing r^am. And, 4Jeannine Hensley, ed., The Works of Anne Bradstreet (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap-Harvard Univ. Press, 1967), p. 84. ^Chaote Lin, Chinoiserie and Japonisme in French Literature (Diss., Univ. of Michigan, 1966), p. 134. 6Lin, pp. 83-119 and pp. 123-134. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 4 like Voltaire, neither Walpole nor Goldsnith ever translated Chinese poetry or devoted himself to a study of Chinese poetics. During the 19th century, no American poet showed any familiar ity with the literary and artistic tradition of classical China. Al though both Emerson and Thoreau showed seme knowledge of the philo sophical, religious and political traditions of ancient China, they quoted and paraphrased Confucius and Lao Tzu in their prose rather than in their verse. The understanding of the classical Chinese tra dition in its broadest ramifications was left to the Sinologists. But the respectable Sinologists were, as a rule, not poetic transmitters since they were more concerned with "literal translation" than with poetic re-creation. Furthermore, because Western Sinologists, such as James Legge, Herbert Giles, Georges Margoulies, and Bernhard Karl- gren, seldom wrote creatively or had any appeal to the laymen, their impact as cultural intermediaries or transmitters was rather limited. We find, on the whole, that these Sinologists have had far less influ ence than classical Chinese painting, calligraphy, and porcelain — which, though not fully understood by the general public in the West, could at least be directly appreciated. For instance, in the leading museums of the West, one could enjoy and appreciate Shang (1766-1154 B.C.) ceremonial vessels, T'ang (618-906) horses, Sung (960-1279) landscape paintings, and Ming (1368-1644) vases. In this way, the laymen of the West could cone into direct contact with sane aspects of Chinese culture- As goes the Chinese apothegm "a picture is worth a thousand words," the Western viewers developed a sensitivity to Chinese aesthetics through their exposure to Chinese painting, calligraphy, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. and porcelain. And as the demarcation between poetry and painting is never clearcut in the classical Chinese tradition, and as the aesthet ics of the two is mutually applicable, Chinese art rather than poetry played the important role in the initial state of cultural pollination. Indeed, as Chaote Lin has demonstrated in his unpublished dissertation, 7 Chinoiserie and Japonisme in French Literature, Chinese art preceded poetry in the Western people's cultural contact with China. Art, rather than poetry, still serves as the cultural intermediary for those American poets who have never studied the Chinese language and poetics. Although there was an awareness of the artistic tradition of China before the turn of the century, there was no indication of any awareness of the Chinese poetic tradition in American literature until the time of the Imagist movement (1914-1917). Before that time, no American poet could be regarded as having made use of the Chinese lan guage and poetics in his writing. Generally, the American poems deal ing with the Chinese before the Imagist movement of the 1910's can be divided into two categories: journalistic verse of no literary value or period pieces gathering dust on library shelves. The former cate gory is exemplified by Joaquin Miller's "In San Francisco" and Bret Hart's Ah Sin poems, in which he portrayed the stereotype of a China- 0 man as a "heathen Chinese." The latter includes Philip Freneau's 7 See Chapters I and III of Lin's dissertation. 8 See Chap. II of William Robert North's Chinese Themes in American Verse (Philadelphia, 1937) as well as William F. Fenn's Ah Sin and His Brethren in American Literature (Peking, 1933). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. "The Pictures of Columbus," James Russell Lowell's "St. Michael the Weigher," and Oliver Wendell Holmes' "At the Banquet of the Chinese Embassy," in all of which the Chinese were mentioned as oddities. The only serious exception during that period is Ernest Fenollosa's poem, "East and West." Although the poem shows no departure in technique frcm the traditional English poetry of the 19th century, it expresses a genuine concern for the culture of China. Lamenting the loss of classical Chinese art in the destruction of the Sumner Palace by the British troops under Lord Elgin, Fenollosa denounced the British act during the Opium War (1839-1842) as "the violation of the spirit of Christianity."9 Ernest Fenollosa, the author of "East and West," was the same person who introduced Ezra Pound to the Chinese language and poetics. The Fenollosa-Pound collaboration on The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry is now a part of American literary history and specifically a chapter in the development of modem American poetry. According to Stanley K. Coffman, Jr., Pound did not know Fenollosa personally but only got Fenollosa's manuscripts (which included both the unedited version of The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry and the notes for what later grew into Pound's Cathay) through the latter's widow: Mrs. Ernest Fenollosa, widow of an American who had become imperial commissioner of art in Japan, was at the time looking for someone to act as poet-interpreter for rendering into English poetry her husband's decipherings from the Chinese and Japanese.. .convinced.. .that Pound was 9North, p. 33. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 7 the poet she sought...she forwarded to him her late hus band's notes. Coffman further adds in his book on the Imagist movement that: As early as January, 1914, Pound admitted being literary executor for Fenollosa, though he did not want it kncwn immediately. He was enthusiastic about his discovery: "Liu Ch'e, Chu Yuan, Chia I, and the great vers libre writers before the Petrarchan age of Li Po, are a treasure to which the next centuries nay look for as great a stimulus as the Renaissance had fran the Greeks." In these literatures he saw a vital ity and freshness which were a desirable stimulus to the revolution in the arts.^- "The revolution in the arts" which Coffman mentioned refers to a revo lution in sensibility brought about during the Imagist movement. While this revolution in sensibility cannot easily be defined, it can be il lustrated by the practice of the Imagist poets and their followers. First of all, they tried to produce poetry that is "hard and clear, 12 never blurred nor indefinite." Secondly, they opposed those "oosnic" poets who "deal in vague generalities" and who prefer sonority and grandiloquence to the exact rendition of particulars.3-0 And thirdly, they aspired to "create new rhythms — as the expression of new moods," 14 because "in poetry, a new cadence means a new idea." While not all the Imagist poets found the source of their in spiration in classical Chinese poetry, at least the tvo leaders of the ■^Stanley K. Coffman, Jr., Lmagism: A Chapter for the History of Modem Poetry (Norman, Okla.: Univ. of Oklahoma Press, 1951), p. 41. ^"Coffman, pp. 41-42. ■^Quoted by Coffman, p. 29. 1 3Ibid. ^Quoted by Coffman, p. 28. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 8 movement, Ezra Pound and Amy Lowell, took to the translation and imi tation of T'ang poets, especially Li Po ^7 (701-762) and Tu Fu (712-770). Ezra Pound's Cathay first appeared in 1915 and became a landmark in the translation of Chinese poetry. It prompted T. S. Eliot to hail Pound as the "inventor of Chinese poetry for our time."^ Although, as Wai-lim Yip points out in his Ezra Pound's Cathay, "there is no indication anywhere that Eliot had the knowledge of the Chinese language and Chinese poetry to warrant his influential statement.. .for many decades, critics have taken his words rather seri- 16 ously." The reason for the acceptance of Eliot's statement is that 17 "He [Eliot] is a supreme judge of poetry," even though he is not a qualified judge cf Chinese. Yip goes on to tell us that Pound's ignor ance of the Chinese language did not even bother readers who were fam iliar with the original Chinese poems and could compare them with Pound's English versions. Despite Pound's ignorance of the Chinese language and poetics at that time, he was intuitively sensitive to the nuances of classical Chinese poetry, which had been made available to 18 him in "the decipherings of the Professors Mori and Ariga," two Japanese Sinologists who had helped Fenollosa in his Chinese studies. ■^T. S. Eliot quoted by Achilles Fang in Ezra Pound, trans., The Classic Anthology Defined by Confucius (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1954), p. xiii. Fang wrote the introduction for Pound's book. ■ ^ . \ 7ai-lim Yip, Ezra Pound's Cathay (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton Univ. Press, 1969), p. 3. Ibid. ■^^Ezra Pound, Personae (New York: New Directions, 1926), p. 126. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 9 The role that Cathay played in the development of Pound's poetics has been thoroughly examined by Wai-lim Yip in his Ezra Pound's Cathay (1969). Yip suranarizes his findings by saying that: . . . the three peculiar qualities of the Chinese charac ter (as it was understood by Pound [were] the goals he was ' ‘ ‘ , namely, simultaneity, montage, Equally ignorant of the Chinese language and poetics (as Pound) was Amy Lowell, whose Fir-Flower Tablets: Poems Translated from the Chinese appeared in 1921. While Pound translated Cathay with the help of the notes of Fenollosa, Amy Lowell was assisted in her work by Florence Ayscough, who lived in China and was an Honorary Member of the North China branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. In her Fir-Flower Tablets, Amy Lowell included more than eighty poems by Li Po and thir teen poems by Tu Fu. Miss Lowell’s tendency to be prolix and imprecise in her poetry as well as her translations was one of the reasons that 20 led Pound to part ways and to label her brand of Imagism as 'Amygism." The difference in the aesthetics of Pound and Lowell is what caused the rift between the two leaders of the Imagist movement. For in stance, as early as March 1913, Pound offered his "A Few Don'ts by an Imagiste" as the three following principles: 1. Direct treatment of the "thing," whether subjective or objec tive. 2. To use absolutely no word that did not contribute to the presentation. 19Yip, p. 162. '’ O See Coffman, Chap. VII. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 0 3. As regarding rhythn: to compose in sequence of the musical phrase, not in sequence of a metronone.21 Although Pound had no knowledge of the Chinese language and poetics at the time he wrote these words, his poetic principles sound like a paraphrase of those of Wei T’ ai , a Chinese critic of the Uth century. Wei T'ai uses in his literary criticism the terms of ch’ing ‘ I ^ and ching , which Professor Ta-hsia Kuo has 22 translated respectively as "the inner scene" and "the outer scene." In his literary criticism, Wei T’ ai believes that the poet should be reticent in his feeling but precise in his expression. In other words, the poet should be exact in his choice of "the outer scene" to express his "inner scene.” Instead of allowing emotion to overwhelm and blur the details of his poem, the poet should exercise control over his statement and let the carefully chosen "scene” or image of his poem convey his deepest feeling. In his emphasis on being precise about the thing and being reticent about the feeling, Wei T’ ai would have de lighted Ezra Pound, who subscribes to the principles that poetry should be the "direct treatment of the ’ thing,' whether subject or objec tive" and that it should "use absolutely no word that did not contrib ute to the presentation." In retrospect, it is Pound’s principles and Amy Lowell's lack of principles that contributed to their parting of the ways as well as the difference in their poetic reputation. Whereas Amy Lowell’ s ^ Poetry, Vol. I, No. 6 (March, 1913), p. 139. 22 Professor Ta-hsia Kuo at the University of Southern California in 1969. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. II Fir-Flcwer Tablets is occasionally read today as a period piece (in the literary history of Chinese translations), Pound's Cathay is read by poets and laymen alike. For instance, Li Po's "Ch'ang Kan Hsing" Letter," is one of the most widely anthologized poems in American lit erature. On the other hand, Amy Lowell's version of the same poem, entitled "Ch'ang Kan" in her Fir-Flower Tablets, has been relegated to oblivion. Lowell in developing a new poetics, it led Pound to see that: The first step of a renaissance, or awakening, is the importation of models for printing, sculpture, or writing. . . . The last century rediscovered the middle ages. It is possible that this century may find a new Greece in China. In the meantime we have cane upon a new table of values.23 This "new table of values," according to Ezra Pound, is to be found in The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry (1920). Accord ing to Coffman, "Pound had discovered" through The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry "further confirmation of his belief 24 in the necessity for concreteness and natural strength in the poem." The role that the essay played in the development of Pound's own poet ics will be discussed in Chapter II. Wallace Stevens and Marianne Moore Two of Pound's most eminent poetic contemporaries were Wallace Stevens and Marianne Moore. Although Pound, Stevens, and Moore are which Pound rendered as "The River-Merchant' s Wife: A Whereas the translation of Chinese poetry did not help Miss Poetry, Vol. V, No. 5 (Feb., 1915), p. 228. 24 Coffman, p. 158. 2 3 . Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 2 strikingly different in their poetic styles, they share an interest in things Chinese. References to Chinese art can be found in Wallace Stevens* letters and Marianne Moore's poetry. We shall examine first Stevens' interest in the art and poetry of China. In his numerous letters to friends and relatives, Stevens shared with them his secret delight in Chinese art and poetry. For instance, from a letter addressed to Harriet Monroe we learn that he desired to buy "several crates of ancient [Chinese] landscapes, rare Chinese illustrated books. Chun Yao ware, Tang [T'ang] horses, and so 25 on." Furthermore, his letters reveal to us that he read "Chinese 25 proverbs (in French translation)," George Duthuit's Chinese Mysti cism and Modern Painting (Paris, 1936), and at least "a half dozen 27 volumes of Chinese and Japanese poetry." In a letter addressed to his fiancee, Elsie Moll, Stevens told her that he had read a poem by Wang An-shih (1021-1086), the Sung dynasty statesman and reformer. After quoting the poem as "It is midnight; all is silent in the house; the water-clock has stopped. But I am unable to sleep be cause of the beauty of the trembling shapes of the spring flowers, thrown by the moon upon the blind," Stevens made this comnent: I don't know of anything more beautiful than that anywhere, or more Chinese — and Master Green-cap bows 25Holly Stevens, ed., Letters of Wallace Stevens (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1966), p. 299. The letter is dated Dec. 4, 1935. 26 Samuel French Morse, ed., Opus Posthumous by Wallace Stevens (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1957), p. xxxi. 27 Stevens, p. 291n. The letter is dated November 30, 1950. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 13 to Wang-an-shih [sic]. No. Wang-an-shih is sleeping, and m y not be disturbed.28 Although we cannot determine from Stevens' prose paraphrase of Wang An-shih the rhythm of the original poem, we can still respond to the image of this English version. Here we my pose to ourselves the question: how can we respond emotionally to a poem whose rhythm has been lost in a translation? The answer is that the loss of rhythm has been partially compensated for by the precision in the rendering of details. It is precisely the image or the phancpoeia (to borrow Ezra Pound's term from the ABC of Reading) that carries this Chinese poem across linguistic barriers to the Western reader. We my recall Wei T'ai's theory about "the inner" ' f l j and "the outer scene" ^ , in which he states that "poetry presents the thing in order to convey the feeling. It should be precise about the thing and reticent about the feeling, for as soon as the mind responds to and connects with the thing, the feeling shows in the words: this is how poetry enters deep- 29 ly into us." Despite Wallace Stevens' ignorance of the Chinese lan guage, he could apprehend "the inner scene" of Wang An-shih through "the outer scene," which consists of the carefully chosen details (or "things") of his poem. Such details include midnight, a silent house, a stopped water-clock, "trembling shapes of the spring flowers," and "the moon upon the blind." All of these details add up to a deafening 28 Stevens, p. 138. The letter is dated rfer. 18, 1909. 29 Quoted in Eva Hesse, ed., New Approaches to Ezra Pound: A Coordinated Investigation of Pound1s Poetry and Ideas (Berkeley: Univ. of Calif. Press, 1969), p. 23. This quote first appeared as an epigraph in A. C. Graham, trans., Poems of the Late T'ang (Baltimore: Penguin, 1965), n. pag. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 4 silence, which evokes not only a feeling of loneliness or solitude hut also a restlessness of the spirit, that kept the Chinese poet awake. Through his careful arrangement of details in his "outer scene," the Chinese poet spoke across the centuries to a contemporary American poet about his "inner scene." Here, in this most curious way, an emotional bond or empathy is established between two poets of different cultures across linguistic and time barriers. Although Stevens could not have read Wang An-shih*s poem in the original, he could identify with the mood and feel the emotion of the classical Chinese poet. In a letter to Harriet Monroe, editor of Poetry (Chicago), Stevens stated that "we affect objects in nature, by projecting our moods, emotions, etc." To illustrate his point, Stevens went on to quote a few lines from a poem he had been working on: an old man frcm Pekin Observes sunrise, — Through Pekin, reddening. Although we cannot find these lines either- in Stevens’ Collected Poems or his Opus Posthumous, we are struck by the image of the contempla tive Chinese old man, a sage-like figure, who observes nature calmly, while Pekin is either lit up by the sun or bursting into flame. This image of the contemplative, old Chinese is seen again in "Le Monocle de Mon Oncle," when Stevens poses this question: Is it for nothing, then, that old Chinese Sat tittivating by their mountain pools ^ Or in the Yangtse studied out their beards? ^Stevens, p. 195. The letter is dated May 29, 1916. 3 " l “Wallace Stevens, The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1968), p. 14. Hereafter, the work will be cited as CP. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 5 When Stevens goes on to talk about "Utamaro's beauties” and "the moun tainous coiffures of Bath,” we suddenly realize that he is talking about art and that the "old Chinese" who "Sat tittivating by their mountain pools" are figures in a painting. And the final lines of "Le Monocle de Mon Oncle" which read: . . . but until now I never knew „ That fluttering things have so distinct a shade further convince us that these works of art which nay appear to be in substantial ("fluttering things") have actually a distinctive individu ality of their own ("so distinct a shade"). The contemplative, old Chinese recurs again in "Six Significant Landscapes," another poem dealing with the subject of art. According to the Letters of Wallace Stevens, "Six Significant Landscapes" was first published in the magazine Others in March 1915, two months before Stevens wrote the lines "an old man from Pekin / Observes sunrise, / Through Pekin, reddening." But instead of an old Chinese looking at the sunrise, we find him sitting in the shadow of a pine tree. The first of the "Six Significant Landscapes," devoted entirely to a de scription of "the outer scene" involving the old man, reads as follows: An old man sits In the shadow of a pine tree In China. He sees larkspur, Blue and white, At the edge of the shadow, Move in the wind. His beard moves in the wind. The pine tree moves in the wind. 32CP, p. 18. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 16 Thus water flows Over weeds. 33 This poem could have been inspired by an actual Chinese landscape painting. The vividness of such details as the pine tree, the "Blue and white" larkspur, the old man's floating beard, and the movement of the wind and the water makes a striking impression on our mind. The last four lines of the poem, "His beard moves in the wind. / The pine tree moves in the wind. / Thus water flows / Over weeds" suggest to us the fluidity of all things. Those familiar with the Taoist philosophy of Wu-Wei ^7 (which is generally translated as "non-action" in English) are reminded of the water image in Lao Tzu's Tap Teh Ching: Of all things yielding and weak in the world, None is more so than water. But for attacking what is unyielding and strong Nothing is superior to it, Nothing can take its place. That the weak overcomes the strong, And the yielding overcomes the unyielding, Everyone knows this, But no one can translate it into action. For, according to the Taoists, "the highest good is like water. Water benefits all things generously and is without strife. It dwells in 35 the lowly places that men disdain. Thus it comes near to the Tao." In the Sources of Chinese Tradition. De Bary et al. conment that "The 33™.. CP, p. 73. 34 William Theodore De Bary, Wing-tsit Chan, and Burton Watson, eds., Sources of Chinese Tradition, Vol. I (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1964), p. 61. Hereafter, the work will be cited as SCT. 35SCT, p. 53. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 7 way of life which accords with this basic Tao is narked by a kind of 36 yielding passivity...." And this yielding passivity is typified by the flew of water, a symbol of the yin, or the feminine principle, in Chinese philosophy. And, according to Lao Tzu: He who knows the masculine but keeps to the feminine [yin], Becomes the ravine of the world. Being the ravine of the world, He dwells in constant virtue, 37 He returns to the state of the babe. And this "state of the babe" refers to a primordial innocence before man was corrupted by worldly ambition and strife. Stevens' "significant landscape" of the old Chinese in the pine shade projects the "inner scene" of a nan who is Taoist in his orientation through a careful selection of such details as the wind, the water, and the flowing beard. In the context of the poem, every thing flews naturally— with the larkspur, the beard, and the pine tree moving in the wind and the water over the weeds. The absolute "ab sence of strife and coercion" on the part of the larkspur, the beard, and the pine tree when they move naturally in the wind is in keeping with the "yielding passivity" of water, which functions throughout Taoist literature as "the female and the mother, symbol of passivity and creation" and "the symbol of a hunble, self-effacing force that is in the end all-powerful."38 3SSCT, p. 50. 37SCT, p. 57. 38scr, p. 51. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 8 Stevens' choice of such traditional Chinese symbols in land scape paintings as the pine and the water is, upon examination, well justified in his poem. For the gnarled pine, a traditional symbol of longevity in Chinese paintings, underscores the "venerable" age of the old man. On the other hand, the water image augments the theme of -die fluidity of all living matter, as typified by the spontaneous move ment of the larkspur, the pine, and the old nan's beard in the wind. While the pine and the water are familiar symbols in classical Chinese painting, the larkspur, known to the Chinese literally as the "flying swallow grass" ^ 3 , is not commonly found in either Chinese painting or poetry. In Stevens' poem, the larkspur "Blue and White" adds visually to the color scheme when we contrast it in our mind with the green color of the pine. Placed beside the pine, which is an evergreen known for its longevity, the larkspur strikes us as a young plant, because it is seasonal. Although we can find no precedent in tfie use of the larkspur as a symbol in Chinese works of art, we sense that the larkspur which is "at the edge of the shadows" signifies youthful vitality because, unlike the old nan, it is not "In the shad ows of a pine tree." Here, our interpretation of the larkspur as a symbol of youthful vitality can only be tentative. However, the over all impression is clear: that all nature, including the larkspur, the pine, and the old nan's beard, flows as spontaneously as water over weeds. And the quality of being "spontaneous, effortless, and inex- 39 haustihle" is the quintessence of Taoism. 39 SCI, p. 50. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 9 The occurrence of the larkspur in "Six Significant Landscapes" can be traced to Stevens’ discovery of the plant in the Botanical Gar den of New York City. In a letter to his wife dated Sunday, July 24, 1915, Stevens mentioned that "I went over to the Botanical Garden where I spent several hours in studying the most charming things. I was able to impress on myself that larkspur comes from China. Was there ever anything more Chinese when you stop to think of it?', L | ’ ^ Stevens ’ contemplative, old Chinese who appears as "An old man . . . / In the shadow of a pine tree" in "Six Significant Landscapes," as the "old Chinese / [who] Sat tittivating by their mountain pools" in "Le Monocle de Mon Oncle," and as the "old man from Pekin / [who] observes sunrise" in his letter to Harriet Monroe, reappears in a slightly different guise in his verse-play "Three Travelers Watch a Sunrise." This verse-play lacks action in the usual dramatic sense of the word. Instead, it provides Wallace Stevens with an opportunity to discourse on aesthetics. For instance, the second Chinese character in the play talks about the enchanting power of art: If it be supposed that we are three figures Painted on porcelain As we sit here, That we are painted on this very bottle, The hermit of the place, Holding the candle to us, Would wonder; But if it be supposed That we are painted as warriors - The candle would tremble in his hands; Or if it be supposed, for example, That we are painted as three dead men, He could not see the steadiest lighr un Stevens, p. 184. The letter is dated July 25, 1915. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 20 For sorrow. It would be true If the emperor himself Held the candle. He would forget the porcelain For the figures painted on it. From this speech, we can see that the Second Giinese is stressing the reality of art, which takes on a life of its own, after it has been skillfully painted on porcelain. Here the speaker reminds us of Stevens himself, who often uses the analogy of art to discuss poetry (as in his poems, "Study of Two Pears" and "Anecdote of the Jar") and whose theme throughout his poems has been aptly sunmarized by Northrop Frye as follows: "the only subject of poetry is poetry itself, and 42 . . . the writing of a poem is itself a theory of poetry." In this respect, the second Chinese character who discourses eloquently on the reality of art, which makes "the emperor . . . forget the porcelain / For the figures painted on it," is a persona of Stevens the poet. But apparently Stevens does not feel that the Second Chinese has repre sented his view adequately, for he makes the Third Chinese answer him back by saying: Let the candle shine for the beauty of shining. I dislike the invasion And long for the windless pavilions. And yet it may be true That nothing is beautiful Except with reference to ourselves 4^Morse, pp. 132-33. 42 Northrop Frye, "The Road of Excess" in Bernice Slote, ed., Myth and Symbol: Critical Approaches and Applications (Lincoln: Univ. of Nebraska Press, 1963), p. 3. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 21 Nor ugly, Nor high, [pointing to the sky] Nor low. [pointing to the candle] No: not even the sunrise.4 ^ And in his statement that "nothing is beautiful / Except with refer ence to ourselves," the Third Chinese adds the element of humanity to aesthetics. This injection of the note of humanity is further con firmed when the Third Chinese concludes the play with the observation that "Sunrise is multiplied / Like the earth on which it shines / By the eyes that open on it." This emphasis on hunanity and on the "inner eye" of one who appreciates the beauty of nature ("the eyes that open on it") is a step beyond the "art-for-art*s sake" attitude of the second Chinese character. As we finish reading the play "Three Travelers Watch a Sun rise," we suddenly realize that the Second and the Third Chinese are two personae of Stevens himself. At least, they represent two aspects of Stevens' views tcward art and life. While the Second Chinese may represent Stevens the pure aesthete, the Third Chinese complements him as Stevens the humanist. And the Third Chinese who observes that "Sunrise is multiplied / Like the earth on which it shines / By the eyes that open on it" is basically the same "old nan from Pekin / [who] observes sunrise, / Through Pekin, reddening" in his letter to Harriet Monroe. While the majority of Stevens' poems are hardly Chinese in in spiration (betraying more the influence of the French Symbolists), it 43 Morse, p. 133. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 22 is probably his interest in Chinese ideas and his occasional pose as an old Chinese that have led such critics as Paul Rosenfeld and Gorham B. Munson to talk, about Stevens’ Chinese mannerism. For instance, in an article entitled "The Dandyism of Wallace Stevens" C1925), Munson concludes his discussion of Stevens’ "Gubbinal" by saying: Because of this tranquility, this well- fed and well-booted dandyism of contentment, Mr. Stevens has been called Chinese. Undeniably, he has been influenced by Chinese verse, as he has been by French verse, but one must not force the comparison. For Chinese poetry as a whole rests upon great humanistic and religious tra ditions: its quiet strength and peace are often simply by-products of a profound understanding; its epicureanism is less an end, more a function, than the tranquility— may I say— the decidedly American tranquility of Wallace Stevens.44 In other words, Munson has pointed out the paradox that Stevens can be characteristically American when he affects the mannerusm of the Chinese. In terms of Junrian psychology, we could say that Stevens is sometimes able to release his shadow, his antediluvian self, when he assumes the persona of the old Chinese in his poems and play. In contrast to Wallace Stevens, Marianne Moore never assumes the persona of an old Chinese in her poetry. Whereas Stevens quoted lines of Chinese poetry, such as those of Wang An-shih, in his letter to Elsie Moll on March 18, 1909, Marianne Moore never makes direct references to or gives quotations of classical Chinese poetry in her work. But we find in her poetry sane allusions to Chinese objets Gorham B. Munson, "The Dandyism of Wallace Stevens" in Ashley Brown and Robert S. Haller, eds., The Achievement of Wallace Stevens (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1962), p. 44. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 23 d'art, including "Certain Ming / products [vases]" in "Critics and Connoisseurs," "Chinese lacquer carving" in "Books," "Chinese carved glass" in "People's Surroundings," and "Yellow River - / scroll" in "Blue Bug." With a "Chinese / 'passion for the particular,'" she finds "precision" and "fastidiousness" in many things Chinese, such as "the Chinese lawn" in "He ' Digesteth Harde Yron'," the "Chinese flower piece" in "Smooth Gnarled Crape Myrtle," and "landscape gardening twisted into permanence" in "People's Surroundings." When Marianne Moore chose "0 To Be a Dragon" as the title of a volume of her poetry in 1959, she was appropriating a symbol ccnmonly found in both classical Chinese art and literature. For the dragon chosen by Miss Moore as a symbol in her poetry is not the evil Occi dental dragon, which demanded a diet of virgins and was finally slain by St. George. Instead, it is the benevolent Chinese dragon which be friends the people, and especially the farmers, to whcm it brings rain and fertile crops. From the Notes on the dragon given by Miss Moore, we learn that her immediate source was Volume II of The Tao of Paint ing, a work translated fron the Chinese and edited by Mai-nai Sze and available in the Bollingen Series (New York, 1956). According to The Tao of Painting, the dragon "has generally been regarded [by the Chi- 47 nese] as a beneficent power" despite its ferocious appearance. ^^Marianne Moore, Complete Poems (New York: Macmillan/Viking, 1967), p. 231. ^^Moore, p. 290. ^Mai-nai Sze, The Tao of Painting: A Study of the Ritual Disposition of Chinese Painting, 2nd ed., revT (New York: Bollingen Series- Pantheon, 1963), p. 82. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 24 4 8 Furthermore, as "a symbol of power of Heaven" the dragon is charac- 49 terized by "constant movement." The Tao of Painting also tells us that: . . . the dragon was described as being capable of extraordinary transformation — "at will reduced to the size of a silkworm, or swollen till it fills the space of Heaven and Earth" — and it had the gift of becoming invisible. "50 "0 To Be a Dragon," the title poem of Miss Moore's volume bearing the same name, is only six lines long and reads as follows: If I, like So lemon, — Could have my wish — my wish 0 to be a dragon, a symbol of the power of Heaven — of silkworm size or inmene-?;. at times invisible. Felicitous phenomenon! 51 Comparing Miss Moore's poem with the source which she acknowl edges in The Tao of Painting, we find that her lines "a symbol of the power of Heaven — of silkworm / size or immense; at times invisible" are a paraphrase of "'at will reduced to the size of a silkworm, or swollen till it fills the space of Heaven and Earth' — and it had the gift of being invisible." According to Miss Moore's own notes, the information about the dragon's constant transformations came from "a book of the T'ang Sze, p. 81. 44 Sze, p. 82. 50Sze, pp. 82-83 ^Moore, p. 177. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 25 Dynasty,” in which it was stated that: it [the dragon] m y cause itself to become visible or invisible at will, and it can become long or short, and coarse or fine, at its own good pleasure. Being able to "become long or short, and coarse or fine, at its cwn good pleasure," the dragon is also "a symbol or the idea of the rigidity is the essence of death and fluidity, the essence of life. The Tao of Painting, Miss Moore's chief source book for her "0 To Be a Dragon" poem, further tells us that: Painters who specialized in painting dragons and who wrote on the subject were strongly influenced by Taoist ideas and repeatedly used Taoist terms in referring to the dragon. In connection with the Taoisteraphasis on wu wei (outer passivity and inner activity) ^ , there is an aspect of the dragon that should be mentioned, namely, the power of restraint. "The power of restraint" of the dragon in Miss Moore's poem is shown in its ability to become "of silkworm / size" or even "invisible." However, as Laurence Binyon points out in The Flight of the Dragon, a study of "the theory and practice of art in China and Japan," that "the symbolic dragon" is actually "[the] sovereign energy of the [human] soul" which is "fluid, penetrating, [and] ever-changing."33 Furthermore, being constantly in the process of transformation and Tao [ Here we may recall the Taoist teaching that 3^Moore, p. 264. 53Sze, p. 83. 33Laurence Binyon, The Flight of the Dragon (New York: Wisdom of the East Series-Grove Press, 1961), p. 25. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 26 being able to "become long or short, and coarse or fine, at its own good pleasure," the dragon, "associated with the power of fluidity," 56 has "becane the symbol of the infinite." As "a force of nature and as the power of Heaven energizing man through his spirit [ch'i the dragon stands as an intermediate between nan and Heaven. Thus, in Taoist philosophy, the soul of man is linked to the force of nature through the symbolic dragon. Also, the symbolic dragon, "fluid, pene trating, [and] ever-changing," is "a symbol of the idea of the Tao." And when man's spirit [ch'i] has been "energized" by "the power of Heaven," the dragon soars (metaphorically, of course) in his writing. In this light, we begin to see that Miss Moore's wish "to be a dragon" in her poem, "0 To Be a Dragon" is actually an invocation to "the pow er of Heaven" to help her become adaptable or flexible ("of silkworm / size or irunense; at times invisible") in her cwn writing. Although Miss Moore uses the symbol of the Chinese dragon in the poem, "0 To Be a Dragon," she does not sound like any classical Chinese poet. This is because the form and rhythm of her poem are idiosyncTdtically Miss Moore’s and do not bear the slightest resem blance to those of any Chinese poem. In other words, she utilizes the Chinese symbol to serve her own purpose, since she harnesses the Chi nese dragon as her Muse in her poetic journey. In "Nine Nectarines," Miss Moore introduces to her American readers another familiar symbol in classical Chinese art, "the 56Ibid. ^7Sze, p. 83. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 27 58 nectarine-loving kylin / of pony appearance." Better known to the Chinese as the ch'i-lin > the fabulous beast resembles the Chinese dragon in its appearance. In The Tao of Painting, Mai-mai Sze points out that the kylin "has a deer's body,” but "its head is a dragon's. . . ."" In addition to describing the kylin as "the long- / tailed or the tailless / snail cinnamon-brown, cannon / camel-haired unicorn / 60 with antelope feet and no horn," Miss Moore talks about the diet of this gentle beast in her "Nine Nectarines." That the kylin is gentle even benevolent is attested by a description found in the Shih Ching, 61 better known to the Western readers as The Book of Songs or The Con- 62 fucian Odes. In Ezra Pound's English version, the kylin is depicted as follows: Kylin's foot bruiseth no root, Ohe, Kylin. In Kylin's path, no wrath, Ohe, Kylin. Kylin's tooth no ham doth, Ohe, Kylin: Wan's line and clan. ^Moore, p. 30. 59Sze, p. 11. ^^Moore, p. 30. 61 Arthur Waley, trans., The Book of Songs (London: G. Allen S Unwin, 1954). 62 Ezra Pound, trans., The Classic Anthology Defined by Confucius (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1954) or Ezra Pound, trans., The Confucian Odes (New York: New Directions, 1959). 63 The Confucian Odes, p. 6. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 28 The last two lines of this poem refer to the royal line of the Chou Eynasty (1122-256 B.C.), during which Confucius lived. Furthermore, because a kylin "was seen just before the birth of Confucius," it is regarded as a personal emblem of Confucius. This good-natured beast, which possesses all the ideal traits of a chun tzu , or Con fucian gentleman, "bruiseth no root" with its "foot" and feeds only on nectarines and peaches. As the nectarine and the peach belong to the same family and are seldom differentiated by the classical Chinese poets, we can easily understand why "the nectarine-loving kylin" in Miss Moore's poem would relish "nine peaches" just as much as "nine nectarines." And as the nectarine is known to the Chinese as yu t'ao , which literally means "oily peach," and is usually regarded as just another variety of peaches, we could see why Miss Moore asso ciates the nectarines with "the peach Yu, the red- / cheeked peach which cannot aid the dead, / but eaten in time prevents death." In her notes on the poem "Nine Nectarines," Miss Moore quotes Alphonse de Candolle as saying: The Chinese believe the oval peaches which are very red on one side, to be a symbol of long life. . . . Ac cording to the word of Chin-noug-king, the peach Yu pre vents death. If it is not eaten in time, it at least prevents the body frcm decay until the end of the world. Here we are reminded of the traditional use of the peach as a symbol of longevity in Chinese poetry and painting. Chinese literature abounds with references to the peach. For instance, according to one ^Sze, p. 11. ^Moore, p. 265. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 29 legend, when Lao Tzu visits the Queen of Heaven, Hsi Wang Mu C& they dine together on peaches and pears, the food of the immortals. By associating the color of the kylin with that of the peach, both of which are described to be ’ ’ cinnamon-brown” or of "the / color of the shrub-tree's brownish / flower," Miss Moore shows v i s that they are not only of the same "emblemic group" but also partakers of "the spirit of the wilderness" "here enameled on porcelain." Giving uo ouch curiov~ bits of information as "wild spontaneous fruit was / found in China first," Miss Moore concludes her poem with a supreme tribute to clas sical China by stating, "It was a Chinese / who imagined this master- , . 6 6 piece." In addition to their ccmnon interest in things Chinese, Wallace Stevens and Marianne Moore were both exposed to the Imagist ideal, even though they never were avowed Imagists. The relationship of Stevens and Moore to the Imagists has been discussed in the Intro duction of William Pratt’s book, The Imagist Poem: Modem Poetry in Miniature (1963). Pratt quotes Randall Jarrell as saying that both Stevens and Moore "did their first good work in an odd climate of po- 67 etic behavior [and] expectations of behavior [which] were Imagist." Pratt goes on to claim that "without the influence of Imagism their poetry would be very different, and probably not nearly so original nor so excellent. Because their first distinctive work was written ^Sfoore, p. 30. 67 William Pratt, ed., The Imagist Poem: Modem Poetry in Miniature (New York: E. P. Dutton.. 1963), p. 37. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 30 during the Imagist period, it is best understood in the context of 68 other Imagist poems, not apart from them.” Post-Imagist Interest in China After the Imagist movement of the 1910's and the generation of Pound, Stevens, and Moore, there has been a concerted effort on the part of many younger American poets not only to utilize Chinese imag ery and even symbols in their poetry, but also to learn something about the Chinese language and poetics. Also, Pound's preference for the "hard and clear" image is shared by post-Imagist poets as varied as Louis Zukofsky and Philip Whalen, Robert Bly and W. S. Merwin, James Wright and Gary Snyder, Denise Levertov and Sylvia Plath, to mention but a few. Among these poets, Snyder, Bly and Mervin have translated Chinese poetry. Perhaps, they share with Pound the belief that Chi nese, through its use of the ideogram, is a direct and forceful lan guage and that Chinese poetry is "never blurred nor indefinite" in its imagery. As a poetic mentor, Pound's influence is far-reaching. More than any Sinologist and going far beyond the superficiality of Chi- noiserie, he has made Li Bo a name to be reckoned with, at least among American poets and intelligentsia. First translated by Pound in Cath ay in 1915, Li Po has a wide appeal to contemporary American poets, partly because of his anti-establishment life style and partly because of his fantastic poetic output. In his "Epitaphs," Pound made famous the Chinese legend that: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. . . . Li Po also died drunk. He tried to embrace a moon In the Yellow River. Since the time of Pound's "Epitaphs,” which appeared in print before his Cathay, Li Po has been mentioned at least once in the writ ings of Amy Lowell, Conrad Aiken, Hart Crane, Philip Whalen, Gary Sny der, and Jonathan Williams — to say nothing of younger poets now writ ing. For instance, Amy Lowell's poem "Li T'ai Po," in the section en- 70 titled "Chinoiseries" of her Pictures of the Floating World, alludes to Li Po's habit of drinking wine while composing poetry. In A Letter from Li Po and Other Poems, Conrad Aiken alludes to and attempts to 71 echo Li Po's poetry in the entire first part of his book. But, being conventional in his poetic technique and writing mainly in the English poetic tradition, Aiken fails to oonvey a feeling of the range and freedom of his Chinese poetic master. Hart Crane mentioned Li Po as one of his favorite poets in a letter dated October 17, 1921, to Wil- 72 liam Wright. Both Philip Whalen and Gary Snyder contributed poems 73 as tributes to the special Li Po Issue of the Galley Sail Review.' 69 Ezra Pound, Personae, p. 117. ^Amy Lowell, Pictures of the Floating World (New York: Macmillan, 1919), pp. 32-35. 71 Conrad Aiken, A Letter from Li Po and Other Poems (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1955), pp. 9-30. 72 Brcm Weber, ed., The Letters of Hart Crane: 1916-1932 (Berkeley: Univ. of Calif. Press, 1965), p. 67. "^See Galley Sail Review, Vol. 2, No. 1 (Winter, 1959-60), p. 2 and pp. 19-21. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 32 Though Whalen’s poem "Hymnus ad Patrem Sinensis” does not invoke the namecf Li Poi it alludes to the congenial spirit of his "patrem Sin ensis” under the influence of wine and cherry blossom.7* * Gary Snyder’s relationship to Li Po will be discussed in Chapter IV of this disserta tion. And Jonathan Williams attempts to express the whimsicality of the Chinese poet in "Syllables in the Form of Leaves,” another poem 75 contributed to the Li Po Issue of the same magazine. Tu Fu, major T’ ang poet and a contemporary of Li Po, was first translated by Any Lowell and Florence Ayscough in Fir-Flower Tablets 78 which appeared in print in 1921. The Jade Mountain, a collaborative effort of Witter Bynner and Kiang Kang-hu, also includes seme Tu Fu 77 translations. But, on the whole, neither Any Lowell's nor Witter 78 Bynner’s versions are truly successful American poems. Recent at- 79 tempts, such as Paul Blackburn’ s "Chengtu— after Tu Fu" and George 7u Galley Sail Review, p. 2. 7^Galley Sail Review, p. 13. 76 See Florence Ayscough and Any Lowell, Fir-Flower Tablets: Poems Translated frcm the Chinese (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1921), pp. 103- -L-LO • 77 Witter Bynner and Kiang Kang-hu, trans. The Jade Mountain(1929; rpt. New York: Doubleday Anchor, 1964), pp. 118-142. 78 Both Lowell and Bynner, in attempting to be literal, tend to be over- interpretative and prolix. But they are, at least, more faithful to the Chinese originals than Kenneth Rexroth in One Hundred Poems from the Chinese (New York: New Directions, 1956). Rexroth did not even consult the original Chinese texts of Tu Fu; he translated the thirty- five Tu Fu poems of his book mainly from the German of Erwin von Zach. 7^Paul Blackburn, "Chengtu— After Tu Fu," Sumac, I, 3 (Spring, 1969), p. 7. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 33 80 Quasha's "The State/1969" are skillful imitations rather than liter al translations of two of Tu Fu's best known poems. While James Wright has not yet translated any Chinese poetry, he pays his supreme tribute to Po Chii-yi, a poet translated and made popular by Arthur Waley, in "As I Step over a Puddle at the End of Winter, I think of an Ancient Chinese Governor," a poem deservedly praised by Paul Carroll 81 in The Poem in Its Skin. Gary Snyder goes farther than either trans lation or imitation. According to Wai-lim Yip, Snyder "displayed the most conscious approximation of the Chinese syntax" in his poem 82 "Eight Sandbars on the Takano River." Less original in syntactical variation than Snyder but equally striking in content, Philip Whalen contrasts the civilization of the Chinese with the barbarity of the United States Marines when he deals with the burning of the Summer Palace and the Winter palace— a theme reminiscent of Fenollosa' s in "East and West" — in "10:X:57, 45 Years Since the Fall of the Ch’ ing Dynasty," a poem which successfully blends the classical East with 83 the contemporary West. In its striking juxtaposition of "monster on George Quasha, "The State/ 1969," Sumac II, 2 S 3 (Winter / Spring, 1S70 Double Issue), p. 117. ®^See Paul Carroll, ed., The Poem in Its Skin (Chicago: Big Table- Follett, 1968), p. 189. Carroll's critical article, "The Loneliness of a Thousand Years or The Poet as Qimett Kelley," follows on Dp. 190- 202. *^Yip, p. 32n. QO Philip Whalen, On Bear's Head (New York: Coyote-Harcourt, Brace S World, 1969), pp. 35-36; also Philip Whalen, Like I Say (New York: Totem/Corinth, 1960), p. 33. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 34 teen-age/hoods" and "my brocade sleeves raveling / Among the chips of jade and the withered peony blossoms," Whalen's poem pays a subtle tribute to the culture of the ancient Chinese. Thus it can be said that there has been a substantial change of attitude toward the Chi nese and their culture in the past fifty years. Whereas we observe on ly a superficial fascination with the Orient in pre-Imagist American verse, we note an absorbing interest in the genuine cultural tradition of classical China, as represented by its art and poetry, in much post-Imagist American verse. Attempting to trace the impact of the classical Chinese tra dition on Ezra Pound and Gary Snyder, two representative American poets exposed to the Chinese language and poetics, this dissertation will be divided into four chapters. In this chapter, we have been concerned with showing the development of interest in the Chinese tradition as reflected in a few American poets of the first half of the century. The second chapter will examine the impact of The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry on the development of Pound's poetics. In the same chapter, we will examine the function of Chinese symbols arid myths in Ezra Pound's Cantos. The third chapter will be devoted to Gary Snyder and will attempt to show how his Chinese studies con tributed to his development as a poet. The final chapter will compare the innovations of Pound and Snyder in the light of the Chinese tra dition. This dissertation will focus on the original poems of Pound and Snyder rather than on their translations from the Chinese, which have been adequately dealt with by critics. For instance, both Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 35 L. S. Dembc's The Confucian Odes of Ezra Pound (1963) and Wai-lim Yip's Ezra Pound's Cathay (1969) contain much critical insight about the art of translating Chinese poetry. The ultimate concern of this disserta tion is not Chinese poetics, but rather the impact of the Chinese lan guage and poetics on two American poets. In other words, this disser tation is intended less for Sinologists than for those interested in a new American poetics. After all, neither Pound nor Snyder writes poetry in the Chinese language, although they use Chinese ideograms in their poems. But their interest in Chinese poetry did contribute to their own poetic development, and any further understanding of what Chinese poetry contributed to them may also suggest how the Chinese tradition— through their poetry— is enriching the total tradition of future poets who write in English. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER II TO THE SUMMIT OF IAISHAN Much has been written in recent years about the achievements of Ezra Pound both as an original poet and as a translator. As the translator of Cathay, The Confucian Odes AW . The Analects’ ^? , The Great Digest , and The Unwobbling Pivot , Ezra Pound has played a significant role as a cultural mediator between classical China and contemporary America. Virtually every critic of Pound's poetry has to deal with - or at least, mention - the Confucian philoso phy behind Pound's major work, The Cantos. Two of the most notable works dealing with Pound's Confucian ideas are Hugh Kenner's The Poetry of Ezra Pound (1951) and Clark Query's Ideas into Action: A Study of Pound's Cantos (1958). The role that Chinese translations played in the development of Pound's poetics has been examined by both L. S. Dembo in The Confucian Odes of Ezra Pound: A Critical Appraisal (1963) and Wai-lim Yip in Ezra Pound's Cathay (1969). Other critics, such as Daniel D. Pearlman and Hugh Witemeyer, also probe into the relationship between Chinese culture and Pound's poetry in their respective works, The Barb of Time: On the Unity of Ezra Pound's Cantos (1969) and The Poetry of Ezra Pound: Forms and Renewal, 1908-1920 (1969). In short, Pound's relationship with the classical Chinese tradition is already a part of literary history as well as a matter of public record. Upon the publication of Pound's The Confucian Odes (also known as The 36 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 37 Classic Anthology Defined by Confucius) in 1954, Achilles Fang, a Chi nese scholar at the Harvard-Yenching Institute, saw fit to hail Ezra Pound as "a Confucian poet."'L In his own words, Fang made this claim: As for Pound as Confucian, it is not known when he was converted; by the time he published his translation of Ta Hio [better known to Pound readers as The Great Digest] (1928) he certainly was Confucian to all intents and purposes. As the translator of The Classic Anthology, Pound now emerges as a Confucian poet.^ In this chapter, we are not so much interested in proving any Chinese influence on Pound as in showing how Pound used certain Chinese ideas - as perceived and understood by him - to produce a new poetics. In his long career as a poet, Pound has always been concerned with com parative poetics, which led him to study and translate poetry fran lan guages as different as Anglo-Saxon, Chinese, Egyptian, French, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Latin, and Proven jal. In contrast to this absorp tion in comparative poetics, he has a total lack of patience with phi lology. For instance, in a letter addressed to Kate Buss, Pound re ferred to Herbert A. Giles, the British Sinologist, as "the osseous 3 head of an imbecile or a philologist." In editing Fenollosa’s The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry, Pound stated ex plicitly that: ^Ezra Pound, trans., The Classic Anthology Defined by Confucius (Cam bridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1954), p. xiii. Fang wrote the Introduction for Pound's book. 2Ibid. 2D. D. Paige, ed., The Letters of Ezra Pound, 1907-1941 (New York: Harcourt, Brace S Co., 1950), p. 101. The letter is dated Jan. 4, 1917. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 38 My subject is poetry, not language, yet the roots of poetry are in language. In the study of a language so alien in form to ours as is Chinese in its written character, it is necessary to in quire hew these universal elements of form which constitute poetics can derive appropriate nutriment. Furthermore, in discussing with Glenn Hughes The Chinese Written Char acter as a Medium for Poetry, Pound disclosed that: I had not the philological competence necessary for an ultimate version, but at the same time Mrs. F.’s conviction was that Fen. [i.e., Fenollosa] wanted it transd [sic] as literature not as philology.5 The Letters of Ezra Pound, 1907-1941 abounds with references to Fenollosa and The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry. The basic Poundian view toward The Chinese Written Character as a Med ium for Poetry can be summed up in his cwn words: For Ars Poetica [italics mine] . . . get my latest edtn [sic] of Fenollosa*s "Chinese Written Character." Vide my introduction.5 As a theorist, Pound has always been excessive in his views. For instance, he claims in his ABC of Reading that when a Chinese has to write the ideogram for "red": He puts . . . together the abbreviated pictures of ROSE CHERRY IRON RUST FLAMINGO7 Ernest Fenollosa, The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poet ry. ed. Ezra Pound (1920; rpt. San Francisco: City Lights, 1968), p.6. ^Paige, p. 214. The letter addressed to Hughes is dated Nov. 9, 1927. kpaige, p. 322. The letter addressed to Hubert Creekmore is dated Feb., 1939. 7Ezra Pound, ABC of Reading (1934; rpt. New York: New Directions, 1960), p. 22. Hereafter, the work will be cited as ABC. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 39 Pound further consents on this "ideogramic thinking" by saying: That, you see, is very much the kind of thing a biologist does (in a very much more complicated way) when he gets to gether a few hundred or thousand slides, and picks out what is necessary for his general statement. Sane thing that fits the case, that applies in all of the cases. The Chinese 'word' or ideogram for red is based on something everyone KNOWS. (If ideogram had developed in England, the writers would possibly have substituted the front side of a robin, or something less exotic than a flamingo. )8 Here Pound's description of the Chinese character for red be trays his ignorance of the Chinese language (since neither . r ,- ^ nor f f f * , two common Chinese ideograms for "red," is made up of Pose + Cherry + Iron Rust + Flamingo). It is Pound's excessive enthusiasm for what he considers to be the unique feature of the Chinese written language and it is his lack of training (as well as interest) in phi- lilogy that led such Sinologists as George Kennedy of Yale to attack The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry as "a small mass Q of confusion." But what might be disastrous for philology is hardly fatal to poetics. The difference between the philological approach and the poetic approach to classical Chinese poetry has been carefully examined by Wai-lim Yip in the first chapter of his Ezra Pound's Cath ay. After discussing seme of the special problems of translating Chi nese, Yip points out that sane translators "might comprehend the [original Chinese] text adequately without comprehending much poetry in it."'*"^ Conversely, Ezra Pound produced a poetic masterpiece in 8Ibid. q George Kennedy, "Fenollosa, Pound and the Chinese Character," Yale Literary Magazine, CXXVI (Dec. 1958), p. 25. i0Yip, p. 9. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 4 0 Cathay - Yip concludes in Chapter 4 - through a "process of mis inter- pretation."1^ As long as we are willing to evaluate Pound as a poet and not as a philologist, we can de-emphasize his ignorance of the Chinese lan guage (which, at times, especially troubles a Sinologist). Instead of criticizing his analysis of the Chinese character for red as a sign of linguistic incompetence, we can find much merit in his special way of seeing. For to read into the Chinese ideogram for red such elements as Rose + Cherry + Iron Rust + Flamingo, one must have a vivid imagin ation. The vividness of Pound's poetic imagination has won him admir ers as well as detractors. For instance, Pound's "Homage to Sextus Propertius" was attacked by William Gardner Hale for its numerous in accuracies or lack of fidelity to the Latin original of Propertius' po etry. On the other hand, J. P. Sullivan, a renowned classicist, hails it as a poetic masterpiece. He defends Pound on the ground that "Hom age to Sextus Propertius" belongs to a tradition of "great transla tions," such as Chapman's Hamer and North's Plutarch.^-- In Sullivan's view, Pound's work, which "might have been described as 'based on Sex- 13 tus Propertius' or 'after Propertius'," is an imaginative poetic re creation of the original. The following observations about the art of translation would have pleased Pound as much as Sullivan himself: ^Yip, p. 164. ■^J. P. Sullivan, Ezra Pound and Sextus Propertius (Austin: Univ. of Texas Press, 1964), p. 20. 13 Sullivan, p. 15. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 4 1 And translation ... is not necessarily a form of cre ation inferior to what might be called original writing (if such a thing in the conventional sense is possible). The same conditions are necessary for successful translations as for good poetry. It is a canon of romantic criticism to stress l l + the undefiled original impulse; it is not a classical canon. Pound’s exposure to the classical canon can be attested by his preference for the hard and chiseled lines of the Greek epigrams over the effusions of the English Romantics and by his endorsement of the classical restraint of Sappho, Catullus, and Propertius as opposed to his scorn for the sentimentality of Abercrombie and Brooke. Having dedicated himself to comparative poetics and having read widely in the literature of at least nine languages, Pound has a highly eclectic poetic tradition. From his numerous critical works including the ABC of Reading, we find that his poetic masters include Hcmer, Catullus, Propertius, Ovid, Arnaut Daniel, Dante, Cavalcanti, Villon, and Gautier. It is interesting to note that, fran this list of Pound's favorite poets, Gautier is the only modem. In the ABC of Reading, Pound recommends especially Gautier's Bnaux et Camees as a work "to understand what was invented after 1830."^ In a letter addressed to Rene Taupin (written entirely in French), Pound admitted that "Gautier j'ai etudie et je le revere." ' L^ Gautier's influence on Pound can be gauged fran Pound's own statement that "The metre in Mauberley is Gautier and Eion's 'Adonis'; or at ^Sullivan, p. 18. 15ABC, p. 78. ^Paige, p. 218. The letter, number 229, is dated May, 1928. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 42 1 7 least those ape the two grafts I was trying to flavour it with.” Writing to Iris Barry on July 27, 1916, Bound told his protege that "perfectly plain statements like his [Gautier's] 'Carmen est maigre' 18 should teach one a number of things." Then he went on to say that "the English Nineties got about as far as Gautier had got in 1830, and before he wrote ' L: Hippopotcme. ' From our point of view (as East-West comparatists), we are far less interested in Gautier's influence on Pound than in the coincidence of the two poets* mutual interest in things Chinese. Despite their differences in nationality and time, both Gautier and Pound were fas cinated with the language and literature of China. Gautier's associa tion with Pauthier and Bazin, two French Sinologists, "led him to em ploy a real Chinese named Tin-Tun-Ling as tutor to his daughters Judith 20 and Estelle." After four years of Chinese studies under Tin-Tun- Ling, Judith Gautier, encouraged by her father, produced the Livre de Jade, "a book of translations in rhythmical prose of ancient and modem 21 Chinese poetry," in 1867. As a work of translation, Livre de Jade has been praised by the French Sinologist Soulie de Morant as well as 17 Paige, p. 181. The letter addressed to Felix E. Schelling is dated July 8, 1922. ^Paige, p. 89. 19 Ibid. The letter was sent frcm London. 20 Chaote Lin, Chinoiserie and Japonisme in French Literature (Diss., Univ. of Michigan, 1966), pp. 155-156. ^"Lin, p. 160. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 43 Arthur Waley. And one French critic, Catulle Msndes, even claims that: If faudrait peut-etre - parlant des origines du vers litre - prendre en consideration . . . surtout le Livre de Jade de Mrne. Judith Gautier.22 In retrospect, the study of Judith and Estelle Gautier under Tin-Tun-Ling benefited the daughters as well as the father. Through his constant association with Tin-Tun-Ling, who usually ate with the Gautier family, Gautier's own interest in China increased. According to Chaote Lin, "Gautier deeply cherished the contact that his daughters 23 and their Chinese tutor enabled him to make with Chinese poetry." Beside conversing with Tin-Tun-Ling about Chinese art and poetry, Gautier "was proud to have [the Chinese tutor] at his table when he 24 entertained guests like Flaubert, Bouilhet and the Goncourts." Gautier’s relationship with Tin-Tun-Ling also inspired him to attempt the translation of "ces poemes Chinois" and to write "thing having a 25 Chinese quality frcm time to time." Chaote Lin summarizes Gautier's Chinese interest as follows: Though China did not have as much influence on Gautier's art as it did on his daughters, yet considerable importance may be attached to the few writings inspired by what he knew of China, because they constitute the first instances of an ijireginative, literary — as opposed to erudite — treatment of the Far East among nineteenth-century French men of let ters [italics mine]. oo y Catulle Mendes, Rapport sur le mouvement poetique (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1902), pp. 152-153. 2^Lin, p. 158. Lin, p. 159. 25Lin, pp. 158-159. 25Lin, pp. 159-160. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 + 4 Here Gautier's service to French literature in the 19th century might be likened to that of Pound to American literature in the 20th century. For, through both men's "imaginative, literary . . . treat ment" of China, the French and American reading public became better acquainted with the Chinese poetic tradition. In addition to their mutual interest in tilings Chinese, Gautier's poetry, especially Snaux et Cam^es, influenced Pound's use of language. For in Pound's search for precision of language and hard ness of image, he found a model in Gautier. But then he also learned his new style from Dante, Villon, and the silver age Latin poets. The coanopolitan influence on Pound's development as a poet is beyond the scope of this dissertation. Instead, by stressing the Chi nese influence, we are trying to shew that the classical Chinese tra dition probably played as significant a role in Pound's poetic develop ment as his classical and European tradition, which has been studied by more ccmparatists. In an essay on Pound's Cantos, Marianne Moore quotes Pound as saying: Great poets . . . seldom make bricks without straw. They pile up all the excellences they can beg, borrow, or steal from their predecessors and contemporaries, and then set their own inimitable light atop the mountain.27 This statement, in turn, reminds us of T. S. Eliot's in The Sacred Wood: Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets 27 Marianne Moore, A Marianne Moore Reader (New York: Ccmpass-Viking, 1961), p. 153. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 4 5 make it into something better, or at least some thing different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different from that from which it was torn; the bad poet throws it into something which fas no cohesion.28 In this light, perhaps, we should examine Pound's relationship to his classical Chinese tradition. This chapter on Ezra Pound will be divided into three parts. In the first part, we will examine the influence of the Chinese lan guage, specifically The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poet ry (1920), on the development of Pound as a poet. In the second part, we will demonstrate the impact of Chinese poetry on Pound's own poet ics. In other words, we will try to illustrate the difference between Pound's earliest poetry (in which he showed absolutely no Chinese in fluence) and his later works exposed to the Chinese influence. In the third part, we will look at seme of the classical Chinese allusions, including selected Chinese myths and symbols, that appear in Pound's major work, The Cantos. However, we will not attempt to examine The Cantos as a whole, since we are only concerned with Pound's relation ship with the classical Chinese tradition. We will only take a close look at those Cantos in which the classical Chinese tradition features prominently, while paying scant attention to those in which Pound chooses to follow the tradition of Hauer, Ovid, and Dante. In order to understand what constitute the Chinese characteristics of Pound's Cantos, we must start with a cursory look at Pound's'ldeogramic"Method. 28T. S. Eliot, The Sacred Wood, University Paperbacks (1920; rpt. London: Methuen, 1954), p. 125. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 46 The Ideogranmic Method In Pound's development as a poet, we find that his transla tions , especially Cathay, The Confucian Odes, The Analects, and Ta Hio (or The Great Digest), are as significant as his own original works. This is because nearly all the verse forms Pound experimented with in his Cathay and The Confucian Odes can be found in The Cantos, where the Confucian philosophy of The Analects and Ta Hio dominates its ide ology. Pound's critical works also play an equally important role: for, if we suddenly thrust into the midst of The Cantos, we would not know how to cope with the Chinese characters, unless we had read Pound's writings about the Chinese language in The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry (1920), ABC of Reading (1934), or his Literary Essays (1954). Pound's use of Chinese written characters in his Cantos had its genesis in the poet's life-long absorption in the Confucian ching ming ■SE-(more coranonly pronounced as ch£ng ming), which has the following significance: The Ching Ming ideograph has levels of signification be ginning with orthography and ending with the most intimate moral discriminations. 'Call things by their right names.' Don't, for example, call a man Comptroller of the Currency unless he really controls it. Less literally, finding 'the precise words for the inarticulate heart's tones' relates conduct scrupulously to mo tives, motives to perceptions, formulations to observations, theory to practice, poetry to things seen and sensations under gone. 'Orthography is a discipline of morale and of morals.'29 The origin of ching ming iE- , which became Pound's idee fixe since his translation of the Ta Hio in 1928, can be traced 29 Hugh Kenner, The Poetry of Ezra. Pound CNew York: New Directions, 1951), p. 38. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. * + 7 back to a passage in the Confucian Analects • a . Having developed an interest in the ideas of Confucius as early as 1917,^ Ezra Pound 31 considered ching ming to be "the first act of government." Hie char acters ching ming, which mean "the correct (or just) terminology," un derlie the Confucian philosophy in the Analects. They are found in a conversation between the Master and Tzu-lu one of his favorite disciples. The entire passage, in Pound's own translation, reads as follows: Tze-Lu [sic] said [to Confucius]: The Lord of Wei is waiting for you to form a government, what are you going to do first? He [Confucius] said: Settle the names (determine a pre cise terminology). Tze-Lu said: How's this, you're divagating, why fix 'em? He said: You bumpkin! Sprout! When a proper man don't [sic] know a thing, he shows some reserve. If words (terminology) are not (is not) precise, they cannot be followed out, or completed in action according to specifications. When the services (actions) are not brought to true focus, the ceremonies and music will not prosper; where rites and music do not flourish punishments will be mis applied, not make bullseye [sic], and the people won't know how to move hand or foot (what to lay hand on, or stana on). Therefore the proper man must have terms that can be spoken, and when uttered be carried into effect; the 30 See Pound's letter to Margaret C. Anderson in D. D. Paige, ed., The Letters of Ezra Pound, 1907-1941 (New York: Harcourt, Brace S Co., 1950), p. 107. This letter is dated in Jan., 1917. ^■^Ezra Pound, Impact: Essays on Ignorance and the Decline of American Civi1ization (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1960), p. 123. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 48 proper men's words must cohere to things, correspond to them (exactly) and no more fuss about it.32 Here we find Pound's translation of "If words (terminology) are not (is not) precise, they cannot be followed out, or completed in action ac cording to specifications" to be a fairly accurate paraphrase of Con fucius' i T a Sil t T'»tZ , T * IJ f T' In James Legge's version of the Analects, the British Sinologist ren ders the quote as follows: _ j _ _ "If names [ ^ ] be not correct [ jE. ], language [ S ] is not in accordance with the truth of things. If language be not An accordance with the truth of things, .affairs [ Ip ] cannot be carried on to suc cess iffi ]."33 ^ The importance of ching ming to Ezra Pound can be veri fied by his constant reiteration of the same principle throughout his prose works on culture and government. For instance, in his Guide to Kulcher (1938), Pound gave us another version of the discussion of ching ming between Confucius and Tzu-lu. In the 1938 version of this discussion, Pound spelt Tzu-lu's name as "Tseu-Lou" and mistook "the Lord of Wei" ( ) for "the Prince of Mei." Placing the discus sion about ching ming at the beginning of Guide to Kulcher, Pound records the conversation as follows: Tseu-Lou asked [Confucius]: If the Prince of Wei appointed you head of the government, to what wd. [sic] you first set your mind? ^Ezra Pound, trans., Analects, Square $ Series (New York: Kasper S Horton, 1951), p. 59. 33 James Legge, trans., Confucian Analects in The Four Books (Hong Kong: International Publication Society, n.d.), p. 106. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. *+9 Kung [i.e., Confucius]: To call people and things by their names, that is by the correct denominations, to see that the terminology was exact. JE_ £z "You mean that is the first?" said Tseu-leu [sic]. "Aren’ t you dodging the question? What's the use of that?" Kung: You are a blank. An intelligent man hesitates to talk of what he don’ t [sic] understand, he feels em- barassment. If the terminology be not exact, if it fix not the thing, the governmental instructions will not be explicit, if the instructions aren't clear and the names don't fit, you can not conduct business properly. If the business is not properly run the rites and music will not be honoured, if the rites and music be not honoured, penalties and punishments will not achieve their intended effects, if penalties and punishments do not produce equity and justice, the people won't know where to put their feet or what to lay hold of or to whcm they shd. [sic] stretch out their hands. That is why an intelligent man cares for his termin ology and gives instructions that fit. When his orders are clear and explicit they can be put into effect. An intelligent man is neither inconsiderate of others nor futile in his caimanding. ^ Comparing this version of the discussion on chine; ming in Guide to Kulcher (1938) with the one in Pound's Analects (which first appeared in the Hudson Review in 1950), we find the gist of the two versions to be the same, despite the differences in their wording. To "settle the names (determine a precise terminology)" and "to call people and things by their names ... to see that the terminology was exact" are basi cally two similar ways of defining ching ming. For ching ming is, in principle, the use of "a precise terminology" or of "the correct 34 Ezra Pound, Guide to Kulcher (1938 • , rpt. New York: New Directions, 1952), pp. 16-17. Hereafter, the work will be cited as GK. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 50 denominations." So far, Pound has been orthodoxly Confucian in his use of the term, ching ming. In other words, Pound has adhered to the Confucian principle of using "a precise terminology" to serve political and moral effectiveness. The orthodox Confucian application of ching ming can be found in at least three of Pound’s cantos concerned with history and government. For instance, as early as Canto LX, Pound praises the Manchu Emperor Kang Hsi (reign: 1062-1722) not only for having "a laboratory set up in the palace" but also for having "ordered ’em [the Jesuits] to prepare a total anatomy et/ qu'ils veil- lerent a la purete du langage / et qu’ on n’employat que des termes pro- pres / (namely Ch'ing ming) j£. Here, Pound renders ching ming as "termes propres," which, in turn, can be translated into Eng lish as "appropriate (or suitable) terms." Also, in Canto LXVI, one of Pound’s explicitly political can tos dealing with John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, Pound finds a neces sity for: most accurate judgement [sic] about the real constitution which is not of wind and weather what is said there is rather a character than a true ching - ming 36 definition. It is a just observation. 33Ezra Pound, The Cantos (New York: New Directions, 1970), pp. 332-333. Hereafter, the work will be cited as TC. 36TC, p. 382. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 51 It is obvious that in this portion of Canto LXVI, Pound equates ching ming with "a true/ definition.” Again in Canto LXVII, the succeeding canto, Pound equates ching with "clear . . . definitions": ~ j ~ clear | r as to definitions - I I— CHING37 However, we find signs of Pound's departure frcm the orthodox Confucian interpretation of the term, when we read his essay, "Imnedi- ate Need of Confucius" (1937), in which Pound also discusses Fenollo- sa's notion of the Chinese ideogram. After stating that "Ernest Fen- ollosa emphasized a difference between the approach of logic and that 38 of science" and that "Confucius left his record in ideogram," Pound claims that Fenollosa has "accented the Western need of ideogramic 39 thinking." According to Pound, this "ideogramic thinking" consists of "getCting] your ’ red’ down to rose, rust, cherry, if you want to know what you are talking about." While Pound constantly talked about (or rather talked around) "ideogramic thinking" in his letters and essays, paradoxically he never defined the term in any systematic manner. Judging frcm his editor ship of the "Ideogramic Series" for the London publisher Stanley Nott in 1936, we gather that the term "ideogramic thinking" has a special 37TC, p. 387. ^ Impact, p. 201. 39 Impact, p. 202. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 52 meaning for Pound himself. This special meaning which Pound attaches to "ideogramic thinking" has never been shared with or shared by any Chinese scholar or American poet. As the editor of the "Ideogramic Series," Pound apparently intended to use the books in the series to advance his nebulous idea on "ideogramic thinking." The original "Ideogramic Series" included three titles. The first of them was Ernest Fenollosa's The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poet ry, which was subtitled by Pound as "An Ars Poetica" and was released "with a foreword and notes by Ezra Pound" frcm Stanley Nott in 1936. The second book of the series was the Confucian classic, Ta Hio, the Great Learning which was "newly rendered into the American language by Ezra Pound" and also released by Stanley Nott in the same year. But the publisher apparently went out of business before the third book of the "Ideogramic Series" was issued. For, according to the dust jacket of the 1936 edition of the Ta Hio, the third of the series— namely, In the American Grain: Seven Essays by William Carlos Williams— was soon to follow. But Williams' vrork (which is now available in a New Directions imprint) was never brought out by Stanley Nott in London. The work, which deals with early American legendary figures such as Red Eric and Daniel Boone, is neither a study of the Chinese ideogram nor an examination of Confucian philosophy. Furthermore, we know that William Carlos Williams was not— as late as 1936— a student of the "ideogramic thinking" which Pound advocated nor of the Confucian prin ciple of ching ming. The only probable reason that Pound included In the American Grain in his "Ideogramic Series" could be attributed to Pound's interest in Williams' mode of perception. In a preface Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 53 written for Alan Ostran’s The Poetic World of William Carlos W-illiamg, Harry T. Moore points out: Williams was seeing America, Anerican things, so freshly that Ezra Pound, in a 1928 essay, sug gested that Williams was describing his native country virtually with the eyes of an outsider. "One might accuse him of being, blessedly, the ob servant foreigner, perceiving Anerican vegetation and landscape quite directly, as something put there for him to look at; and his contemplative habit extends, also blessedly, to the fauna. Pound apparently found Williams' mode of perception as "new" P t and refreshing as the Chinese "ideogramic thinking" (as Pound perceived and understood it). The Chinese character for new, hsin , which Pound took frcm the Confucian jih jih hsin 0 0 and rendered as "make-it-new," appeared on the covers of the first two books of the "Ideogramic Series." While Pound has never clarified the relationship between "ideo gramic thinking" and ching ming, we know that he has extended the con ventional Confucian use of the latter term when he associates it with two disparate ideas of Flaubert and Dante. In his Guide to Kulcher, the poet claims that: ^^Alan Ostran, The Poetic World of William Carlos Williams (Carbondale: Southern Illinois Univ. Press, 1966), pp. v-vi. 4^The complete expression is B ff. e 0 0 ("As the sun makes it new/ Day by day make it new/ Yet again make it new"), which comes frcm Chap. II, Verse 1 of the Confucian Ta Hsiieh (or Ta Hio). See Ezra Pound, trans., Confucius: The Great Digest, 'Hie TJn- wobbling Pivot, The Analects (New York: New Directions, 1969), p.36. The Chinese characters, reproduced frcm stone rubbings, are found on p. 34. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 54 We traced the "just ward" [le mot juste] back to Flaubert. We heard a good deal about using it. For the purpose of novel writing and telling of stories, the composition of poems, the evocative word, the word that throws a vivid image on the mind of the reader suffices.43 This mention of "the evocative word, the word that throws a vivid inage on the mind of the reader" makes us recall Pound's phanopoeia, which we shall discuss later. Pound goes on to state that "We litterati struggled for twenty years on this front. In the economic battle we ____________ LUi were, after a fime, confronted with the need of DEFINITION." It thus seems apparent that Pound associates Flaubert's "le mot juste" with the Confucian ching ming. In Pound's essay, "Immediate Need of Confucius," he further associates ching ming with Dante' s "Ex diffinientium cog- nitione diffiniti resuitat cognitione" ("Knowledge of a definite thing 45 oomes from a knowledge of things defined"). After talking briefly about Ta Hio, the Confucian classic, Pound quickly moves on to praise Dante: Dante for a reason wrote De Vulgari Eloquio— On the Cannon Tongue— and in each age there is need to write De Vulgari Eloquio, that is, to insist on seeing the words daily in use and know the why of their usage. No man has ever known enough about words. The greatest teachers have been content to use a few of them justly.4' ® W GK, p. 49. 44GK, pp. 49-50. 45GK, p. 199. 46GK, p. 197. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 55 And when Pound states explicitly in an essay entitled ''Civilization” (1936) that "honesty of the word is the writer's first aim, for with- 1 4 . 7 out it he can communicate nothing efficiently,” we realize that Pound has departed from Confucius (and aligned himself more with Dante) by placing a deep moral significance on a writer's choice of words. By equating ching ming with Dante's "Ex diffinientium cogni- tione diffiniti resultat cognitio" and Flaubert's "le mot juste," Pound has apparently appropriated the Confucian tern and used it in a most idiosyncratic manner. Here we find that Pound's use of the term ching ming, unlike Confucius', extends beyond the realm of political and moral principles into the field of aesthetics. Whereas the Confucian philosophers of ancient China stressed the precise use of language to serve political and moral effectiveness, Pound, as a poet, considers renewal of language as "the writer's first aim." In other words, using the precise language to serve an aesthetic purpose— rather than a moral or a political purpose— is Pound's chief concern with and new emphasis on ching ming. Just because Confucius wrote in ideograms and because the Confucian classics were, in Pound's opinion, characterized by the application of ching ming in practice, Pound seems to have regarded the Chinese philosopher as a poet-predecessor. Pound's constant link of Confucius and Dante as his two "greatest teachers" shows not only his deference to these masters but also his idiosyncratic interpreta tion of ching ming as a key word in aesthetics. In the Poundian ^Ezra Pound, Polite Essays (1937; rpt. Freeport, N. Y.: Books for Libraries Press, 1966), p.L93. This passage concludes with the state ment, "Orthology is a discipline both of morale and of morals." Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 56 interpretation, the ideogram is the vehicle for ching ming. For the ideogram, according to Pound, is not only more concrete and visual than any European script form of writing, but also the precise word whose etymology— Pound believes— is constantly visible. Not being able to transform English words into Chinese written characters, Pound attempts to "renovate” (the Confucian "make-it-new") English words by juxtapos ing them with Chinese ideograms or by making them take on new associa tions of meaning in the context of the polyphonic and multilingual Cantos. Pound's insistence on ching ming or the "honesty of the word" is manifested in The Cantos in three different ways. First of all, it leads Pound, who subscribes to the principle that "orthology [sic] is ^ a a discipline both of morale and of morals," ° to a Confucian interpre tation of world history in which he equates moral and political decline with the lack of ching ming. Secondly, it makes Pound a master of pre cision in his choice of le mot juste. For instance, in search of the most precise words in English to convey Confucius's teachings to the American readers, he transmutes the archaic classical prose of the Con fucian school into such concise and lyrical passages as: To study with the white wings of time passing is not that our delight to have friends cane from far countries is not that pleasure not to care that we are untrumpeted? filial, fraternal affection is the root of humaneness the root of the process nor are elaborate speeches and slick alacrity U8 Polite Essays, p. 193. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 57 employ men in proper season ^g not when they are at harvest [from Canto 74] and The father*s word is compassion; The son’ s filiality. The brother’s word: mutuality; The younger’s word: deference. Shall birds sing in chorus, Harmony is in the proportion of branches as clarity (chao^) Compassion, tree’s root and water-spring; The state: order, inside a boundary; Law: reciprocity. What is statute save reciprocity? One village in order, 20 one valley will reach the four seas. [from Canto 99] Any reader of Confucius ’ teachings will immediately recognize that the first passage came frcm the Analects and the second frcm Ta Hio (or The Great Digest). Pound's lines "To study with the white wings of time passing/ is not that our delight" were based on the Chinese orig inal of # fa . sf ' t > i^U ^ 5 which literally means "Learn and constantly practise it, is it not pleasure?" Although Sin ologists may object to Pound's misreading of as the "white wings of time" instead of "constantly," we must admit that Pound has made the lines more imagistic than Legge's abstract version.^ And when we 49TC, p. 437. 5QTC, p. 708. 5W 's version reads: "Is it not pleasant to learn with a constant perseverance and application?" See Legge, Confucian Analects, p. 1. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 58 contrast Pound's "not to care that we are untrumpeted1 ' with Legge’ s "Is he not a man of ccmplete virtue, who feels no discomposure though version is than that of the British Sinologist. And if we accept Pound's premises that poetry is "the most concentrated form of verbal that Poland’s rendition is far more poetic than Legge’s. In transmuting Confucius’ prose into poetry, Pound has ful filled Byron’s wish that Confucius could have written poetry: Thus we see, if Pound has done nothing more to spread the teachings of Confucius in the United States, he has at least made Confucius more poetically appealing than have the Sinologists. Thirdly, the ideology of ching ming accounts for Pound’s re peated use of numerous Chinese ideograms (all dealing with the Con fucian canon of virtues) in The Cantos. For instance, the ideograms ching ming recur in Cantos 51, 60, 6 6, 6 8, and 97 as a re minder to the reader that ching ming is the central ideology, both moral and political, of Pound's long work. Furthermore, those Confu- men take no note of him?"57 (for the original Chinese of ' ' F % 7y jr , itmediately see how much more condensed Pound's 53 expression" and that poetry=aichten=condensare, then we must admit and Lord Byron lamented that he (Kung) had not left it in metric rU "halves of a seal," . . . 5 2 . Ibid. 53 ABC, p. 36. 'TC, p. 468. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 59 hsin, and ' f — i£n, for which there are no adequate English equiva lents, are retained in the original Chinese. Here we may be reminded that even in languages more closely related to English than Chinese, such as French, Italian, and German, a literal translation often fails to convey the nuances and the cultural significance of the original word. For how adequately can reman a clef, poesia popolare, and Kunstlerrcman be rendered into English with equal precision as in their original languages? When we cane to a language as remote from English as Chinese, we certainly have an extremely difficult time in finding the "precise terminology" in English for the terms of Confucian philos ophy. Realizing that the correct terms must be the original Chinese ideograms themselves, Pound put them directly into his Cantos. Pound uses the Chinese written characters to enhance the vis ual appeal of his own poetry. As a poet, Pound is concerned with lan guage as (in his own words) "a means of caimunication." And he finds that "the three chief means" of "charg[ing] language with meaning to the utmost possible degree" are ( 1 ) phanopoeia, (2) melopoeia, and (3) logopoeia.^ While melopoeia induces "emotional correlations by the sound and the rhythm of the speech," phanopoeia and logopoeia are defined respectively by Pound as "throwing the object (fixed or moving) on to the visual imagination" and "inducing both [the visual and the auditory] effects by stimulating the associations (intellectual or emotional) that have remaineu in the receiver's consciousness in 55ABC, p. 63. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 60 56 relation to the actual words or word groups employed." To Ezra Pound, the Chinese language, in which the "words are alive and plastic, because thing and action are not formally separated,"9' has the supreme advantage of "throwing the object," especially when it is moving, "on to the visual imagination." To illustrate his point about words or ideas in action, Pound gives Fenollosa's example of the Chinese verb for "is" , which "not only means actively ’ to have' but shews by its derivation that it expresses something even more concrete, namely 58 ’ to snatch frcm the moon with the hand. ’" And Pound/Fenollosa com ments on the phanopoeia of (pronounced yu in mandarin Chinese) by saying: "Here the baldest symbol of prosaic analysis is transformed 59 by magic into a splendid flash of concrete poetry." Declaring that "the first definite assertion of the applicability of scientific method to literary criticism is found in Ernest Fenollosa’s Essay on the Chi nese Written Character," Pound considers "Fenollosa’s essay . . . too far ahead of his time to be easily comprehended" because Fenollosa "got to the root of the matter, to the root of the difference between what is valid in Chinese thinking and invalid or misleading in a great deal 60 of European thinking and language." Stressing the concreteness of 56ABC, p. 63. 'Fenollosa, p. 17. ^Fenollosa, p. 15. 59Ibid. 60ABC, p. 19. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 61 the Chinese language in contrast to "the method of abstraction, or of defining things in more and still more general terras" in Western lan- 61 guages, Pound furnishes us with this example: In Europe, if you ask a man define anything, his definition always moves away frcm the simple things that he knows perfectly well, it recedes into an unknown region, that is a region of re moter and progressively remoter abstraction. Thus if you ask him what red is, he says it is a ’colour'. If you ask him what a colour is, he tells you it is a vibration or a refraction of light, or a division of the spectrum. And if you ask him what vibration is, he tells you it is a mode of energy, or something of that sort, until you arrive at a modality of being, or non-being, or at any rate you get in beyond your depth, and beyond his depth.®2 In contrast to the Egyptians who "finally used abbreviated pic tures to represent sounds," Pound points out, "the Chinese still use abbreviated pictures AS pictures, that is to say, Chinese ideogram does not try to be the picture of a sound, or to be a written sign recalling a sound, but it is . . . the picture of a thing; of a thing in a given 63 position or relation, or of a combination of things." Then Pound uses the Chinese character for "east" t - to illustrate that it is made up of two simple pictographs "tree" and "sun" 0 . For when the sun rises through the tree, or when the sun gets "tangled in the tree's branches," it is "at sunrise, meaning now the East." 61abc, p. 2 0. 62abc, p. 19. 63abc, p. 21 64-, . , Ibid. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 62 The Pound-Fenollosa theory that "Chinese ideogram does not try to be the picture of a sound . . . but ... is the picture of a thing — of a thing in a given position or relation, or of a combination of things" has been attacked by Sinologists, since it is a gross over simplification about the nature of the Chinese language. First of all, Pound/Fenollosa is erroneous in his assumption that all Chinese written characters are ideograms. Ideograms, or picture-drawings, constitute only a minority of the Chinese written characters. Secondly, it is doubtful that more than 20% of the words in modem Chinese have an 65 "etymology [which] is constantly visible." Except for such Simple Pictograms as 0 "sun" (whose ancient form was O ) , 3 "moon" (ancient form J ), iU "mountain" (ancient form ^ ), and "water" (ancient form jj; ), such Simple Ideographs as — "one," "two," and -H- "three," as well as Composite Ideographs such as 7? "man" (a composite of the ancient Chinese script for "field" and "strength" and i-f "good" (a composite of the ancient Chinese script for "woman" and "son"), it is doubtful that the average Chinese reader could tell the etymology of the majority of Chinese characters. Thirdly, Pound is inaccurate in assuming that the Chinese ideogram is always "the picture of a thing . . . or of a combination of things." In actual practice, a majority of Chinese characters are formed according to the principle of % hsieh-sheng, which combines an ideographic part with a phonetic part. For instance, the character for , which means "mother" in modem Chinese, is made up of the pictogram - f i r and the 65 Fenollosa, p. 25. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 63 phonetic part . While (pronounced as nu in Mandarin), which means "woman," supplies the basic meaning of the word, the Mj (pro nounced as n») part supplies the sound or the pronunciation. When nii is put together with J f jj ma, the pronunciation of the composite character is ma in the first tone in Mandarin Chinese. When a Chinese looks at the word, he never thinks of the character as a female horse, even though the right half of the character Mj literally means a "horse." Instead, he uses as a clue to the pronunciation or the phonetic value of the composite word. Although, through the intermediary of Ernest Fenollosa, Ezra Pound has erred in oversimplifying the nature of the Chinese written characters, he can be partly exonerated for having reawakened the Chi nese to seeing the roots of some Chinese words. The fact that the average Chinese reader never practices character-splitting (or taking a written character apart to examine its root or origin) does not dis prove Pound's thesis that the Chinese characters are metaphorical in their origin and that they function "chiefly as vivid shorthand pic- 66 tures of actions and processes in nature." As a native speaker and writer of Chinese, I, for instance, never was aware of the etymology of a vast majority of the Chinese written characters nor practised character-splitting in school. But, after reading The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry, I found it fascinating— and,at times, very rewarding— to examine the etymology of various Chinese characters. Furthermore, I began to see a possibility in Pound's statement that ^Fenollosa, p. 25. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 64 "poetic thought works by suggestion, crowding maximum meaning into the single phrase pregnant, charged, and luminous frcm within. In Chinese 67 character each word accumulated this sort of energy in itself. Take, for example, the character hsin,^ which appears in Canto 96 of the Rock-Drill section. All Pound has to say about is a cryptic note which reads as follows: Wang's middle name not in Mathews Here Pound is bemoaning the fact that such a Chinese character as cannot even be found in a widely-used Chinese-English dic tionary.^ The character intrigued Pound, because of its phano poeia. Reading the word according to Pound's method of character- splitting, we find that is made 15) of three fires and one wood (not to mention that ■&. is composed of duplicated three times). The primary meaning of is obvious: it is intense heat, since it consists of three fires burning one piece of wood. The 67 Fenollosa, p. 28. j y 58The character is a rarely-used word in China. It is occasion ally found as a personal name, as in the case of the China-born Ameri can poet David Rafael Wang, who visited Pound often at St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington, D. C. between 1955-1957. The character cannot be found in the majority of Chinese dictionaries, although it is list ed as a fare word in such authoritative dictionaries as the K'ang Hsi , the Tzu Yuan 'ff , and the Tzu Hai ^See TC, p. 653. The "Mathews" here refers to R. H. Mathews* Chinese- English Dictionary, rev. American edn. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1943). It was compiled for the China Inland Mission of Shanghai in 1231. ^ Slat hews' dictionary does not include the character . Pound learned this Chinese word frcm his correspondence with David Rafael Wang, who always signed his letters with his Chinese middle name • Pound deliberately included this Chinese character in Canto 96. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 65 secondary meanings of the ward are "to bum," "to illuminate," and "to spread." In addition, it has the connotation of "full," "abundant," "plenteous," "luxuriant," "prosperous," "flourishing," "illustrious," and "splendid.” The closest English equivalent of is probably "brilliant," which stenmed from the Italian verb "brillare," which is of uncertain origin. Thus we see how Pound can find a Chinese charac ter, such as , more metaphorical and colorful than a similar wore, "brilliant," in English. While the Fenollosa/Pound character-splitting has been ridi culed by Sinologists, it may also prove that, as a poet, Pound is far more sensitive to the metaphorical potentiality of the Chinese written characters than the average Chinese as well as the average Sinologist. In Ezra Pound: Poet as Sculptor (1964), Donald Davie makes an interest ing defense of Pound's character-splitting (which is worth remember- As for his [Pound's] contention that no Chinese can read Chinese characters without being aware of how they are built up out of pictorial metaphors, most authorities now appear to disagree with him. It is in any case scmething that can be neither proven nor disproven. Just as most speakers of English use the word "discourse" without being aware of the metaphor of running about concealed in its etymology, so one concedes that a slow-witted Chinese, or a sharp-witted Chinese in a state of fatigue, would not register the pictorial metaphors in the Chinese he was reading. The argument can then be pushed further only by unprof it ably speculating on what is the statistically normal degree of slow-wittedness or exhaustion among Chinese." 7 1 For those of us who constantly overlooked the etymology of the Chinese written characters, Pound's character-splitting made us examine these ^^Donald Davie, Ezra Pound: Poet as Sculptor (New York: Oxford Univ. ing): Press, 1964), p. 192. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 66 characters more carefully in their usage, both as "means of ccnmunica- tion" and as "poetic thought." Realizing that the average American or British reader cannot read a word of Chinese, Pound occasionally gives a word-for-word trans- 72 lation, as he did with Ode 274- in The Confucian Odes, or approximates an ancient Chinese poem as follows: Sun up; work sundown; to rest dig well and drink of the water dig field, eat of the grain ~ Imperial power is? and to us what is it? But, on the whole, Pound seems to feel that even approximation or word- for-word translation of Chinese characters is never a substitute for the Chinese characters themselves, uoncurring with Fenollosa that "in reading Chinese we do not seem to be juggling mental counters, but to 74 be watching things work out their own fate," Pound is content to let the Chinese characters, appended at the end of The Chinese Written 75 Character as a Medium for Poetry, work their own magic and seize the reader's "visual imagination." Attempting to attain "the poetry of 76 reality," Pound relies on the discovery of Fenollosa and turns 72 Ezra Pound, The Confucian Odes (New York: New Directions, 1959), p. 201. Hereafter, the work will be cited as CO. 73TC, p. 245. 74 Fenollosa, p. 9. 75 Fenollosa, pp. 34-35. ^See J. Hillis Miller, Poets of Reality: Six Twentieth-Century Writers (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard Univ. Press, 1965), pp. 1-12. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 67 increasingly to the use of Chinese characters in the Pisan Cantos (1948), Rock-Drill (1955), and Thrones (1959). With his characteris tic dislike of the sonority of Milton and Tennyson, whose richness of sound leads ultimately to a blurring of the image, Pound champions the Chinese written characters for their ability to throw the image (or object) "on to the visual imagination'* and for their concreteness as objects to be seen instead of ideas abstracted frcm reality. Pound's acceptance of the Chinese characters as objects of reality identifies him with his friends, Marianne Moore and William Carlos Williams, both 77 of when are equally concerned with the image and "the thing itself." And what J. Hillis Miller says about William Carlos Williams in Poets of Reality could equally apply to Ezra Pound in his use of the Chinese written characters: Sometimes words are taken as objets trouves. A modem painter makes his collage of bits of newspaper or cigarette packages. Picasso creates a bull's head out of a bicycle seat and handle bars. . . . Nonverbal things cannot be put into poetry, since poems are after all made of words, but words also are ready-made and may be taken out of their contexts and put into a poem just as they are found. . . .'8 Thus, we can see why Pound would lift words and sentences out of the Confucian classics and thrust them into his Cantos (to heighten its visual appeal). In addition to serving the purpose of ching ming (which we have already discussed) and enhancing the visual appeal of 77 The term "the thing itself" came from the title of Wallace Stevens' poem, "Not Ideas about the Thing But the Thing Itself." See Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens (1968), p. 53^. 78Miller, p. 293. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 68 the poems, the Chinese written characters function as the central fo cus of the ideas in an individual canto. For instance, the Chinese character ling ’ Hg is not peripheral to the understanding of Canto 85. Ling, as a written character, is vital to the understanding of not only Canto 85 itself, but also all the subsequent cantos in the Rock-DriT1 section, in which Pound is concerned with the "rock-drill" or the sound foundation of government and the relationship between the ruler and the ruled. If we are permitted to indulge in the Fenollosa-Pound prac tice of character-splitting, we can say that the Chinese character has the visual appeal of $=] plus plus .3L . In other words, the complex character Jf? is a composite of m (rain) + 3 (mouths) + wu The character J&. wu, which meant a medium between gods or spirits and men when Shamanism was practiced in ancient China, can also be translated as a "wizard," "witch," "sorcerer," or ’ 'magician." While we cannot be completely certain about the etymology of the word, we can venture to say that the character ling has something to do with the world of spirits or the spiritual world. Considering the ag ricultural society of ancient China, we see the possibility that a aK wu was called upon to pray to heaven for rain. It is conceivable that the three X 2 "mouths" had something to do with the saying of prayers. The word has no exact correspondence in English. Its meaning in Chinese also varies according to its usage. In the earliest anthology of classical Chinese poetry, the Shih Ching , we encounter such expressions as , and • To translate ling yu as'fepirit rain"is probably too fanciful Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 6S and will only distort the meaning of the particular poem, which has 79 very little to do with divination. Following a Chinese ccnmentary, James Legge, the British Sinologist, translated the word as "good" -|§" and noted that it refers to "the rains of spring."88 Despite his character-splitting, Pound translates ling yu in his Confucian Odes (or The Classic Anthology Defined by Confucius) as "timely rainfall."8' 1 ’ Whereas Legge translated f^. ^ as "when 82 the good rains had fallen," a rather flat and direct statement, Pound gets a little too consciously poetic when he renders the same 83 line as "On timely rainfall in the starlit gloom." However, Pound's "timely" seems to be a more evocative word then Legge's "good," since "timely" conjures up the image of rain falling at the right time or exactly on time (as anticipated). Sometimes James Legge did not even bother to translate. For instance, he merely noted that in the line is "to be referred to the child,"84 namely Hou Chi , whom Ezra 85 Pound calls the Chinese John Barleycorn. On the other hand, Pound 78See the original Chinese ode in James Legge, ed., The Chinese Classics (1871; rpt. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Univ. Press, I960), Vol. IV, pp. 81-83. 80 James Legge, ed., The Chinese Classics, Vol. IV, p. 82. 81C0, p. 23. 82Legge, p. 82. 83CO, p. 23. 84Legge, p. ^67. 85CO, p. 161. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 70 interprets Jfr~ H in the Chinese creation myth "Sheng-min" 86 as "the happy spirit in the child." When we recall the entire myth, in which Hou Chi was at first cast away only to be deified later as the Chinese god of agriculture, we find that Pound is probably justi fied in interpreting JfF as "the happy spirit” in the context of this poem. However, Pound gets too enthusiastic in character-splitting when he translates the same characters as "sensitivity to prognostic" (i.e., of the spirits)87 in the line ✓'SI ^ in a temple ode dedicated to the legendary King of Yin . On the other hand, seeing that it was an ode dedicated to the memory of an ancient Icing, Legge interpreted ^ f f i f in its context as "energy" or 88 "majesty" and translated the entire line as "Brilliant, his energy." Thus we see that the translation of such a Chinese character as JP ling is by no means an easy job. After starting Canto 85, the first of his Rock-Drill Cantos, with the character jjf , Pound interprets the word variously as "a great sensibility" (p. 543), "la vertu fleurit" (p. 551), and a "basis of rule" (p. 552) in order to attain the precise terminology (or ching ming) in English. The first line of Canto 85, which reads as "Our dynasty came in because of a great sensibility" (in which Pound uses the Chinese character j j p c ), has its genesis again in the Shih Ching (Pound's Confucian Odes). We know from the juxtaposition of King Wan (Pound's romanization for 85Ibid. 87C0, p. 223 88. 8Legge, p. 546. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 71 , the founder of the Chou Dynasty, with the line "Our dynasty came in because of a great sensibility" (on p. 551 of The Cantos) that the dynasty referred to is the Chou Dynasty. As a translator of The Confucian Odes, Pound finds King Wan, whan he calls "Wen" in the "greater odes" , a sagacious ruler to be admired: Wen, like a field of grain beneath the sun when all the white wheat moves in unison, coherent, splendid in severity, 89 Sought out the norm and scope of Heaven's Decree. . . . and Untiring Wen that hath untiring fame, such order and such resource by him came to Chou with sons and daughters of Wen, to sons of grandsons and collateral, root, branch, an hundred generations; and all Chou's officers; is it not said: gg such source is as of light a fountainhead? As Confucius selected "above all the great ancestors of the ruling house of the Chou, Kings Wen and Wu and the Duke of Chou, to be his 91 ideals," Pound, the translator of The Confucian Odes, concurs with the Chinese philosopher that "Our dynasty [namely the dynasty of King Wen as well as the favorite dynasty of both Confucius and Pound] came in because of a great sensibility ." Believing that the "great sensibility," as typified by that of King Wen and Confucius, is the foundation or the "rock-drill" needed for every government, Pound uses the Chinese character ling repeatedly in the Rock-Drill and the subsequent cantos. For instance, the character appears four times 89 CO, p. 148. 90tk., Ibid. 91SCT, p. 17. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 72 (on p. 543, p. 551, p. 552, and p. 555) in Canto 85, once in Canto 8 6, once in Canto 97, and twice (p. 738 and p. 740) in Canto 104. Every time the character appears, it is given a slightly different interpre tation by Pound. In addition to Pound’s main interpretation of I^T as ”a great sensibility" (as on p. 543 and p. 555), he also interprets the character as "la vertu fleurit" (on p. 551), a "basis of rule" (on p. 552), the basis of "benevolence" (on p. 675), "semina" (on p. 738), and "the feel of the people" (on p. 560). This last interpretation of as "the feel of the people" is given by Pound in Canto 86 to emphasize Mencius’ ethical teaching that the people have the right to overthrow tyrants and that a king who has "Lost the feel of the people" is no longer entitled to the Mandate of Heaven. While the Mandate of Heaven is a complex idea which "became a major concern of [Chinese] thinkers 92 and one of the key problems of Chinese philosophy," it is summarized in The Sources of Chinese Tradition as follows: . . .Chinese historians have been fully aware of the various economic and social factors which contribute to the weakening and downfall of one dynasty and the rise of an other. Yet they have never until the most recent times abandoned the idea that behind these factors and under lying them is a deeper problem of the moral qualification of a man or a family to rule. A ruler may, like the last king of the Shang, be extremely powerful and astute, but if he is selfish and cruel and oppresses his people, Heaven will cease to aid and protect him or sanction his rule, and he will fail. On the other hand, a state may be comparatively weak and insignificant, as the early leaders of the Chou are traditionally pictured to have been, but if they are wise and benevolent in their ad ministration and care for their people, then all men will flock to their rule and Heaven will aid them to rise to the highest position. Such is the power and 92SCT, p. 7. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 7 3 gravity of the heavenly mandate and the moral obliga- .ies.93 tion which it implies.- Ezra Pound, who believes that "Out of ling ’ fpE / [canes] the benevo lence" (i.e., the benevolence of a sagacious ruler like King Wen of the Chou Dynasty),9 l + apparently subscribes to the theory of the Mandate of Heaven. His Cantos LII-LXXI (1940) may be viewed as an ,e x - _ emplification of the Mandate of Heaven principle in Chinese as well as early American history. (For instance, he regards John Adams, the second President of the United States, as a moral ruler in the Confu cian tradition of "wise and benevolent" administrators.) Pound's use of the Chinese character in his highly politi cal cantos, such as the Rock-Drin, fulfills at least two different purposes. First, the recurrence of ^ ling serves to remind the reader that it is the leitmotif of these Cantos. Secondly, the char acter functions as the central image or "vortex" around which lesser images revolve. In other words, Pound's unfolding of ling as "a great sensibility," "la vertu fleurit," and a "basis of rule" in Canto 85 and as "the feel of the people" in Canto 86 demonstrates a succession of ideas emanating from a single written character. As Pound considers each Chinese character to be a "poetic thought [which] works by sug- 95 gestion. . .pregnant, charged, and luminous from within," he shews us through the usage of the character ling how a Chinese word un folds as a series of ideas in action. Here we are again reminded of 93Ibid. 94C0, p. 675. qq Fenollosa, p. 28. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 74 the statement in The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry that "like Nature, the Chinese wards are alive and plastic, because thing and action are not formally separated." In our discussion of Pound's Ideogrammic Method, we have shewn that Pound uses the Chinese characters in The Cantos for three main purposes: ( 1 ) to furnish the correct term for the nuances of meaning and the ramifications "of morale and of morals": (2) to appeal to the visual imagination of the reader; and (3) to serve as the central image or "vortex" around which lesser images revolve. Considering that the Chinese written characters in The Cantos could furnish the correct term (or ching ming), could appeal to the visual imagination (i.e., phano- poeia), and could serve as the focus of recurring ideas or images, we cannot— like some students who failed to follow the poetic development of Ezra Pound— accuse him of obscurity or of making unfamiliar allu sions to a "difficult language." For the readers who are unfamiliar with the Chinese language have the added advantage of not only being surprised by the Chinese written characters but also being introduced to new words, words which have not became hackneyed or dull through continuous abuse. The Chinese written characters lifted from the Con fucian classics and projected into The Cantos are (to use an expression of William Carlos Williams) a "new minting of the words" without which OC "we are actually sunk."', u For Pound, like his friend Williams, real izes that "qu'ils veillerent a la purete du langage/ ... on n'employ- at que des ternes propres." And as the Chinese written characters, ^William Carlos Williams, Selected Essays (New York: Randcsn House, 1954), p. 163. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 75 being unfamiliar to a majority of American (or British) readers, are not outworn through continuous abuse or careless usage, each could 97 stand by itself as "tensile light" and contribute to "a regeneration 98 of . . . clear thinking and feeling." Having appropriated Confucius1 b s i r (jih jih hsin) for his own motto, Pound is obviously rely ing on the Chinese written characters to "make it [The Cantos] new." Ezra Pound subscribes to the conviction that "Poetry differs frcsn prose in the concrete colors of its diction. It is not enough for it to furnish a meaning to philosophers. It must appeal to emotions with the charm of direct impression, flashing through regions where 99 the intellect can only grope." In this light, we can see why Pound juxtaposes ordinary English words with Chinese written characters. Be cause these expressions in the Chinese written characters have not de generated into banalities and cliches in English-speaking countries, Pound relies on them as the cornerstone of his poetics when he forges ahead in The Cantos. From Image to Image While we are concerned with the effect of Chinese poetry on Pound's poetics, we will examine the relationship between Pound's orig inal poetry and only a few Chinese poems in this section. This is be cause much has been written— and explored very thoroughly— about "Tensile light" is represented by the Chinese ideogram hsien in The Cantos, p. 429. ^®Used by William Carlos Williams in his essay, "A 1 Pound Stein." See Selected Essays of William Carlos Williams, p. 164. ^Fenollosa, p. 21. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 76 Pound’ s relationship with classical Chinese poetry. In addition to L. S. Dembo’ s The Confucian Odes of Ezra Pound and Wai-lim Yip's Ezra Pound's Cathay, we only need to mention such articles as Hugh Gordon Porteus' "Ezra Pound and His Chinese Character: A Radical Examination" (1950)^^ and William McNaughton's "Ezra Pound's Meters and Rhythms" (1963),Comparisons of Pound's translations from the Chinese with other translations have also been made in A. C. Graham's introduction to his Poems of the Late T'ang (1965)102 and William J. Meyer's ar ticle "The Imagist and the Translator: Ezra Pound's 'Separation on the T no River Xiang'" (1970).“ The general consensus among these critics is that Pound is a skillful poetic re-creator rather than an orthodox translator (such as Bernhard Karlgren or Herbert A. Giles). However, the majority of Pound critics do not examine the difference between Pound's pre-1913 poetry and his post-1913 poetry. In using 1913 as a dateline, we are obviously referring to Pound's first exposure to Fen- ollosa's Chinese manuscripts. For in a letter dated December 19, 1913, Pound wrote to his friend William Carlos Williams, telling him that: 100 See Peter Russell, ed., Ezra Pound: A Collection of Essays to Be Presented to Ezra Pound on His 65th Birthday (London: Peter Nevill, 1950), pp. 203-217. 1 0 1 P M L A , L X X V I I I ( M a r c h , 1 9 6 3 ) , p p . 1 3 6 - 1 1 + 6 . 102 A. C. Graham, Poems of the Late T'ang (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1965), pp. 31-36. * r r > - ■ > ~ LU°Sou'wester Literary Quarterly, "Ezra Pound Birthday Issue" (Oct. 30, 1970), pp. 72-80. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 77 I am very placid and happy and busy. Dorothy [Pound's wife] is learning Chinese. I've all old Fenollosa's treasures in mss.^ This letter gave Pound’ s first mention of the Fenollosa manuscripts, which included The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry as well as those Chinese poems which were later translated by Pound in his Cathay (1915). If we compare some of Pound's pre-1913 poems with his post-1913 poems, we will immediately notice a change in Pound’s poetics. This radical change or growth in Pound's poetics can be illustrated by a comparison of one of Pound's Chinese imitations in Lustra (1916) with "The Tree," which came out of his A Lume Spento (1908). The other three Chinese imitations, "Fan-Piece for Her Imperial Lord," "Liu Ch'e," and "After Ch'u Yuan" all appeared, along with "Ts'ai Chi'h" [sic], in the February, 1914 issue of the little magazine, The Glebe. While the origins of the first three have been traced back to Herbert A. Giles' A History of Chinese Literature, the "Ts'ai Chi'h" poem has been left unidentified. Although K. K. Ruthven cannot trace "Ts'ai Chi'h" to any one particular Chinese poem, he states in A Guide to Ezra Pound's Personae that: There are curious parallels in imagery and phrasing between this poem and one of Pound's remarks on Reny de Gourmont's "sense of beauty": "The mist clings to the lacquer. His spirit was 104 Paige, p. 27. The letter is numbered 31. "^See K. K. Ruthven, A Guide to Ezra Pound's Personae (1926) (Berke ley: Univ. of Calif. Press, 1969), pp. 68-69, p. 168, and p. 31. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 78 the spirit of Qmakitsu; his pays natal was near to n- the peach-blossan-fountain of the untranslatable poem." Pound's reference to Qmakitsu and "the peach-blossan-fountain of the untranslatable poem" gives us the clue that the unidentified Chinese poem is obviously Wang Wei's "T'ao Yuan Hsing" >$• 1*3" a poem which is highly Taoist in its sensibility. The reasons are: (1) Qmakitsu is the Japanese reading of Wang Wei's name and (2) "the peach-blossan-fountain" is a generally accepted English translation for 7%\ .108 por those of us who are famildar with Wang Wei's poetry, we find "T'ao Yuan Hsing" to be an extremely difficult poem to translate, if not "untranslatable" (according to Pound). Pound's three-line poem, "The petals fall in the fountain, / the orange- colored rose-leaves, / Their ochre clings to the stone" is probably an attempt to capture the spirit and the color-scheme of the Chinese poem, whose first stanza reads as follows: fishing boat follow(s) water love(s) mountain spring ^ ^ $ 6 £ j & both shores peach blosscsns embrace ancient quay 106 Ruthven, p. 242. ^^See the original Chinese poem in 7^- Wang Mo-chieh Chi (Shanghai-^--Sao-yeh -Shan-fang tU ■ > 1930), Section 3 J E _ , pp. 5-6. "^See, for instance, Herbert A. Giles' rendition of /$■> as "Peach-blosson Fountain" in A History of Chinese Literature (New York: D. Appleton S Co., 1909), p. 130 and Cyril Birch's rendition of as "Peach Blosson Spring" in Anthology of Chinese Literature (New York: Grove Press, 1965), p. 167. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 79 Jf T ' 3 % sit watch red tree(s) not knew (hew) far fir it" >-$z /§' / ii- ^ travel finish green creek suddenly meet human Here, we may note that Wang Wei was not only an outstanding poet but also one of China's most notable painters. He was hailed by Su Shih (1036-1101), the renowned Sung poet and calligrapher, as "having painting in his poetry and poetry in his painting” . Imbued with Buddhism and Taoism, his paintings and poetry are characterized by quietude and spiritual tranquility. As a master painter, Wang Wei had a keen eye for colors and dimensions. For instance, in the lines we quoted, we cannot but notice the contrast of the red trees with the green creek Nor can we overlook the blending of the small fishing boat with the water and the mountain or that of the lonely ancient quay with the peach blossoms of the two shores. With such an eye for details, Wang Wei made his poetry quiver with life. And in this particular poem, "T'ao Yuan Hsing," he paints with vivid words the Taoist vision of a utopia. But the poem poses special problems to a non-Chinese reader. For, in order to ap preciate the poem fully, he must know that Wang Wei's poem is based upon T'ao Ch’ien’s "T'ao hua yuan chi" frit*. That Ezra Pound was exposed to the poetry of Wang Wei can be verified by at least two facts. First, we find a short untitled poem in his Cathay which serves as an epigraph to three of Li Po's "poems 109 of departure." This untitled poem is attributed by Pound to "Rihaku 1C^Ezra Pound, Personae (New York: New Directions, 1926), p. 137. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 80 or Qmakitsu." As Ctaakitsu is the Japanese pronunciation of Wang Wei's name and as the untitled poem is actually Wang Wei's "Wei City Song" (which we will discuss later in the chapter on Gary Sny der) , we knew that Pound must have chosen the poem frcm the Fenollosa manuscripts. It is worth noting that Fenollosa, having studied Chi nese poetry under Professors Mori and Ariga (two Japanese Sinologists), learned to pronounce Li Po as Rihaku and Wang Wei as Qmakitsu, accord ing to the Japanese way. The second fact that verifies Pound's ex posure to Wang Wei is his letter to Iris Barry in which Pound stated that "I have spent the day with Wang Mei [sic], eighth century Jules Laforgue Chinois.This statement is comparable to the one he made in a letter to Kate Buss, for he concluded his brief discussion of Chi nese translations by claiming that "Qmahitsu [sic] is the real modem — even Parisian— of VIII cent. China.Although in both of these letters Pound spelt Wang Wei's name incorrectly, we must bear in mind that the Anglicization of Chinese names presents a serious problem even 112 to Sinologists. 11^Paige, p. 93. The letter is dated Aug. 24, 1916. "^Paige, p. 101. The letter is dated Jan. 4, 1917. 112 There are manv different systems of Romanization used by Sinologists. The character , as in Chou Dynasty, has been rendered as chou by Pinyin, cs'ou by Legeti, tch'eou by Julien and Weiger, ch'ou by Mateer, ch'eu by wi11 jams, cz'ou by Kotwicz, ch'cw by Morrison and Mayers, t'cheou by Zottoli, cheo by Leaman, and tsch'ou by Stange. See Iren- eus L&szlo Legeza, Guide to Transliterated Chinese in the Modem Peking Dialect, Vol. II (Leiden, Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1969), pp. 46-47. As for those who Anglicize Chinese characters, Legge, Giles, and Karl- gren use three different systems. For instance, The Book of Poetry ft (or Pound's Confucian Odes) is transliterated by Legge as Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 81 In comparing Pound's "Ts'ai Chi'h" with Wang Wei's "T'ao Yuan Hsing," we find only a similarity in the color scheme. For instance, "the orange-colored rose-leaves" in Pound's poem evoke comparison with the scattered leaves of the "red tree(s)" m in Wang Wei's poem. For a reader familiar with Wang Wei's poem, it is conceivable that Pound's "The petals fall in the fountain, / the orange-coloured rose-leaves, / Their ochre clings to the stone" might be based on such a line as: fib tb jK- spring comes everywhere is peach blossom fountain Unlike the Sinologists, Pound did not make a translation of Wang Wei's poem, because he found it "untranslatable." His contempt for such translators as Soames Jennings and Herbert A. Giles is evident in a letter to Kate Buss dated January 4, 1917. In this letter, he told Kate Buss that if she would canpare his own English versions of Chinese poetry with those of Jennings or Giles, she would be "able to gauge the amount of effect the celestial Chinese has on the osseous head of an 113 imbecile or a philologist." Regarding his cwn versions, Pound said that "[only] the subject is Chinese, the language of the translations is mine— I think. "•^ In this light, we see that Pound's "Ts'ai Chi'h" poem is an original American poem re-created in the Chinese mode. But She King, by Giles as Shih Ching, and by Karlgren as Shi King. Pound, who is not a Sinologist, is apparently baffled by the different systems and transliterates Chinese characters without any consistent principle. 113 . Paige, p. 101. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 82 Wang Wei’s "T’ ao Yuan Hsing" served as a catalyst of Pound's re creation. However, Pound's Chinese imitations (or re-creations in the Chinese node) seem to bring out seme of the best qualities in his writ ing. We can illustrate tiiis point by comparing "Ts'ai Chi'h" with "The Tree," one of Pound's pre-1913 poems. Examining "Ts'ai Chi'h" (19110 along with "The Tree" (1908), we are immediately jolted by their differences in style and diction. First of all, the diction of "The Tree," with its use of "’ Twas," "unto the hearth of . . . heme," and "wonder thing" is archaic as compared with the ease of "The petals fall in the fountain" and "Their ochre clings to the stone." It would have been far more natural for a modem reader to say "That they might do this wonderful thing." Secondly, while "the hearth of their heart's heme" is an interesting metaphor and has a pleasant sound because of the alliteration of "h"s, it is hardly as concrete an image as "The petals fall in the fountain" or "Their ochre clings to the stone," nor as vivid in detail as "the orange-coloured rose-leaves." Thirdly, the "Ts'ai Chi'h" poem deals with the immediacy of the present in contrast to the preoccupation with the mystic past in "The Tree" (as typified by such lines as "Of Daphne and the laurel bow / And that god-feasting couple old / That grew elm-oak amid the wold"). Fourthly, while "Ts'ai Chi'h" relies heavily on the precise verbs "fall" and "cling," "The Tree" is full of "has been," "was," and "had been" (three different forms of the copula "to be"). Here we may pause to recall Fenollosa- Pound's praise of the Chinese verbs: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 83 The beauty of the Chinese verbs is that they are all transitive or intransitive at pleasure. There is no such thing as a naturally intransitive verb. The passive form is evidently a correlative sentence, which turns about and makes the object into a subject. That the object is not in itself passive, but contributes some positive force of its own to the action, is in harmony both with scientific law and with ordinary experience. The English passive voice with 'is' seemed at first an obstacle to this hypothesis, but one suspected that the true form was a generalized transitive verb meaning something like "re ceive," which had degenerated into an auxiliary. It was a delight to find this the case in Chinese. In comparing "Ts’ ai Chi’ h" with "The Tree," we find the former to be a far more vivid poem, because of its natural idiom, its con crete imagery, and its reliance on precise verbs. On the other hand, "The Tree," with its dependency on the passive voice as in ". . . the gods had been / Kindly entreated, and been brought within," gives us a feeling of circumlocution, especially when these lines are used in con junction with "Unto the hearth of their heart's home," an expression which is more reminiscent of the poetry of the 1890’s than of the twentieth century. In fact, the vocabulary of "The Tree," which in cludes "wold," "entreated," "hearth," "wonder thing" and "rank folly," makes the poem sound more like Arthur Symons’ "Modem Beauty,” which Pound has selected in his Profile: An Anthology Collected in MCMXXXI as a representative work of the 1890’s, than Pound’s "Ts'ai Chi'h" or "In a Station of the Metro." For instance, both "The Tree" and "Modem Poetry" abound with conscious poeticism, as typified by Symons' ". . . time has been / My breath upon the glass" and "Age after age, ^^Fenollosa, p. 14. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 84 in rapture and despair, / Loves poor few words, before my image there"-^® and Pound's '"Twas not until the gods had been / Kindly en treated. . . That they might do this wonder thing" and "Nathless I have been a tree amid the wood / And many a new thing understood / That was rank folly to my head before." This conscious poeticism is not only characterized by the vocabulary and diction, but also by a mental out look of the poet-aesthete who, as in Pound's "The Tree," "stood still . . . amid the wood," and was transformed into a tree, upon whan dawned the consciousness of "things unseen before." Regarding the poet as clairvoyant, as scmeone who has a perception of reality above the or dinary, was characteristic of the fin de siecle, a period typified by "art-for-art' s-sake". Implicit in the attitude is a disdain for the mundane and an aesthetic snobbery that places the artist above the masses. The result is the creation of an art of the ivory tower, as found in the early poetry of Yeats, his "Celtic twilight" phase. Whereas the young Pound, when he first went to England, claimed Yeats as the best poet living in that country, the more mature Pound, after the impact of Cathay and The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry, set out not only to modernize his cwn vocabulary and rely more on visual details but also to rewrite and renovate seme of Yeats' cwn poems. The directness of diction and strong visual appeal of "Ts'ai Chi'h" bear witness to the growth of Pound as a poetic craftsman. There is not a hollow word or a false note in the three lines: "The ■^Ezra Pound, ed., Profile: An Anthology Collected in MCMXXXI (Milan: John Scheiwiller, 1932), p. 14. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 8 5 petals fall in the fountain, / the orange-coloured rose-leaves, / Their ochre clings to the stone." Furthermore, while softness is suggested in the gentle motion of the petals falling into the fountain, the verb "clings," used in connection with the color of "the orange-coloured rose-leaves," brings to mind a tenacity, a strength hitherto unrealized in the fallen blossccns. The vividness of detail is augmented by the contrast of the soft and fallen rose-leaves with the surface of the hard stone of the fountain. We could almost feel the texture and mo tion when the soft petals strike the rough stone in their fall and when the color holds on unyielding to the hard stone. Thus, we find that every detail counts and every word is precisely chosen in "Ts’ ai Chi’ h." On the other hand, "Of Daphne and the laurel bow / And that god-feasting couple old" strike us as mythic allusions and poetic trappings that have prevailed in English poetry at least since Chaucer, Shakespeare,and Milton. We might wonder if "Daphne and the laurel bow" is a poetic cliche that blurs rather than sharpens the imagery of the entire poem. In short, the difference between "Ts’ ai Chi’ h" and "The Tree" is more than a difference in length or form. It is basically what such critics as Glenn Hughes and Stanley K. Coffman, Jr. call a revolution in sensibility following the impact of The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry. The "Ts’ ai Chi'h" poem illustrates Ezra Pound's development from a conventional Anglo-American poet in the manner of the 1890's into a full-fledged Imagist. For, in writing the poem, he fulfilled all three principles of his Imagist manifesto. We may recall that these principles are: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 86 1. Direct treatment of the "thing," whether subjective or objective. 2. To use absolutely no word that did not contribute to the presentation. 3. As regarding rhythm: to compose in sequence of the musical phrase, not in sequence of a metronome. Pound's subsequent poetry after the impact of Fenollosa’ s The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry as well as the manu scripts of Chinese poetry all tends to be in the Imagist mode. At least, the best of his poems all fit the Imagist principles. Such a poem as "The Jewel Stairs' Grievance," which appeared in Cathay in 1915, is a clear cut above " Cor "Doria"), another technically competent poem which appeared in Ripostes in 1912. As the subject of both poems is about a woman, and especially a lady of seme class, they are worth comparing. While we know that "The Jewel Stairs' Grievance" is based upon Li Po' s yueh fu ( ) "Yu Chiai Yuan" 'o '* , " is a poem in the Greek— or specifically Dorian— mode. The original Chinese version of Pound's "The Jewel Stairs' Grievance" reads as follows: The poem can be rendered into English word-for-word as: jade steps grow white dew night late filter(s)-(through) silk stockings Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 87 but lower(s) crystal blind (or curtains) glass-clear watch autumn moon Based upon Fenollosa*s crib, which is similar to the one above, Pound translated this Li Po poem into: The jewelled steps are already quite white with dew, It is so late that dew soaks ny gauze stockings, And I let dcwn the crystal curtain _ And watch the moon through the clear autumn. Comparing the word-for-word translation with Pound's version, we real ize how effectively Pound has re-created Li Po*s poem. While experi enced Sinologists failed to convey the essence of the poem through methodical reconstruction of the original Chinese, Pound succeeded in capturing its mood through carefully chosen words. Here, again, a Chinese poem — in this case, Li Po's "Yu Chiai Yuan" served as a cata lyst of Pound's "Jewel Stairs' Grievance." Contrasting "The Jewel Stairs' Grievance" (1915) with " (1912), we immediately notice that Pound's poem in the Chinese manner 118 surpasses the other "in the concrete colors of its diction.” For instance, we can clearly visualize the "jewelled steps white with dew," the soaked "gauze stockings," "the crystal curtain," and the light of the moon. But in the "A&pib. " poem, we can hardly visualize "the eternal moods," "transient things," and "the strong loneliness" as in such lines: 117 Personae, p. 132. "^Fenollosa, p. 21. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 88 Be in me as the eternal moods of the bleak wind, and not as transient things are — gaiety or flowers. Have me in the strong loneliness of sunless cliffs And of grey waters . . .HSJ ✓ Though both "AjOPI<L " and The Jewel Stairs’ Grievance” convey a mood of loneliness, the former spells out "the strong loneliness,” whereas the latter evokes the feeling through subtle suggestion. In "The Jewel Stairs’ Grievance," the loneliness is, of course, suggested through the understatement of "And I let down the crystal curtain / And watch the moon through the clear autumn." Fearing that a careless reader may miss the point, Found adds the following footnote to the poem: Jewel stairs, therefore a palace. Grievance, therefore there is something to complain of. Gauze stocking, therefore a court lady, not a servant who complains, dear autumn, therefore he has no excuse on account of weather. Also she has oome early, for the dew has not merely whitened the stairs, but has soaked her stockings. The poem is especially prized because she utters no direct reproach. ^ 0 But, even without this footnote, "The Jewel Stairs’ Grievance" speaks / more forcefully to us than "Aa^/4. This is because of three reasons. First of all; the phanopoeia of the Chinese poem surpasses that of the Dorian poem. Secondly, such adjectives as "eternal" and "transient" and such diction as "Be in me as the eternal moods" and "Have me in the strong loneliness" are absent in "The Jewel Stairs' Grievance." And, thirdly, while "Aedfl" is dominated by such pale and colorless verbs n q Personae, p. 67. 120 Personae, p. 132. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 89 as "be," "are," and "have," "The Jewel Stairs' Grievance" depends on more active verbs, such as "soaks," "let-down," and "watch." Here again we are reminded of the statement (already quoted) in The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry that: Poetry differs from prose in the concrete colors of its diction. It is not enough for it to furnish a meaning to philosophers. It must appeal to emotions with the charm of direct impression, flashing through regions where the intellect can only grope. In Pound's rendition of "The Jewel Stairs' Grievance," he has certain ly followed the Fenollosa principle that: In translating Chinese especially, we must hold as closely as possible to the concrete force of the original, eschewing adjectives, nouns and intransitive forms wherever we can, and seeking instead strong and individual verbs [italics my ownj.-^l Thus, we see, Pound's Chinese "translations," or rather his imitations, always bring out the best qualities in his writing. Pound's "transla tions" in Cathay and the best of his writing in The Cantos all fulfill the three Imagist principles. Indeed, we only need to turn to such lines as the following to see the "concrete colors" of their diction: The gulls broad out their wings, nipping between the splay feathers; Snipe cane for their bath, bend out their wing-joints, Spread wet wings to the sun-film [from Canto II] and ... in the water, the almond-white swimmers, The silvery water glazes the upturned nipple [frcm Canto III] ^■^Tenollosa, pp. 15-16. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 90 and the doe, the young spotted deer, leap up through the brocra-plants, as dry leaf amid yellow. "In the gloom the gold Gathers the light about it" . . . Sunset like the grasshopper flying [all from Canto XVH] and . . . the small stars new fall from the olive branch, Forked shadow falls dark on the terrace More black than the floating martin that has no care for your presence, His wing-print is black on the roof tiles And the print is gone with his cry [from Canto XLVII] All these lines quoted above testify that some of the best writing in The Cantos is Imagist in principle. And the Imagist principles in practice are shown not in Pound's pre-1913 poetry, but in his post- 1913 poetry. Whereas we cannot discount the influence especially of Dante, Gautier, and Flaubert on Pound in his search for a new poetics to replace the outworn English poetic tradition, we can see that Pound found further grounds for revolutionizing his own poetics based upon Chinese aesthetic principles, after he received the Fenollosa manu scripts, including the Chinese poems, in 1913. Though the Chinese poems merely served as catalysts in Pound's poetic development, without them he might have been much slower in overhauling himself. For in stance, he could have never written the following lines in The Cantos without his discovery of Chinese aesthetics: The reeds are heavy; bent; and the bamboos speak as if weeping. and Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 91 Wild geese swoop to the sand-bar, Clouds gather about the hold of the window Broad water; geese line out with the autumn Rooks clatter over the fisherman's lanthoms, A light moves on the north sky line; Where the young boys prod stones for shrimp. [from Canto XLDG and . . . olive tree blown white in the wind Washed in the Kiang and Han What whiteness will you add to this whiteness, what candor? [frcrn Canto LXXIV3 and f f r r w l 1 birds sv'g in chorus. Harmony is in the proportion of branches [frcm Canto 993 However, Pound's discovery of Chinese aesthetics did not lead him to forsake entirely his pre-Imagist practice. To point out the residue of his early English diction, we need only to cite such lines as: If the hoar frost grip thy tent, Thou wilt give thanks when night is spent. [from Canto LXXXTV3 and Tudor indeed is gone and every rose, Blood-red, blanch-white that in the sunset glows Cries: "Blood, Blood, Blood!" against the gothic stone Of England, as the Howard or Boleyn knows. [frcm Canto LXXX3 and Yet Ere the season died a-cold Borne upon a zephyr's shoulder I rose through the axreate sky Lawes and Jenkyns guard thy rest Dolmetsch ever be thy guest [from Canto LXXXI] Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 92 Despite these examples of Pound's pre-Imagist practice (which are ex ceptions rather than the rule), the Cantos can be viewed as a series of images, on the whole strikingly concrete and colorful in diction. In The Edge of the Image (1967), A. Kingsley Weatherhead intro duces the Poundian term "periplum" to discuss the imagery in Marianne Moore's poetry. In his discussion, Weatherhead defines a "periplum" as "a voyage of discovery which gives not a bird's-eye view but a 122 series of images linked by the act of voyaging." The origin of "periplum" which means "circumnavigation" in Greek, can be traced back to Canto LIX, in which Pound himself defines the word as: not as land looks on a map ^ 3 but as sea bord [sic] seen by men sailing. That the word "periplum" is important to Pound is verified by the fact that it appears again in The Pisan Cantos. For instance, it reappears five times in Canto 74, once in Canto 76, twice in Canto 77, and once more in Canto 82. Through his repetition of the word "periplum," Pound is reminding his reader that The Cantos itself is a "periplum." As Pound defines an image as "an intellectual and emotional complex in 124 an instant of time," he apparently considers the Chinese ideograms to be images. For instance, he points out in the ABC of Reading that: Gaudier Brzeska [his sculptor friend], who was accustomed to looking at the real shape of things, could read a certain amount of Chinese writing without 122 A. Kingsley Weatherhead, The Edge of the Image (Seattle & London: Univ. of Washington Press, 1967), p. 69. 12aTC, p. 324. 12U T. S. Eliot, ed., Literary Essays of Ezra Pound (New York: New Directions, 1954), p. 4. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 93 ANY STUDY. He said, 'Of course, you can see it's a horse' (or a wing or whatever). In tables shewing primitive Chinese characters in one column and the present ' conventionalized' signs in another, anyone can see how the ideogram for man or tree or sunrise developed, or 'was simplified from', or was reduced to the essentials of the first picture of man, tree or sunrise. Thus man tree 0 sun sun tangled in the tree's branches as,25 ^ at sunrise, meaning now the East. Thus, according to Pound's concept of the Chinese written characters, an ideogram is basically "a series of images linked by the act of [the] voyaging [mind]." And Pound's compass for his voyage or his spiritual odyssey in The Cantos is precisely— if we may use an analogy— the Con- fucian ideology of ching ming as understood and interpreted by him. Moving fran image to image, from one Chinese character to another, Pound is guided in his voyage "over dark seas" by Confucius’ ideology. While Pound does not actually use Confucius as a guide to lead him out of his Inferno and Purgatorio (as Dante uses Virgil in the Divina Cam- roedia), he never fails to keep the compass of ching ming in sight. In this way, we may say that The Cantos in its entirety can be viewed as a "periplum" (Greek: Ttpiirbovs) guided by the compass of ching ming. When Pound attempts to move out from his Purgatorio (i.e., his Pisan Cantos) into his Paradiso (his Rock-Drill and succeeding cantos), he finds that he not only needs the ideology of ching ming, but also 125ABC, p. 21. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 126 "the branch of Kuanon." Kuanon, better known to the Chinese as Kuan-yin , is the Buddhist goddess of mercy out of Chinese mythology. To understand the role that Kuan-yin plays in Pound's "periplum," let us turn to an examination of Pound's relationship with Chinese nythology. In our examination of Pound's use of Chinese nythology, we will not attempt to look at every Chinese symbol or myth that appears in The Cantos. Instead, we will focus on the main symbols or myths that con tribute to Pound's "periplum." We may define these symbols or myths that contribute to Pound's "periplum" as Cl) what serve as his guides or ciceroni in his voyage or (2) what facilitate the completion of his spiritual odyssey. Whereas the Confucianism of Ezra Found has been dealt with ex tensively by Clark Emery, Hugh Kenner, and L. S. Dembo, Pound's employ ment of Chinese myths and symbols has been overlooked by his American and British critics. Myth, of course, plays an important role in Pound's Hugh Selwin Mauberley and, especially, The Cantos, since both of these poems start with references to Odysseus and Circe. A majority of Pound's myths and symbols are of classical CGreco-Roman) rather than Chinese origin, since such names as "Dionysus," "Apollo," "Daphne," etc. from Hugh Selwin Mauberley and "Perimedes," "Eurylochus," "Pluto," "Tiresias," "Elpenor," "Antidea," etc. from The Cantos came from Homer The Use of Chinese Mythology 126, TC, p. 519. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 9 5 and Ovid instead of Confucius and Mencius. The fact that Pound seldom alludes to or incorporates Chinese myths and symbols in his poetry could be attributed to his lack of familiarity with Chinese nythology, most of which is found in such works as Shan Hai Ching , Fthg Sheh Pang , Shien-hsien Lieh-chuan tf'fa fi -f.$. Mu T'ien Tzu Ch'uan and the writings of Chuang Tzu (c. 369-286 127 B.C.). Virtually all these works— with the exception of Chuang Tzu are little known in Hie West. Considering that scholarship in tradi tional China was almost entirely monopolized by the Confucian literati, we can see why such works as Shan Hai Ching ( The Legends of Mountains and Seas) and Ftng Sheh Pang, considered with traditional Confuciar bias as the scurrilous products of Taoist and Buddhist hacks, would be virtually ignored by Sinologists, who, as a rule, only champion Con fucius and his teaching. Although there is available in English a scholarly work on Chinese nythology compiled by E. T. C. Werner in 128 1922, Ezra Pound (as far as we can determine from his writing and pronouncements) seems to be totally unaware of its existence. Though Ezra Pound has been exposed to Ch’ u Yuan (? 332— ?295 B.C.), whose poetry is a mine of Chinese nythology, he chooses only to take a fragment from Ch'ii Yuan's long poem and renders it as follows: I will walk me to the wood Where the gods walk garlanded in wistaria, [sic] By the silver blue flood 127 See Burton Watson, trans., The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1968). 128 Cited in Introduction to E. T. C. Werner, A Dictionary of Chinese Mythology (1932; rpt. New York: Julian Press, 1961), p. vi. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 96 move others with ivory cars. There come forth many maidens ■to gather grapes for the leopards, my friend, For there are leopards drawing the cars. I will walk in the glade, I will cane out frcm the new thicket -^g and accost the procession of maidens. According to Hugh Witemeyer, Pound's "After Ch'ii Yuan" (quoted above) comes fran "a single passage in [Herbert A.] Giles1 prose rendition of Ch'ii Yuan's 'The Genius of the Mountain. Better known to the Chi nese as ! I Snan Kuei" ik %S , "The Genius of the Mountain" is one sec tion of "Chiu Ko" (or "The Nine Songs"). Arthur Waley, who translated the entire poem as The Nine Songs, has made a scholarly study of the 131 influence of Shamanism on this work. But Pound, unlike Waley, is interested only in Confucianism and is inpatient with Shamanism, Tao ism, or Buddhism, whose practitioners he treats wixn contempt and lumps together as "Hochang, eunuchs, taoists" or "taozers and grafters" or "taozers, hochang and debauchery" in his Chinese Cantos (LII-LXI). In view of Pound's aversion to Taoists and Buddhists which leads him 132 to state that "shit and religion [are] always stinking in concord," we can understand why Pound would be hesitant to rely heavily an Chi nese nythology, which, by and large, is a melange of Taoist, Buddhist, 129 Personae, p. 108. 130 Hugh Witemeyer, The Poetry of Ezra Pound: Forms and Renewal, 1908- 1920 (Berkeley: Univ. of Calif. Press, 1969), pp. 126-127. ^■^See Arthur Waley, Nine Songs: A Study of Shamanism in Ancient China (London: G. Allen S Unwin, 1955). 132TC, p. 306. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 97 and early Shamanist fables. In "After Ch'ii Yiian,” Pound is probably more interested in the parallel between Chinese and Western mythology, since the poem, in Pound's rendition, reminds us of the legend of Pan and the nymphs. The glade, the grapes, "the procession of maidens,” and the "leopards drawing the cars" suggest a Dionysiac revel presided over by Pan. The atmosphere in the poem is such that we could hardly recognize its Chinese origin, if we had not seen its title first. The "leopards" in "After Ch'ii Yiian" appear again in Canto 104, but this time as a Chinese written c h a r a c t e r . 133 Translating pao (leopard or leopards) as "a wild cat," Pound points out that the word is "da radice torbida" (that is, fron unclear root). But Pound intro duced the word for a peculiar purpose— as a pun for the word ^ pao, a homophone, which means "treasure." Although in the Feng Shen Pang, there is a legendary character by the name of Wu Ch'ien, who as the god of the star Pao-wei joined forces with Wu Wang, the founder of the Chou Dynasty, and fought against the tyrant Chou (1154-1121 B.C.), it is doubtful that Pound knows either his name or his role in Chinese nythology. Wu Ch'ien, better known to the Chinese readers as "Pao-wei," which liter ally means "leopard's tail," waged his battles by hurling into space his fa pao, a kind of miniature guided missile comparable to the thunderbolt of Zeus. A Chinese reader familiar with Feng Shen Pang might find it tempting to pun on the homophones pao in Pao-wei and pao ^ in fa pao. It remains a speculation whether Pound's punning 133TC, p. 740. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 98 stenmed from a knowledge of Feng Sheh Pang (which probably fits the Western literary subgenre of science fiction). Despite Pound's aversion to Taoists and Buddhists, we find in Canto CXII, one of his latest cantos, definite references to mythical Chinese names of Taoist and Buddhist origin in these lines: By the pomegranate water, in the clear air over Li Chiang The firm voice amid pine wood, many springs are at the foot of Hsiang Shan By the temple pool, Lung Wang's the clear discourse as Jade stream^ The quoted passage is immediately followed by the Chinese written char acters for "Jade stream" yu ho. While the name Li Chiang is rather obscure, being probably one of the stars or constellations, Hsiang Shan and Lung Wang are well known to readers of Chinese mythology. Hsiang Shan, which literally means "fragrant mountain," is "one of the ten fabulous mountains known to Chinese Bud- 135 dhism." And Lung Wang, which means "dragon king," is the same "god of Rain, and the Ruler of Rivers, Lakes, and Seas" to whom Marianne Moore pays her homage in "The Plumet Basilisks" and "0 To Be a Dragon." In addition to Pound's references to Hsiang Shan and Lung Wang, he also makes use of such Chinese symbols as "the pomegranate water" and "pine wood." Pomegranate, a fruit known for its multiple seeds (or off spring) , is a traditional symbol for fertility in Chinese painting and 134TC, p. 784, ^^Werner, A Dictionary of Chinese Mythology, p. 147. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 99 and poetry. Pine (which we have already discussed in Chapter I) is a symbol for longevity or endurance. In Pound’ s usage, "the pomegranate water" is analogous to the "many springs," "the temple pool," and the "jade stream," all of which suggest the flow of "the clear discourse." On the other hand, the quality of the "firm voice" is brought out by -the "pine wood," "the clear air," and "Hsiang Shan" (the Fragrant or Incense Mountain). The juxtaposition of the water image, as found in "the pomegranate water," "many springs," "the temple pool," and the "Jade stream," and of the mountain image, as found in "pine wood," "the clear air," and "Hsiang Shan" reminds us of the harmony of yin and yang, the female and male principles of life. The natural blend ing of mountain, the archetypal image of the Yang principle, and of water, the archetypal image of the Yin principle, signifies the attain ment of an earthly paradise. And in view of the fact that starting with the Rock-Drill cantos, Pound has attempted, like his poetic mas ter Dante, to enter his "paradiso," we can see why Pound introduces into Canto CXII the vision of a Chinese paradise. And when Pound be comes totally absorbed in attaining his terrestrial paradise, he for gets even his bias against the Taoists and the Buddhists, to whom he is indebted for the vision of the "Jade stream" near Hsiang Shan. With the flexibility of a Lung Wang (the dragon king, who can be "long or short, and also coarse or fine at / pleasure"), Pound mates "the pome granate water" with the "pine wood" and attains "the clear discourse" of the "Jade stream." That Pound is flexible and is willing to make room for Buddhist nythology is revealed earlier in his Pisan Cantos (1948). In these Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 100 cantos (LXXIV-LXXXIV), Pound invokes the name of "Kuanon" on numerous occasions in Cantos 7U. 77, and 81. "Kuanon," known to the Japanese as "Kwannon" and to the Chinese as "Kuan-yin," is the goddess of mercy in Chinese legends. Revered by her worshippers for her infinite compas sion or charity, she is said to have "paused on the threshold to listen 136 to the cry of the world" when "she was about to enter heaven." Ac cording to one Chinese version of the Kuan-yin myth: [She] was the third daughter of . . . [the] ruler of a northern kingdom identified with Chuang Wang | j f c f c . (696-681 B.C.) of the Chou dynasty. Determined to devote herself to the religious life, she absolutely refused to be married, in spite of the commands of her parents and the entreaties of her sisters, friends, atten dants, etc. At length, she obtained her father’s permission to enter the Nunnery of the White Bird • • • Here, by her father’s orders she was put to degrading duties, but without the effect of turning her ffcm her purpose. Her father ordered her to be executed wim xhe sword, but the sword was broken into 1,000 pieces without hurting her. He then ordered her to be stifled, [but] when her soul left the body and went down to hell . . . hell forthwith changed into paradise. To save his hell, Yama [the god of hell] sent her back to life, whereupon she was miraculously transported, cn a lotus flower, to the island of P’ ootoo . . . where she lived for nine years healing disease and saving mariners from shipwreck. Her father having fallen ill, she cut the flesh off her arms and made it into a medicine which saved his life. 137 She was reborn later with a thousand arms and a thousand eyes, which symbolize her infinite mercy and compassion toward mankind. ■^^Werner, p. 225. ^■^Wemer, p. 226. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 101 That Pound would have appropriated "Kuanon" (Kuan Yin) as a major symbol in the Pisan Cantos is, upon close examination, a felici tous choice, for all the ten cantos in the section are bound together by the twin leitmotifs, the role of memory and the quality of mercy. The role of memory shows itself in Pound's remembrance of all his friends and associates in the midst of his personal suffering as well as such lines: nothing matters but the quality of the affection — in the end — that has carved the trace in the mind dove sta memorial 8 The Pisan Cantos, which starts with a recollection of the violent death of Mussolini and his mistress ("Manes! Manes was tanned and stuffed / Thus Ben and la Clara a Milano / by the heels at Milano"), concludes with a reference to Pound's cwn suffering ("If the hoar frost grip thy tent / Thou wilt give thanks when night is spent"). One of the recur rent phrases in these cantos is "dove sta memora" or "dove sta memor- ia," a line full of tenderness which Pound borrowed fron Guido Caval canti's "Donna mi prega." But though memory has partially alleviated the sufferings (such as "The enormous tragedy of the dream in the peas ant's bent / shoulders," the opening lines of the Pisan Cantos), noth ing can be changed except by mercy or charity, as exemplified by the legendary Chinese ruler Shun (c. 2255 B.C.) who "wd / have put the old man, son pere on his shoulders / and gone off to some barren sea- coast."^® x38TC, p. i+57. 139TC, p. 41+2. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 102 The same quality of charity led a black soldier "of the Baluba mask" to make a writing table for Pound— an act considered to be against the regulations of the United States Army which incarcerated Pound in a steel cage.^4® This act of kindness made Pound realize: and the greatest is charity to be found among those who have not observed regulations.^^ For "regulations" or inflexible rules deprive people of their jeh or humanitas, make them automatons which follcw orders and "conquer with armies. Those once blinded by the iron-clad rules lose all perspectives of humanity and fail to see that "there / are / no / righteous / wars."I1 *3 Deprecating those who have no mercy or charity ("woe to them that conquer with armies / and whose only right is their power"), Pound suggests a way to get out of the man-made hell through "the rose in the steel dust."-1 - 44 And having invoked the name of Kuan on, the goddess of mercy, he hopes to , r have passed over Lethe" with a vision of Taishan in sight.Taishan ,the name of a sacred mountain in China, is first introduced in Canto 74 in connection with Shun "the compassionate."^4® Throughout the Pisan Cantos, Taishan 140, TC, p. 434. 141Ibid. 142TC, p. 463. 143 x °TC, p. 483. 144TC, p. 449. 145Ibid. 146 TC, p. 429. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 0 3 loans in the sight of Pound, who was actually imprisoned in a solitary cage near Pisa ("from the death cells in sight of Mt. Taishan @ Pisa"). Here Taishan is a symbol rather than an actuality, for, as a mountain, it is located in the province of Shantung, the birthplace of Confucius, which is certainly a long distance away frcan Pisa, Italy. To the Chi nese, Taishan, which literally means "exalted mountain," is not only the ideal place to watch the sunrise but also "the seat of the God's 11 . n authority." A piece of stone cut frcm the mountain is supposed to helD in resisting evil influences (as indicated by the popular Chinese saying ). The Pisan Cantos, replete with refer ences to the Taishan— such as "How soft the wind under Taishan" in Canto 74, "and the clouds have made a pseudo-Vesuvius / this side of Taishan" in Canto 80, and "there is no base seen under Taishan / but the brightness of * udor" in Canto 83— clearly indicates Pound's as piration to reach the top cf that "exalted mountain" with the aid of the all-merciful Kuanon, and to attain "the light of light [that] is the virtu."-1 - 1 *® Ultimately, Pound hopes to reach "the hall of the forebears" and achieve "the beginning of wonders," when he stands face to face with "the paraclete that was present in Yao, the precision / in Shun the compassionate / in Yu the guider of waters. The men tion of the three legendary rulers of China most venerated by Confucius himself suggests that Pound who was confined in an iron cage in Pisa has been transported to the legendary mountain, a symbol of freedom ^^Wemer, p. 579. 148 TC, p. 429. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 10U from worldly strife, with the aid of "the branch of Kuanon," the only object miraculous enough to "get you offn th' groun."'^ In spite of Pound's professed aversion to Taoists and Bud dhists, his borrowing of Chinese myths and symbols of Taoist and Bud dhist origins identifies him thoroughly with the classical Chinese in spirit, since a mandarin would never find it inconsistent to be a Con- fucian in public life, a Buddhist in private, and a Taoist in his ob servance of nature. Even Confucius, Pound's master, was not rigid in his stance. For instance, when Thseng-sie f t asked Confucius as to which of his disciples "had answered correctly," the master simply said: "They have all answered correctly, / That is to say, each in his nature.In other words, different as the replies of these disciples are— with Tseu-lou -®&~-<the warrior) suggesting that "I would put the defences in order," with Khieu (the potential statesman) saying that he would improve the order of his province, with Tchi (the religious man) preferring "a suitable performance of the ritual," and Tian (the artist) favoring "The old swimming hole, / And the boys flopping off the planks, / Or sitting in the un derbrush playing mandolins"— they have all answered according to their true nature, without pretense or falsification. Having created Confucius in Pound's own vision and having lent the Chinese master Pound's own voice, Pound succeeds miraculously in 150TC, p. 519. 151TC, p. 58. 152 Ibid. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 0 5 grafting Chinese wisdcsn on American speech. And when Pound concludes the canto with the remark that "The blossoms of the apricot / blew from the east to the west, / And I have tried to keep them frcm falling, we are no longer certain whether it is Confucius or Pound speaking. For, whereas virtually all the other statements attributed to Kung in Canto XIII can be traced back to one source, Book XI, Chapter 25 of the Confucian Analects, the last reference to "The blosscms of the apricot" is not to be found there. In the light of the fact that Pound also associates Kung with "the bo leaves,"-^4 a probable reference to the bodhi tree under which the Buddha attained satori (or illumination), we wonder if the last statement in the Canto is invented by Pound him self. But, as the apricot is favored by Chinese painters and poets for its abundant blosscms and as its fruit is considered to be the food of immortals, Pound's conclusion that "I have tried to keep them frcm falling" suggests that the poet honors the blosscms which, through cross-pollination, may "blew from the east [China] to the west [Ameri ca]." And the function of Pound/Confucius is merely to supervise a natural process ("And I have tried to keep them from falling"), so that finally the apricot, an early blossoming plant, will find its natural hone in America as well as China. In other words, Pound seems to be lieve that the torch which illuminated classical China could be relit in modem America in a manner analogous to the cross-pollination of the apricot blosscms. And, convinced that it is his mission to spread the 153 TC, p. 60. 15V , p. 59. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 10 6 apricot blosscms, or the fragrant words of Confucius, Pound walks, along with his Chinese master, "by the dynastic temple," "into the cedar grove," "and then out by the lower river.Here the movement of Pound/Confucius suggests the unrolling of a majestic hanging scroll (kakemono to the Japanese), when the poet-philosopher chooses to pass "the dynastic temple" of ancestral ritual and the cedar wood of his usual walk to reach "the lower river" of humanity. But as Pound has gone "into the cedar grove," the habitual haunt of Confucius, the fragrance of the wood shall always cling to his sleeves and remind him that: "Charity I have had sometimes ... A little light, like a rush- light / to lead back to splendour. "^6 Although seme readers may ob ject to the association of Confucius with "the bo leaves," a more fit ting emblem of the Buddha, Pound has merged the humanitas ‘ f—* of Confucius here with the "charity" (or compassion) ” ' of Kuanon. And toward the end of Pound’s cantos we are left with the vision of "Kuanon, / and the long suavity of her moving, / willow and olive re flected"^^— which suggests the tranquil flew of the "Jade stream" — in sharp contrast to the "wind jamming the tiller," the perilous jour ney of Odysseus/Pound to "the Kimmerian lands" "unpierced ever / With glitter of sun-rays" (in the first canto).Having started his voy age "over dark seas," Pound has managed — through the guidance of Con fucius and Kuanon — to reach "a nice quiet paradise / over the 155TC, p. 59. 155TC, p. 797. 157TC, p. 778. 158TC, p. 3. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 0 7 shambles. Ultimately "nothing counts save Hie quality of the af fection"^-^ and Pound's affection for Confucius and Kuanon lifts him frcm "the halls of hell" through "the cedar grove" onto the suinnit of Taishan. Frcm our discussion of Pound's use of Chinese symbols and myths, we discover that Kuanon (or Kuan-yin) and Taishan function re spectively in The Cantos as Pound's donna angelicata and his vision of Paradiso. In otner words, Kuanon, first introduced in Pound's Purga torio ( The Pisan Cantos), lifts Pound frcm his physical and spiritual suffering (which resulted from his confinement in the cage at Pisa) and carries him to the suinnit of the sacred Taishan. Here we may re call that, in Pound's letter to his father dated April 11, 1927, he described the third section of his Cantos (parallel to Dante's Para diso) as "the 'magic moment' . . . [the] bust thru frcm quotidien into 'divine or permanent world! Gods, etc." Seen in this light, Kuanon serves a role parallel to that of Beatrice in Dante's Divina Ccmmedia. But as Pound's voyage has been steered by the compass of ching ming, a Chinese ideology, he can only reach the top of Taishan, a Chinese paradise, with the aid of a Chinese goddess. And, as "the captain of the Bark of Salvation, Tz'u-hang lo* , the boat which ferries the soul of man across the sea of life and death to . . . the Pure 159TC, p. 796. 160TC, p. 466. 151Paige, p. 210. The letter is numbered 222. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 10 8 Land ... or Lo-t'u ^ Kuanon is the safest guide to the holy mountain of Taishan. We could summarize the role that Chinese mythology plays in Pound's Cantos as follows: Cl) it provides him with seme of the major symbols of his Pisan Cantos and subsequent cantos; (2) it provides a further means of his emerging frcm his Purgatorio into his Paradiso ("bust thru frcm quotidien into 'divine or permanent world"'); (3) it lends him a proper guide and a vision of heaven; (4) it makes the Can tos cohere (despite Pound's admission that "I cannot make it cohere" in Canto CXVI). Furthermore, it makes him forget his Prejudice against Taoists and Buddhists, to whan he is indebted for the Chinese myths and symbols in The Cantos. In his spiritual reconciliation with Tao ists ar.d Buddhists, Pound becomes as syncretic as Wang Wei and Su Shih, two Chinese poets who had no trouble mixing Confucianism with Taoism and Buddhism in their life and writing. As "a strong tendency toward 163 syncretism" characterizes classical Chinese culture, Ezra Pound, through his embrace of Kuanon (the goddess revered both by Taoists and Buddhists), has joined the company of Wang Wei and Su Shih in this syncretic tradition. 162 Werner, p. 226. 153SCT, p. 239. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER III THE SELF-TRANSFORMATION OF GARY SNYDER As a poet. Gary Snyder is highly eclectic in his tradition. In A Biographical Sketch and Descriptive Checklist of Gary Snyder, David Kherdian points out that Snyder, raised in the timber country of Washington and Oregon, was exposed at an early age to the Amerindian lore of the west coast. Being trained in anthropology at Reed College and Indiana University and having lived with the Great Basin Indian tribes, Snyder participated in the Indian peyote cult and their songs and dance. In ny own conversations with him, Snyder repeatedly ex pressed his interest in oral poetry. He seems to be conversant not only with the oral poetry as performed by the Amerindians but also with the tradition of public poetry recitations in China and Japan. By pub lic poetry recitations, we are referring to the long tradition of in toning or declaiming poetry in a large public area, with the partici pation and enthusiastic support of a sizable audience. While very little record has survived of the tradition of intoning poetry publicly in ancient China, we know that the practice., introduced from China to Japan about the time of the T'ang dynasty, is still alive in modern Japan. For instance, the recent booklets issued by the Japanese Kenbu Society — which still carries on the samurai tradi tion of synchronizing poetry with sword-dance or poetry with karate— illustrate that kanshi , the Japanese samurai poems composed 109 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 110 in the classical Chinese meters, should be performed with the accompan iment of music, dance, and the martial arts. To an American accus tomed to reading poetry on a printed page, such an experience is not only exotic but also difficult to imagine. The closest equivalent to this experience for the American audience would be a happening in a theatre or a session of poetry and jazz. But the oral tradition of Chinese poetry or Japanese kanshi as performed in the public surpasses the sight, sound, and motion of any analogous experience in the West. The support of the Chinese and Japanese audience might involve hand- clapping, foot-tapping, or the swaying of their bodies. They might even join in the recitation of the particular poems. When we talk about rhythm in such a public performance, we must refer to the total rhythm, which consists of poetry, dance, the stylized movements of the kendo or karate masters, and the automatic bodily movements of the audience enraptured with the words and magic of the synchronized poet ry. The closest parallel to such a poetic event in the West can be found in the ritual dance and poetry of the Amerindians. bary Snyder, who sees poetry as a kinesthetic experience and who gets his rhythm frcm "the physical work I'm doing and life I’ m leading at any given time,"^ has attempted through his own poetry to synthesize the Anglo-American poetic tradition with the oral traditions of the Amerindians, the Chinese, and the Japanese. We may recall that there was a strong oral tradition in the Homeric epics, in the poesia popolare of the Sicilians, the Tuscans, and the Venetians, and in the " ' ‘ ■See Snyder's own statement on poetics in Donald M. Allen, ed., The New American Poetry, 194-5-1960 (New York: Grove Press, 1960), p. 420. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Ill medieval-Renaissance English and Scottish ballads. But in American poetry, except for the ballads transplanted frcm England, Scotland, and occasionally frcm Ireland, there was virtually no oral tradition to speak of before the advent of Walt Whitman. As Ezra Pound has noted in his ABC of Reading, there are basically three types of melopoeia: 2 poetry to be sung, poetry to be intoned, and poetry to be spoken. Walt Whitman's poetry belongs to the third category. Whitman revolu tionized American poetry, because he attempted to capture the rhythm and nuances of American speech in his poetry. His influence on Ameri can poetry is far-reaching. Virtually no poet who has chosen to write in the American tradition can escape his influence. To detect the Whitmanic handling of the long and supple line, we need only to cite such lines frcm Snyder's "T-2 Tanker Blues": Mind swarming with pictures, cheap magazines, drunk brawls, low books and days at sea; hatred of machinery and money 5 whoring my hands and back to move this military oil— I sat on the boat-deck finally alone: borrowing the oiler's dirty cot, I see the Moon, white wake, black water S a few bright stars. In addition to the Whitmanic influence, Donald Allen's New American Poetry, 1945-1960 mentions the influence of Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams on many contemporary American poets, including ^Ezra Pound, ABC of Reading (1934; rpt. New York: New Directions, 1960), p. 61. In Pound's own words, "There are three kinds of melo poeia, that is, verse made to sing; to chant or intone; and to speak." 3 Gary Snyder, Riprap £ Cold Mountain Poems (San Francisco: Four Seasons Foundation, 1965), p. 33. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 112 Gary Snyder. Pound's insistence on the use of concrete and colorful verbs (as illustrated in The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry) and Williams' concern with the American idiom and "the thing itself" are evinced in Snyder's own poetry. To point out the Pound- Williams influence on Snyder, we need only to refer to such lines as’ I ate the spawned-out salmon I went crazy Covered with ashes Gnawing the girls breasts Marrying wcmen to whales Or dogs, I'm a priest too I raped your wife I'll eat your corpse [frcm Myths and Texts] (Here, we find a preponderance of strong and colorful verbs, such as "covered," "raped," and the two tenses for "eat," not to mention "went crazy" and the participles "gnawing” and "marrying.") and We're on our way nan out of town go hitching down that highway ninety-nine^ [from Six Sections frcm Mountains S Rivers without End] (Here, we see an example of Snyder's use of the American idiom, which, according to Williams, is characterized by the "jagged pattern" of the jazz rhythm, k) ^Gary Snyder, Myths £ Texts (New York: Totem-Corinth, 1960, p. 26. ^Gary Snyder, Six Sections from Mountains and Rivers without End Plus One (San Francisco: Four Seasons Foundation, 1970), p. 10. Hereafter, the work will be cited as SS. C See William Carlos Williams' comment on his own poem about "2 part ridges/ 2 mallard ducks/ a Dungenese crab/ 24 hours out/ of the Pacif ic/ and 2 live-frozen/ trout/ from Denmark" in Section 2 of his Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 1 3 and seventy-five feet hoed rcws equals one hour explaining power steering equals two big crayfish= all the buttermilk you can drink =twelve pounds cauliflower =five cartons greek olives=hitch-hiking from Ogden Utah to Bums Oregon =aspirin, iodine, and bandages =a lay in Naples=beef =lamb ribs =Patna long grain rice, eight pounds equals two kilogram soybeans=a boxwood geisha comb ... ["The Market" from Six Sections frcm Mountains S Rivers without EndJ (Here, we find Snyder's focus on the things, in keeping with Williams' principle of placing emphasis on "the thing itself.") Although Gary Snyder never reveals the names of his favorite poets in the Anglo-American tradition, we knew that he has read both William Butler Yeats and Robert Graves. The following lines frcm Rip rap, his first book, seem to echo Yeats: Thinking about a poem I'll never write. With gut on wood and hide, and plucking thumb, Grope and stutter for the words, invent a tune, In any tongue, this moment one time true Be wine or blood or rhythm drives it through— A leap of words to things and there it stops. Creating empty caves and tools in shops And holy domes, and nothing you can name; The long old chorus blowing underfoot Makes high wild notes of mountains in the sea. On the other hand, Graves' influence on Snyder has probably more to do with Snyder's interest in nythology than in English poetic Paterson: Book Five (New York: New Directions, 1958), n. pag. The passage is quoted by M. L. Rosenthal in his edited book, The William Carlos Williams Reader (New York: New Directions, 1966), p. 100. ^SS, pp. 30-31. g Riprap, p. 28. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 1 4 forms. In a private conversation with me, Snyder once recommended that I read Graves' The Nhite Goddess as one of the best works on nythology. Snyder apparently also has a knowledge of Anglo-Saxon prosody. The stress count and caesura in the poem, "Siwashing it out once in Siuslaw National Forest" (the first of the "Four Poems for Robin") resemble those of Old English poetry: / / / / Ay ni^ht blossoms fell, Shivering on a sheet ^of cardboard Feet stuck in my pack Hands dee£ ip my pockets Barely able to sleep. But as Snyder's place in the Anglo-American poetic tradition is the topic for another dissertation, we shall concentrate in this chapter on Snyder's relationship with Zen, Taoism, and classical Chinese poetry, which make him the most characteristically Chinese of all Amer ican poets despite his white, Protestant, and Nordic family origin. The remaining discussion of Gary Snyder will be divided into five sections. The first section will deal with Snyder's Chinese studies at the University of California, Berkeley, which contributed to his knowledge of Chinese aesthetics and poetics. The second sec tion will demonstrate how Snyder’s knowledge of Chinese and especially of Buddhism helped him in becoming a poetic "medium" of two classical Chinese poets. The third section will examine the rhythm and form of Snyder's original poetry in the light of the Chinese concept of ch'i . The fourth section will be concerned specifically with his ^Gary Snyder, The Back Country, 4th printing (New York: New Direc tions, 1968), p. 45. The spacing of the poem reproduced in this dissertation, which is intended to suggest the placing of the caesura in each line, follows exactly the printed text. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 1 5 Myths and Texts, in which we will discern how the Taoist concept of changes serves as the modus operandi of his long poem in three sec tions. And the last section will attempt to discuss the ch'i of Sny der's poetry in the context of the classical Chinese tradition, SNYDER'S CHINESE STUDIES Of the American poets touched by the classical Chinese tradi tion discussed in this dissertation, Gary Snyder is the only one who formally studied the Chinese language and poetics in a university. The fact that he studied Chinese at the University of California, Berkeley, can be verified through at least three sources: (1) the in formation supplied by Professor Boodberg, a retired professor in U.C.*s Department of Oriental Languages; (2) the publication of one of Gary Snyder's papers along with four of his translations from the Chinese in Volume 5 of the Phi Theta Annual at the University in 19 54-55; and (3) a letter frcm Gary Snyder to this author dated July 26, 1971. Ac cording to Gary Snyder himself, his interest in Chinese poetry can be dated back to his late teens during the years he studied at Reed Col lege. In his own words, he was "feeling for coolness, intuitive sense, and man-in-nature"^ when he read Chinese poetry in translation long before his undertaking a systematic study of Chinese at Berkeley. He found in classical Chinese poetry in translation a sense of the harmony of man and nature "better and to me more accurate than anything in English or Western poetry tradition." Being a dedicated mountain- ■^Gary Snyder, letter to this author dated 12.VII.40069. 40069 refers to Snyder's private "ecological" calendar and means 1969 of the Chris tian calendar. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 1 6 climber, Gary Snyder finds a spiritual affinity with the Chinese land scape poet, Hsieh Ling-yun W M L i S . (385-433). He also admires Wang Wei (701-761) and Yiian ChDi (779-831), both of whom he studied in Professor Ch'en Shih-hsiang's seminars at Berkeley. As Snyder recalled in his letter to the author, "I took I think two seminar courses with Ch'en Shih-hsiang . . . In addition to Chen's courses, Snyder took at least one sem inar under Professor Peter Boodberg. Professor Boodberg believes that Gary Snyder "learned a good deal" about Chinese poetry and poetics "on 12 his own." Bom and raised in Harbin, China, Professor Boodberg is a specialist in Chinese philology, which he taught at Berkeley until his retirement. He adheres to the principle of translating Chinese poetry word for word, very much in the way that Bernhard Karlgren has done with the Shih Ching (or the Book of Songs). Although Gary Snyder differs from Professor Boodberg in his approach toward translating Chinese poetry, he admits that "I got great pleasure working with 13 Karlgren's literal version of the Shih Ching." Gary Snyder recalled distinctly that he "read some poems from the Shih Ching" during his study of Chinese at Berkeley, but he "can't remember if that was in a 14 course with Chen, or with Professor Boodberg." On the other hand, ^"Gary Snyder, letter to this author dated 26.VII.71. 12 Interview with Professor Peter Boodberg in Berkeley, Calif., June 28, 1971. ^Gary Snyder, letter dated 26.VII.71. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 1 7 Professor Boodberg stated that he "saw him [Snyder] often [for] about the two of then had discussed "whether [the] translations of Chinese [poetry] were inspirational or perspirational." In spite of their different views toward the translating of Chinese poetry— with Bood berg championing literal exactness and Snyder advocating poetic free dom— Boodberg found his relationship with Snyder to be "amicable." Professor Boodberg reminisced about having "invited him [Snyder] to lunch a couple of times" and that Snyder had "showed me scroe of his work," including preliminary drafts of his "Han-shan Shih" which, later, appeared in book form as the Cold Mountain Poems. Gary Snyder also "dropped in to [Boodberg*s] office" occasionally and "had a lit tle chat" with the professor. During their conversation, they "used to josh each other a little bit" about their different views toward translating Chinese poetry. But Boodberg met Snyder more often at Professor Chen's house, because Snyder was "quite often at their [the Chens'] house." seminars [he] talked a great deal about early Chinese poems, and was always demonstrating the continuing influence of folk-song [yueh-fu] two years. He further added that in his conversation with Snyder Gary Snyder himself recalled that one course he had taken under Professor Chen "was readings in the 300 T'ang poems ; plus sane poems and discussions from the Ku Shih Yuan ang poems ■^Interview with Professor Peter Boodberg. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 1 8 through history, on various periods of Chinese poetry."^8 And Snyder added that Professor Chen’s demonstration of the continual in fluence of yueh-fu "impressed me," because "I had taken folklore and ballad courses at Reed [College3, and was originally planning to take a Ph. D. in anthropology specializing in Oral Literature." In Gary Snyder: A Bibliographical Sketch and Descriptive Checklist, David ICherdian points out that Snyder graduated fran Reed College with an 17 interdepartmental degree in Anthropology/Literature. He quotes Sny der as saying "My bachelor's thesis was concerned with both areas [anthropology and literature]. I was particularly interested in myth- 18 ology, folklore, and oral literature." His interest in mythology and folklore, including those of China, is best manifested in his Myths and Texts (1960). This book of poetry, containing allusions to such legendary Chinese figures as Yang Kuei Fei, Lao Tsu, and Chao- chou the Zen Master, will be examined in the latter part of this chap ter. The Buddhist Orientation of Snyder's Chinese Translations Although Gary Snyder's Chinese translations are not the main concern of this dissertation, we need to look at some of them to demon strate the oombined influence of classical Chinese poetry and Buddhism on his development as a poet. According to his awn admission, he x°Gaxy Snyder, letter dated 26. VII. 71. 17 David Kherdian, A Biographical Sketch and Descriptive Checklist of Gary Snyder (Berkeley: Oyez, 1965), p. 9. 18Ibid. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 1 9 "found in Chinese poetry (which I discovered at the age of 19) a sens ibility which I could identify with, having an enormous preoccupation with wilderness, mountains (I did much mountaineering then) and nature as an organic, instructive one, ’ Mother Nature’ - S Mother Nature as being at root the same as the western ’ Muse’ - but also a sense for history.While Snyder has never clarified what he means by "a sense for history" in Chinese poetry, his choice of a poem by Wei Ying-wu % $£'$%} (736-2830) and one by Wang Wei 3- (701-761) which he translated in the Phi Theta Annual reveals his sensibility or his feeling of identification with "wilderness, mountains and nature as an organic, instructive one." The poems, "Delivered (or Mailed) to Sec retary Ch'iu on an Autumn Night" #c. % fh- by Wei Ying-wu2 1 ^ and "Deer Park" by Wang Wei,^ were respectively translated as "To a Friend on Autumn Night" and "At Deer Hedge" by Snyder and were included in the fifth volume of the Phi Theta Annual, the papers of the Oriental Languages Honor Society at the University of Califor nia, Berkeley. In a footnote to Gary Snyder’s paper, Chen Shih-hsiang, who was then Snyder’s professor in a Chinese poetry class, disclosed that the poems translated by Snyder had been "taken from the edition used by the class, T’ ang-shih san-pei-shou tu-pen yf 1f s.# ttf (Shanghai: Kuan-i shu-chii , 1940)."22 This text was ^Gary Snyder, letter dated 26.VII.71. ^^T'ang-shih san-pei-shou tu-pen^ ^ ^ ^ Secti-0 1 1 6a ■ f e . - fc_fc.(Shanghai: Kuang-i shu-chu Mj , 1940), p. 1. 2^*ang-shih san-pei-shou tu-pen, II, Section 6a, p. 30. 22 Phi Theta Annual (Papers of the Oriental Languages Honor Society, University of California), Vol. 5 (1954-1955), p. 6. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 120 well-known in China before 194 9 and was widely used by students of Chinese poetry. And in this text, Wang Wei's "Deer Park” r f* j is one of the poems most popular with Chinese students. The poem which reads as follows in the Chinese: dt 'F / f g - 80 A. t£ % 4L » t t - « = - can be rendered word-for-word in English as: empty mountain not see man but hear human talk sound reflected shadow enter deep forest again shine (on) green moss above In Gary Snyder's rendition, the poem reads as the following: Empty, the mountain — not a man, Yet sounds, echoes, as of men talking. Shadows swing into the forest. Swift light flashes 23 On dark moss, above. As we can see from Snyder’s version, the poet has broken the first two lines of the Chinese original into four lines. While the poet leaves ^ Phi Theta Annual, p. 12. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 121 the third line of the Chinese intact, he breaks the fourth line into three separate lines in English. The justification for rearranging the lines in Snyder's English version is found in Snyder's own prose analysis, which immediately follows his translation. In Snyder's prose analysis of the Chinese poem, he claims that: Metrically the poem divides into two halves. The first half has a caesura in each line; it is moving unsurely frcm thought to thought. The second half found its footing and is thrown entirely into the play of light on forest: the metric pattern becomes direct.^ If we examine the original Chinese poem again, we find that Snyder is correct in his observation that "the first half has a cae sura in each line." For reading the original Chinese, we must pause after both "mountain" and "hear" . The first two lines in Chinese are meant to be read as: empty mountain / iiot see man but hear / human talk sound Reading these two lines in the original Chinese in any other way would entirely distort the meaning. Snyder is equally acute in pointing out that "it [the first half] is moving unsurely from thought to thought." For uncertainty is inplied in the choice of such Chinese words as pu y f- and ran , which mean "not" and "but" (or "yet") in English respectively. Furthermore, the combination of "empty mountain" sU , "no man seen" % A — , "sound of human voice" strikes us as being rather puzzling. We are uncertain about the human voice heard in the empty mountain, when not a man is seen. The "empty Phi Theta Annual, pp. 12-13. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 122 mountain" 'S. M in the first line suggests distinctly that there is no p - i i . man or men present, but the 'Tuonan voice"ref seems to contradict the sense of the previous line, since it implies that there might be people around after all. So far, the poem does not seem to make much sense in a logical way. Even if we insist that the poet, Wang Wei, is being paradoxical when he combines the presence of human voices with the absence of human beings, we are still uncertain why he presents his material in such a paradoxical manner. Not until we read Snyder's entire prose analysis of the poem do we get a sudden understanding: I think this poem is best approached through the eyes of the poet-as-perceiver: he stands in one place and com prehends the whole scene in one moment. The poem moves swiftly from a state of relative to one of total detach ment. The unreality (as well ag emptiness) of the moun tains is suggested by k'ung sL ; in the second line the "not seen man" of the first line is reinforced by the reduction of even the possibility of human existence to half-heard sounds. The second couplet is utterly de tached: there is no concern with the reality or unreality of the mountains; it is objective, precise, and timeless.25 The word k'ung ^ , which Snyder explicates as "Sunyata" or the "in terpretation of void and mountains" in his prose analysis following 26 his translation of Wei Ying-wu's "To a Friend on Autumn Night,"'' is a key to Wang Wei's poem. For, from the life of Wang Wei, we learn that he was Buddhist in his religion and that he numbered the Buddhist monk, Hui Nehg among his closest friends. The two authors of Wang Wei, the Painter-Poet, point out that: 25Ibid. 2“Phi Theta Annual, p. 7. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 2 3 One Buddhist leader who deeply impressed Wang [Wei] throughout the years was Hui Nehg (a. 715). Wang wrote the inscription for a memorial tablet erected in Hui's honor. Known as the Sixth Buddhist Patriot [sic], Hui started a movement destined to grew into the Ch'an School of Bud dhism, better known in the West by its Japanese tern, Zen Buddhism. Praising work, it abjured mendicancy and did away with ritual in favor of silence. The goal was il lumination [satori] rather than credulity and intuition instead of logic.2' Here we may pause to remember that Wang Wei, 'The Buddha of Poetry" ■ft 1% , is often considered China's greatest Buddhist poet. The fact that Gary Snyder would choose to translate Wang Wei's "Deer Park", in which the key word is k'ung (Void or Sunyata), evinces ■the American poet's spiritual affinity with his Chinese predecessor. For both Snyder and Wang Wei are similar in their religious outlook, as evident frcm Wang Wei's close association with Hui Nehg and Snyder's five years of Zen studies under Oda Sesso Roshi, the Zen master and 28 the Head Abbot of Daitoku-ji in Kyoto, Japan. The term k'ung, which is a key to the philosophy of such Bud dhists as Wang Wei and Gary Snyder, is rather baffling to the uniniti ated. According to the Sources of Chinese Tradition, the concept of k'ung or sunyata was first introduced into China frcm India by the Madhyamika philosophers. These philosophers "tried to prove that all our experience of the phenomenal world is like that of the short sighted monk [who imagines that he sees flies in his begging bowl], that ell things labor under the constant illusion of perceiving things 27 Lewis Calvin and Dorothy Bush Walmsley, Wang Wei, the Painter Poet (Rutland, Vt.: Charles E. Tuttle, 1968), p. 42. ^®Kherdian, p. 12. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 124 29 where in fact there is only emptiness." According to their view: This Emptiness or Void (Sunyata) is all that truly ex ists . . . But the phenomenal world is true pragmatically, and therefore has qualified reality for practical purposes. Yet the whole chain of existence is only real in this quali fied sense, for it is composed of a series of transitory events, and these, being impermanent, cannot have reality in themselves. Emptiness, on the other hand, never changes. It is absolute truth and absolute being - in fact it is the same as Nirvana and the Body of Essense, or Dharma - Body of the Buddha.30 With such a paradoxical view toward the phenomenal world in which all things are regarded as non-beings and in which Emptiness is considered the "absolute being," Zen Buddhists, such as Wang Wei and Gary Snyder, tend to look at the world with "total detachment," as Snyder has indi cated in his prose analysis of Wang Wei's poem. Showing "no concern with the reality or unreality of the mountains," they, nevertheless, capture the essence of the mountains through a focus on such vivid details as "Shadows swing into the forest" and "Swift light / flashes / On dark moss, above." Being "objective, precise and timeless" in their stance, they make the momentary or "transitory event" a timely phenomenon to which we respond subjectively instead of dispassionately. Wang Wei's "Deer Park" lends itself easily to Gary Snyder's interpretation and translation, mainly because the American poet shares with his Chinese predecessor an identical view toward nature condi tioned by their Zen orientation. Having "cultivated a sense for the William Theodore De Bary, Wing-tsit Chan, and Burton Watson, Sources of Chinese Tradition. . I (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1964), p. 293. Hereafter, the work will be cited as SCT. 30SCT, pp. 293-294. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 125 31 intuitive powers in general" and for "man-in-nature" in particular, Snyder can easily identify with Wang Wei, whose persona he assumes along with those of other Zen poets such as Han-shan (c. 627- 650) and Miyazawa Kenji (1896-1933). That Wang Wei's "Deer Park" has a special importance to Gary Snyder is indicated by Snyder's care in selecting the exact words in English for his version and his oontinual revision of his translation. For instance, in translating fu chao ? . ? , (again shine-on) as "swift light," in the lines "Swift light / flashes / On dark moss, above" , Snyder apologizes in his prose analysis by saying: "Swift" is perhaps a trifle free. But I feel it is justified in conjunction with "flashes" as implying a repeated action, with more concrete and visual impli cations than, say, "repeated reflections" would have.32 However, he is by no means contented with the above version, for when I first met Snyder in San Francisco in the fall of 1958 he not only recited the original Chinese poem in Mandarin but also presented me with this English version: Empty the mountains not a man; Yet sounds, echoes as of men speaking. Returning shadows enter the dark woods: ^^Snyder, letter dated 12.VII.40069 (1969). ^ Phi Theta Annual, p. 13. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 12 6 Again flashing an green moss, above. When I failed to recognize immediately Wang Wei’s "Deer Park”, Snyder sat down at a table in the Coffee Gallery and wrote the entire poem out in Chinese. Using a felt-tip pen, Snyder wrote Chinese characters so exquisitely that he struck me as one having practiced the art of cal ligraphy. If we compare Snyder's second English version of Wang Wei's "Deer Park" with the first version printed in the Phi Theta Annual, we notice only very minor changes in the wordings of the first four lines (that is, the first two lines of the original Chinese). For in stance, in the first English version, the lines read "Empty, the moun tain - / Not a man, / Yet sounds, echoes, / as of men talking," where as in the second English version the lines are "Empty the mountains / Not a man; / Yet sounds, echoes / as of men speaking." Except for the changes in punctuation, the only significant differences between the first and second version consist of substituting "mountains" for "mountain" and speaking" for "talking." Such changes make very little difference, because s'nan in Chinese could be either "mountain" or "mountains" (as the Chinese make no distinction between the singular and the plural) and either "speaking" or "talking" is acceptable as a connotation for hsiang (sound). But the changes in the second half of the poem are more significant. Whereas the third line of the original Chinese was rendered in Snyder's first English version as "Shadows swing into the forest," the same line in the second version reads as "Returning shadows enter the / dark woods." For anyone Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 2 7 familiar with the original Chinese version of the poem, Snyder's "re turning shadows" is a far more literal translation of fan ying (reflected shadow) than his "shadows" in the first English version. Also the translation of shen lin as "dark woods" in Snyder's second version is more literal than "the forest" in his first version. The "dark woods" also provides a good contrast to the "green moss" in the final line, because the opacity of the woods enhances the visual appeal of the "green moss," which stands out more sharply in the light "above." In rendering shen lin as "dark woods" and ch'ing t'ai " j | " as "green moss," Gary Snyder not only sticks closer to the original version of Wang Wei's poem, but- also restores the paral lelism and antithesis found in the Chinese. For, in the original Chi- nese, shen , which literally means "deep" or "dense," is used as an antithesis to ch'ing ^ , which literally means "green" or "blue." On the other hand, lin or "woods" is used as an antithesis of t'ai or "moss." Furthermore, the disyllabic compound shen-lin or "deep woods" is a parallel structure of the second disyllabic com pound ch'lng-t'ai or "green moss" in the original Chinese, since each set is made up of one adjective and one noun (the adjectives being shen and ch'ing and the nouns being lin and t'ai "pT ) • On the whole, Snyder's second English version of Wang Wei's "Deer Park" is more faithful in words and spirit to the original Chinese. That Snyder is fully aware of the fact i-hat there cannot be one "definitive" translation of a Chinese poem into English is verified by his constant attempt at improving his version. For instance, in rendering Wei Ying-wu's "To a Friend on Autumn Night" Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 2 8 J U K he gives as many as three different English versions of the poem in the Phi Theta Annual. The poem, as Snyder points out in his prose analysis following his first English version, is "very com plex." In the original Chinese, it reads as follows: tjL* % Hsc f 35 A 4- %- £B> A- The above poem is an example of five-syllable shih, since each line consists of five syllables or five Chinese characters and the complete poem is a quatrain of twenty syllables. However, in seeking for a word-for-word equivalent in English, we immediately run into seme difficulty. For the first word of the poem, fjjL huai, which lit erally means "boscm" in classical Chinese is here used as a verb and has the connotation of "cherish" in English. The most adequate Eng lish translation for huai f t . in the context of Wei’s poem would prob ably be "iong-for” — two words instead of one. Also, in the same line chu has no exact one-word equivalent in English. It can prob ably be best rendered as "connected-with." Thus, we can note that any attempt to translate the five Chinese words or characters of the first line into five English words is not only difficult but also foolish. The closest approximation or so-called word-for-word translation of the enrire poem would come out like this: long-for you connected-with autumn night walk-around sing cool sky empty mountain pine cone drop recluse should not-yet sleep Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 2 9 Except for those familiar with the structure of classical Chinese, the above English word-for-word translation would be utterly baffling. In the first line of the Chinese original, we find that the subject "I" is omitted. The "you” given above is, instead, a loose translation of a word which literally means "gentleman" or "sir." Furthermore, in Chinese there is no distinction among tenses, nor any inflectional dif ferences among first, second, and third persons. Frcm -the syntax of tlie Chinese, we can easily determine that the line "empty mountain pine cone drop" means "in the empty mountain pine cone (or cones) is drop ping (or falling)" rather than "in the empty mountain of pine cones I am dropping (or falling)." But ambiguity abounds even for one familiar with 1die Chinese language. For hew should the first line in the Chi nese be read? The line could be read with at least these two inter pretations: (1) I long for you, whose memory is connected with a par ticular autumn night; or (2) My longing for you is connected with this autumn night. Here the formidable task in translating Chinese poetry be canes almost insurmountable. And the translator is left to shift for himself. Faced with the challenge of translating Wei Ying-wu's "very complex poem," Gary Snyder chooses to give us three English versions interspersed with his prose analysis. After giving one English ver sion of Wei's poem as follows: Good friend, Autumn night reminds me of you. I walk idly - singing - Under a cool sky. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 130 In the vacant mountains Pine cones are falling! Old hermit - 33 You should not be asleep. Snyder carments by saying: Within four lines of concrete nature-imagery [of this poem], two key metaphors are developed and utilized entirely by implication. First, an implied comparison of the hermit with the mood of the autumn night (en forced, in its tone of detachment and clarity, by the "cool sky" of line two) and referring, more precisely, to his psychological "transparency" - freedom from at tachments. In the second couplet, the hermit is linked to the process of nature-in-the-mountains: when pine cones fall, he is awake. This brings a second set of meanings: a) Vacant = K'ung (Sunyata) = Interpenetration of Void and mountains b) Pine cones = seed = fertility (antithesis to the Void). Thus we have the total image of Sunyata breaking con tinuously into fertile particulars, and the hermit in con tinuous meditation on this flux. . . .34 Here, we may pause to recall that, according to Zen Buddhists, Sunyata (or Void) is "all that truly exists" and that which "never changes." When the hermit in the poem meditates on the "flux," his mind is con centrated on "a series of transitory events" which "cannot have reality in themselves." Thus, the hermit, through his meditation on the'inter penetration of Void and mountains," achieves what Snyder calls his "psychological transparency." Through surrendering himself wholeheart edly to nature, the hermit becomes one with nature. And, at the same instant, he attains satori, or Zen illumination. ^ Phi Theta Annual, p. 6 . 34 Phi Theta Annual, p. 7. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 3 1 In using the word "meditation," Snyder is falling back on the key-word in Zen Buddhism. For the word "Zen" is a Japanese pronuncia tion of the Chinese word "Ch'an" , which in turn came from the Sanskrit "dhyana," which means "meditation." According to Hui Nehg, the close friend of Wang Wei and one of "the men most responsible for o r the development of Ch’ an in China,"00 the bases of his teaching consist of "meditation and wisdcsn." After stressing that meditation and wis dom are "one reality and not two," Hui goes on to state that: Meditation is the substance (t’i) of wisdom and wisdom is the function (yung) of meditation. As soon as wisdom is achieved, meditation is included in it, and as soon as medi tation is attained, wisdom is included in it....A follower after the Way [of the Buddha] should not think wisdom follows meditation or vice versa or that the two are different. To hold such a view would imply that the dharmas possess two different characters. To those whose words are good but whose hearts are not good, meditation and wisdom are not identified. But to those whose hearts and words are both good and for whom the internal and external are one, medi tation and wisdom are identified. Self-enlightenment [satori] and practice do not consist in argument. If one concerns himself about whether meditation or wisdom comes first, he is deluded.^ Vhile the hermit in Wei Ying-wu's poem may attain instant il lumination (or "sudden enlightenment") through his meditation on the void and nature, others would be slow in attaining the same end. The reason for the different speed in attaining satori is explained by Hui Nehg as follows: . . . there is no distinction between sudden enlighten ment and gradual enlightenment in the Law [of the Buddha], except that some people are intelligent and others stupid. Those who are ignorant realize the truth gradually, while 35SCT, p. 350. 36SCT, pp. 352-353. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 3 2 the enlightened ones attain it suddenly. But if they know their' own minds and see their own nature, then there will be no difference in their enlightenment. Without enlight enment, they will be forever bound in transmigration. 37 The "transmigartion" that Hui Neng talks about obviously refers to the Buddhist concept of the transmigration of the soul or the theory of reincarnation, which we will discuss later in relationship to Snyder's Myths and Texts. Having observed "the total image of Sunyata breaking continu ously into fertile particulars, and the hermit in continuous medita tion on this flux," Snyder indicates that "these two sub-linguistic images (that of the sunyata breaking and that of the hermit meditating) 38 do not conflict, but rather overlap and enhance each other." Looking rfC I , at the original Chinese, we can see that k'ung shan - * ■ , which means "vacant (or empty) mountain (or mountains)" is an antithesis as well as complement of sung tzu , which means "pine cones (or seeds)." For while k'ung suggests something empty or unfulfilled tzu suggests an abundance of offspring. In contrast to the void (or k'ung) of the "empty mountain" (or "vacant mountains"), the pine cones are fertile and full of life. Ultimately, a unifying effect or harmony is achieved, with the pine cones uniting with the mountain and the hermit's perception embracing the both of them. But, as a Zen Bud dhist identifying with all objects in nature, Snyder is far more acute in his perception than we can ever hope to be. Standing "utterly de tached," he looks upon all nature, whether animate or inanimate, as 37SCT, p. 353. 38Phi Theta Annual, p. 7. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 3 3 equally real or unreal. With a vision which is "objective, precise, and timeless," he could feel that "the autumn night (concretely) ex tends to embrace the speaker, the mountains, (the Void) and the her- i t 35 mit. Snyder warns his Western readers to get acquainted with Bud dhist philosophy so that they will not misinterpret "such poems [as Wang Wei's "Deer Park" and Wei Ying-wu's "To a Friend on Autumn Night"] I ^ Q as 'pantheistic' in spirit." Then he surprises us by printing an earlier English version of Wei's poem as well as criticizing himself for his numerous failures in his first attempt. According to Snyder, this earlier English version is an "elliptical, concentrated trans lation," which reads as follows: autumn night is yours: - I scatter my feet, singing under a cold sky. in the empty mountains, pine cone falls to you! old hermit, don't sleep. Snyder finally decides to reject the above version because he finds that "an elliptical, concentrated translation of an elliptical poem only adds to the confusion." He goes on to qualify himself by saying: "This is not to say that I do not consider a rigorous and elegant approach best; but the semantic complexities of this poem are 39-p.-j Ibid. 4 0 - p , • . Ibid. ^Phi Theta Annual, p. 8. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 3 4 overwhelming." After discussing further the selection of such words as "good friend" for chun (which literally means "gentleman" or "sir") and "vacant" for k'ung Jx- (to tie in with the concept of the void in his revised English version), Snyder further surprises us by giving a rhymed iambic tetrameter version of the same poem: The autumn night is yours, and I Walk singing under a cold sky. On empty peaks the pine trees shed And you, old man, not yet in bed.1 ** He includes the above rhymed version in his Phi Theta paper, because of "the rather different type of English poetry this metric will sug gest to most readers." As we recall that seme of the earliest English translations of Chinese poetry were put into rhymed iambic verse and that these translations are now considered more as historical relics than genuine poetry, we get the distinct feeling that Snyder is poking fun at these traditionalists who insisted upon Anglicizing Chinese poetry. In giving us such lines as "On empty peaks the pine trees shed / And you, old man, not yet in bed," Snycer shews us that the em phasis on regular meter and rhyme only results in a total distortion of the sense and sensibility of the original poem. When we read aloud "On empty peaks the pine trees shed / And you, old man, not yet in bed," we find that not only the Zen "detachment" or coolness of the original Chinese poem is lost, but also a semi-comical effect is pro duced inadvertently^. However, this seemingly inadvertent semi-comical effect is not a result of Snyder's lack of technical control but rather Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 3 5 a deliberate attempt of the poet to play the fool. Snyder's rhymed iambic tetrameter version of Wei Ying-wu's "To a Friend an Autumn Night" is a subtle yet powerful ccnment that (1) Chinese poetry cannot be Anglicized without losing its sense and sensibility; (2) an ignorance of the tradition of Zen only results in a superficial imitation, which is nothing but a travesty of the orig inal; and (3) the sense of a poem goes far beyond words far mere re production, without being imbued with the spirit of the original, is fatal to a poetic translation. Although a Chinese poem in English translation must depend on English words, we should not be naive enough to assume that English words are sufficient to convey the sense, the sensibility, and the spirit of the original Chinese. We must bear in mind that in poetry words are used connotatively rather than denotatively and that many words, both in English and Chinese, have special connotations that are rooted in culture and tradition. In addition to a correct understanding of the original poem, Gary Sny der's admonishment that "seme basic acquaintance with Buddhist philos ophy might keep Westerners from falling into the error of interpreting such poems [as Wang Wei's "Deer Park" and Wei Ying-wu's "To a Friend t i 3 on Autumn Night"] as 'pantheistic’ in spirit," should be kept upper most in our mind when we examine a "translation" or imitation of any Chinese poem. Furthermore, in giving us two different versions of Wang Wei's "Deer Park" and three different versions of Wei Ying-wu's "To a Friend on Autumn Night," Snyder is obviously demonstrating to us Phi Theta Annual, p. 7. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 136 that there cannot be one definitive way of translating a Chinese poem. Whereas a more literal version of Wang Wei's poem, in which "dark woods" and "green moss" are retained, is found to be the more success ful of the two, a freer version of Wei Ying-wu's poem fares better, be cause "an elliptical, concentrated translation of an elliptical poem only adds to the confusion." In other words, Gary Snyder finds no simple rule or rules for translating Chinese poetry. Through his prose analysis of his own translations, we get the distinct feeling that we must be fully acquainted with the connotation of each word in the com plete context of culture and tradition before we plunge into the fool hardy task of translation. Being a Buddhist like Wang Wei and Wei Ying-wu and being steeped in the tradition of China, whose culture he has studied since his teens, Snyder is adequately trained to be their interpreter. Be lieving fully that "whatever is or ever was in any other culture can reconstructed from the unconscious through meditation [zen],,,t+4 Snyder subscribes to the theory that a poet is a medium (or wu 2EL) through whom other voices or spirits Cch'i) would distill and speak. Here his attitude is closely akin to that of the Shamanist-Taoist tradition in ancient China.^ Through being thoroughly immersed in the translation and explication of such Chinese poets as Han Shan, Wang Wei, and Wei Ying-wu, Snyder penetrates into the essence of these classical Chinese poets and emerges as their twentieth-century American medium. Totally uu Gary Snyder, Earth House Hold (New York: New Directions, 1969), back- cover. ^See Arthur Waley, Nine Songs: A Study of Shamanism in Ancient China (London: George Allen S Unwin, 1955), pp. 9-17. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 3 7 identified with them in his Zen outlook and sensibility, Snyder not only lends the Chinese poets his voice but also fuses with them so skillfully as to make us wonder if he were their poetic reincarnation. Snyder’s Rhythm and Form The word "rhythm" is one of the hardest to define in any lan guage. Because there is no systematic definition of the word, many critics of poetry eschew its usage. Although Gary Snyder never attemp ted to define "vhythm," he finds it important to discuss his "rhythms" in a statement on poetics prepared for the anthology, The New American Poetry, 1945-1960: I've just recently cane to realize that the rhythms of my poems follow the rhythm of the physical work I'm doing and life I'm lead ing at any given time— which makes the music in my head which creates the line.4^ Snyder's brief ccnment on "the rhythms of ny poems" indicates that the rhythm of poetry— or, at least, of his own poetry— is attuned to the rhythm of life, which is characterized by constant flux. While the rhythm of a modem poem can be partially analyzed through its tempo, stress pattern, duration, and line-breaks, it is basically organic and cannot be divorced frcm the form (or the content) of a poem. In "Sane Remarks on Rhythm," Theodore Roethke, one of Amer ica's significant modem poets, admonishes us as follows: We must keep in mind that rhythm is the entire movement, the flow, the recur rence of stress and unstress that is re lated to the rhythms of the blood, the ug Donald M. Allen, ed., The New American Poetry, p. 420. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 3 8 rhythms of nature. It involves certainly stress, time, pitch, the texture of the words, the total meaning of the poem.4? In stating that the rhythm of poetry is related to "the rhythms of the blood, the rhythms of nature," Roethke has suggested that poetry is a kinesthetic experience, a belief subscribed to by Gary Snyder. After making the observation that "while our genius in the language may be essentially iambic, particularly in the formal lyric, much of memorable or passionate speech is strongly stressed, irregular, 48 even ’sprung,' if you will," Roethke goes on to remark that "... a rhythm is invariably produced by playing against an established pat- 49 tern.” The "established pattern" which Roethke refers to is the meter (such as the iamb.' 2, the trochaic, the anapestic, and the dac tylic) which is characterized by regularity in prosody. Rhythm, on the other hand, is characterized by its departure, or at least its variation, frcm regularity. Here the jazz terminology of "form" and "change" may cone handy. The "form" in jazz refers to a regularity in beat which is analogous to meter in poetry. But the "change" refers to "playing against" this regularity, an improvisation that departs frcm, rather than adheres to, the "form." In A Prosody Handbook, Karl Shapiro and Robert Beum point out that: 47See Roethke in Ralph J. Mills, Jr., ed., On the Poet and His Craft: Selected Prose of Theodore Roethke (Seattle: Univ. of Washington Press, 1965), p. 78. Hereafter, the work will be cited as Mills. * t 8MiHs, p. 74. 49Mills, p. 78. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 3 9 Although the words Meter and Rhythm are often used synonymously, it is useful to maintain a distinction between them. In speaking of verse, we ought to say, "This meter is iambic," not "this rhythm." Rhythm is the total quality of a line’s motion, and is a product of several ele ments, not of stress or quantity alone. After quoting two iambic pentameter lines from Shakespeare: / / / / / Since/ brass5/nor#stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea, But sad mortality o’ersways their power . . . Shapiro and Beum emphasize that, despite the regular meter of these lines, "each line has a rhythm all its own."5' 1 ' According to Shapiro and Buem, the rhythm of "the first is slow, deliberate, grave,” where- 52 as "the second moves much more quickly, and it moves as a whole ..." This observation of rhythm leads the two authors to the conclusion that: There are, at least in English, rela tively few possible meters, whereas every new combination of words really brings about a new rhythm. 53 Accentuating a common feeling shared by readers of modem poet ry, Shapiro and Beum stress that: Meter in itself— although not in its function— is a relatively simple matter that we can usually describe with great objectivity. Rhythm is always complex and 50Karl Shapiro and Robert Beum, A Prosody Handbook (New York: Harper £ Row, 1965), p. 60. Hereafter, the work wall be cited as PH. 51PH, p. 61. 52T, • Ibid. 53PH, p. 60. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 4 0 is often difficult to describe. Meter is a matter of mechanics; rhythm is al most unanalyzably organic. 5 * + As Snyder's rhythm in his poetry canes from the rhythm of "the physical work I'm doing and life I'm leading at any given time," and as his physical activities vary from logging, hunting, riprapping, con trolling forest fires, installing burglary alarms, driving a diesel, mountain-climbing, dancing, making love, to zazen, his rhythms are as varied as the "boundless sea." Furthermore, with his Taoist-Zen or ientation, Snyder believes only in the constancy of flux. Just as the Taoists believe that water is the highest good, because it is charac terized by eternal fluidity, Snyder subscribes to no fixed principle about prosody, but tacitly agrees that organicity and spontaneity are the bases of satisfactory rhythm in poetry. His best work, such as Myths and Texts, is characterized by constant changes in rhythm as de termined by the form of each poem. As the rhythm of the Chinese poems which Snyder studied at Berkeley is totally incomprehensible to those unfamiliar with the sound pattern and tonal variations of the Chinese language, we will only at tempt in this section to show how a knowledge of Chinese prosody might have contributed to Snyder's use of syllabic count and stress patterns in seme of his short poems. In addition, we will reveal how Snyder's Taoist-Zen orientation toward life affects the form of some of his poems. A chief principle of both Chinese and Japanese prosody th\_ syllabic count. Snyder includes the following poem in a group entitled ^Ibid. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 4 1 "Hitch HaiJcu" in The Back Country: Drinking hot sake out the motorcycle toasting fish on coals >rcycle „ parked in the rain Although this poem may strike the casual American reader as being haiku-like in its terseness, we know from its syllabic count that it rather than the Japanese haiku. The reasons are: (1) the poem is made up of four lines, as opposed to a haiku, which can only be three- lines long; and (2 ) when we count the syllables in each line, we find five of them instead of a 5/7/5 distribution as is expected of a haiku. There, we find it helpful to recall Snyder’s own statement on poetics: I tried writing poems of tough, simple, short words, with the complexity far beneath the surface texture. In part the line was influenced by the five- and seven-character line Chinese poems I’d been reading, which work like sharp blows on the The five-character and seven-character Chinese poems Snyder talked about refer to the five-syllable - 3 z _ % . and seven-syllable-fa g clas- bles, with five syllables in each line, brings to mind the five-sylla ble quatrain. As a verse form, the five-syllable quatrain is a favor ite with such T'ang poets as Wang Wei, Li Po, and Wei Ying-wu. It is interesting to recall that two of the poems which Snyder translated in is patterned after the Chinese five-syllable quatrain -3z_ 5 mind. 56 Gary Snyder’s short poem of twenty sylla- 5 5 , Gary Snyder, The Back Country, p. 31. 56 Allen, p. 421. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 4 2 the Phi Theta Annual paper edited by Professor Chen were "Deer Park" by Wang Wei and "To a Friend on Autumn Night" by Wei Ying-wu. And both of these poems are outstanding Chinese examples of the five-syllable quatrain. Frcm our earlier discussion of these poems, we can see that they are great favorites with Snyder himself. Furthermore, we find frcm Snyder's letter to this author dated 12 VII, 40069 (40069 refers to Snyder's private "ecological” calendar and means 1969 of the Chris tian calendar) that his favorite T'ang poets are Tu Fu, Yuan Chen, and Wang Wei. As Snyder has read all of these poets in the Chinese an thology T'ang-shih san-pei-shou tu-pen, in which each of them is rep resented with at least one example of the five-syllable quatrain, we find it quite probable that Snyder could have consciously or uncon sciously imitated this form (the form of the five-syllable quatrain) in his poetry. While the form of Snyder's short five-syllable poem may arrest the attention of a Chinese reader, its content may cause a Western reader to re-examine the poem. For instance, the poem sounds almost absurd from the granmatical point of view. For what is "Drinking hot sake / toasting fish on coals" cannot possibly be "the motorcycle / out parked in the rain." In order to drink sake, toast fish, and park the motorcycle, a human being must be involved. And this human being, as we soon realize, must be the poet himself. As we read the poem over, we find ourselves unconsciously supplying the subject for the poem. And in the process of supplying the subject, we find ourselves very much in the position of the Chinese readers who automatically supply the subject "I" in such a poem as Wei Ying-wu's "To a Friend on Autumn Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 4 3 Night.** We may recall that when Snyder translated the second line of "I walk idly-singing — / Under a cool sky," he also had to supply the subject. But when the violation of granmatical rules, such as the emission of the subject, does not lead to a confusion of sense and meaning, Snyder never hesitates to leave out the subject. For, as a Zen Buddhist, Snyder aims at achieving a tone of "detachment" or im personality in his poetry. And this tone of impersonality can be best achieved through the non-interference of the ego (the omission of the subject). To be in tune with all nature, both animate and inanimate, a Zen Buddhist believes in the removal of all artificial boundaries. Chuang Tzu, a Taoist patriarch and the predecessor of Zen Buddhists, summarizes this Zen attitude when he states: The Way [Tao] has never known boundaries; speech has no constancy. But because of (the recognition of a) "this," there came to be boundaries. Let me tell you what the boun daries are. There is left, there is right, there are theories, there are debates, there are divisions, there are discrimina tions, there are emulations, and there are contentions. . . . So (I say,) those who divide fail to divide; those who dis criminate fail to discriminate. What does this mean, you ask? The sage embraces things. Ordinary men discriminate among them and parade their discriminations before others. So I say, those who discriminate fail to see.5? In terms of the Taoist-Zen orientation toward life, the ego (I) is re garded as a hindrance, rather than a help, in man's achieving harmony with nature. Through the deliberate emission of the subject in his poem, Snyder creates a feeling of "man-in-nature," which is his way of saying that all boundaries are removed between man and nature. And, in 57 Burton Watson, Chuang Tzu: Basic Writings (New York: Columbia Univ. Press pap., 1964), p. 39. Wei's poem, "walk-around sing cool-sky" , as Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 4 4 his latest book Regarding Waves (1970), Snyder goes so far as to give us this poem: pissing watching a waterfall0 Here, again, in the poem entitled "Hiking in the Totsugawa Gorge," we find the subject missing. Obviously, the poem means something like this in a prose paraphrase: [As I am] pissing, [I am also] watching a waterfall. But for those of us who are trained to read haiku, in which far-fetched metaphorical comparisons are often made, the "piss ing" in the first line of the poem is equated with "a waterfall" in the third line. The only thing that unites the "pissing" and the waterfall is the "watching," which requires the movement of the eyes. As the word "watching" suggests vigilance and as "pissing" in such a public place as the Totsugawa Gorge (the natural setting of the poem) requires one to be on the lookout (for it is no more acceptable to urinate in the public in Japan than in the United States), we begin to see how the activity of "watching" could unite the man-made waterfall with the natural waterfall. The poem, seen in this light, is a speci men of Zen humor. To the uninitiated, it is probably as uncouth and shocking as the following Zen joke retold by Snyder in his Earth House Hold (1969): And then there was this young married couple, who stay locked in their room four weeks — when friends finally break in all they find is two 5g assholes jumping back and forth through each other. °^Gary Snyder, Regarding Waves (New York: New Directions, 1970), p. 74. Hereafter, the work will be cited as FW. CQ Gary Snyder, Earth House Hold (New York: New Directions, 1969), p. 14. Hereafter, the work will be cited as EHH. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 14 5 While this joke may appear to be almost pointless to the uninitiated, it serves a function similar to a koan for the Zen Buddhists. A koan is basically an insoluble intellectual problem, and, in the Rinzai sect of Zen Buddhism, for instance, a student is expected to solve 1700 koans before he is qualified as a Zen master. A typical example of a koan is: "What's the meaning of one hand clapping?" Obviously, there is no such activity as one hand clapping, since, in order to clap, one must use both hands. The purpose of this koan, then, is not to get the Zen student to give a correct answer, but rather to make him fathom the master’s state of mind when such a koan is asked. And, when the stu dent understands the master’s state of mind, satori (or Zen illumina tion) is attained. In Essays in Zen Buddhism, D. T. Suzuki explains to us: Technically speaking, the koan given to the unitiated is intended "to destroy the root of life," "to make the calculat ing mind die," "to root out the entire mind that has been at work since eternity," etc. This may sound rather harsh, but the ultimate intent is to go beyond the limits of intellection, and those limits can be crossed over only by exhausting oneself once for all, by using up all the psychic pcwers at one’s com mand. Logic then turns into psychology, intellection into co nation and intuition. What could not be solved on the plane of empirical consciousness is now transferred to the deeper recesses of the mind.60 Both the Taoists and the Zen Buddhists share a strong distrust of "empirical consciousness," which sets up artificial boundaries and standards and causes man to be divorced frcm nature. In Earth House Hold, whose theme is ecology, Snyder paraphrases Hui Nehg, the early Chinese Zen master, as saying: 60 Daisetz T. Suzuki, Essays in Zen Buddhism, 2nd Series (Boston: Beacon Press, 1952), pp. 90-91. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 4 6 one does not need universities and libraries one need be alive to what is about^l Here Hui Nehg's attitude is in complete accord with that of both Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu. For, while Lao Tzu teaches us "simplicity, tran quility, and enlightenment [satori]," Chuang Tzu emphasizes "companion- 62 ship with nature" and "spiritual freedom." Like his three Chinese masters, Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, and Hui Neng, Snyder believes in the sim plest things of life: How pleasant to squat in the sun Jockstrap £ zoris . . . Or having a wife and baby living close to the ocean, with skills for gathering food.63 With such an attitude toward life, Snyder could have easily delighted in such a simple observation as "pissing / watching / a waterfall." In another poem, "Cats Thinking about What Birds Eat," Snyder shows his Zen humor as well as his delight in all sentient beings: the kitten sniffs deep old droppings. For having removed all artificial boundaries between man and nature, he regards all things, both animate and inanimate, as equals. And the simple act of a kitten sniffing around intrigues him far more than "universities and libraries" which train people to set up boundaries 6IEHH, p. 2. 62SCT, p. 256. 63EHH, p. 5. 6HRW, p. 79. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 4 7 and make artificial distinctions. To Snyder, "three fourths of philos ophy and literature is the talk of people trying to convince themselves 65 that they really like the cages they were tricked into entering." The alternative to these "cages" is Zen satori, which Snyder character izes as "the interior ease and freedom carried not only to persons but to all the universe, such-and-such void — which is in essence and al- 66 ways, freely changing and interacting." Here we are reminded of Lao Tzu's teaching that fluidity, as typified by the flew of water, is the essence of life, and that rigidity, as typified by artificial measures and standards, is the essence of death. With his "interior ease and freedcm," Snyder finds the deepest meaning of life in "the fertility of the soil, the magic of animals, the pcwer-vision in solitude, the terrifying initiation and rebirth; the love and ecstasy of the dance, 67 the camion work of the tribe." Through participation, observation, and meditation, Snyder allows himself to be carried away with the ex uberance of living. In such a poem as "Pleasure Boats," we find him virtually intoxicated with the rhythm of life: Dancing in the offing Grooving in the coves Rolling in the breakers foiling in the rollers Necking in the ebb Balny in the calms Whoring in the storm Blind in the wind gg Ccming in the foam. 65EHH, p. 38. 66EHH, p. 34. 67 EHH, backcover. 68KW, p. 81. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 4 8 Reading this poem aloud, we find a simple rhythmic pattern — that there are two beats in each line. This rhythm can be demonstrated by the following stress pattern: / - - / (with / representing a stressed syllable and - an unstressed one). Although this rhythm bears no resemblance to that of any Chi nese poem, the words "work like sharp blows on the mind" — a technique which Snyder claimed to have acquired through his study of classical Chinese prosody. As the principle of Chinese prosody is based upon syllabic counts instead of stress accents, a Chinese reading Snyder's poem may be struck by the fact that it generally alternates between a five-syllable and six-syllable line. For example, Wang Wei, one of Gary Snyder's favorite poets, not only wrote five-syllable but also six-syllable poems. Here, the curious resemblance between the syllabic counts of Wang Wei and Gary Snyder may not be purely accidental. In such first lines as: Lay down these words (fran "Riprap") A few light flakes of snow (from "Kyoto: March") That mare stood in the field (fran "AD. through the rains") At the far end of a trip north (from "Nooksak Valley") "0 heD, what do mine eyes. . ." (from "Milton by Firelight") and "Whole town shut down" (from "The Late Snow S Lumber Strike of the Sumner of Fifty-Four"), we notice a "reliance on monosyllabic words," which, Snyder pointed out in his letter to me, is a result of his "studying Chinese at Berke- Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 4 9 ley and reading poetry in graduate seminars" under Professor Chen. Snyder admitted that as a result of his study of classical Chinese po etry, "a sense of form began to work on me, so leading explicitly to 6 9 compression and reliance on monosyllabic words in the Riprap series," frcm which all these first lines were taken. The combination of this reliance on monosyllabic words and the "sharp blcws" of the staccato rhythm gives us in English the closest approximation of the classical Chinese line. But we can only talk about an approximation instead of an equivalent. For, even Snyder’s most "Chinese-sounding" poems, such as "August on Sourdough, a Visit frcm Dick Brewer" and the first of the "Four Poems for Robin," cannot be used to illustrate the adapted usage of the classical Chinese line in English. Despite Snyder’s own claim that these two poems are "deliberate attempts at using the Chinese line; the first to a seven-character line [ t * 3; the second to a five-character line [ - 2 L i & ],"7 ( ^ we cannot, strictly speaking, find a corresponding syllabic count in the first line of either poem. In stead, we find a stress count, such as the following: / * / / You hitched a thousand miles / < 7 1 north from San Francisco Here, we find that seven stresses are used to suggest the quality of the Chinese "seven-character line." RQ Snyder, letter dated 12.VII.40069 (1969). Ibid. 71 Gary Snyder, The Back Country,4th printing, (New York: New Direc tions, 1968), p. 25. Hereafter, the work will be cited as BC. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 5 0 The same substitution of stresses for syllables is applied to the first line of the "Robin” poem, which reads as follows: / / / / / 70 I slept under rhododendron And the line canes out as an approximation of the "five-character line." This substitution of stresses for syllables can be partially justified on the grounds that: (1) English is not as monosyllabic a language as Chinese; and (2) English, unlike Chinese, is not a tonal language. Hcwever, both "August on Sourdough, a Visit frctn Dick Brewer" and the first of the "Four Poems for Robin" are strikingly Chinese in feeling and sensibility. The restlessness which results fran remember ing an old friend in the "Robin" poem links it thematically with Wei- Ying-wu's poem, in which "August night reminds me of you" and "I walk idly - singing / - Under a cocl sky." In both poems, the reminiscence of an old friend brings out a feeling of nostalgia. But for the psy chological "transparency" (which Snyder discussed in his prose analysis of Wei's poem) of Snyder's "I don't mind living this way / Green hills the long blue beach" and Wei's "Pine cones are falling! Old her mit — / You should not be asleep" (in each case the "I," the ego, is banished), both poets could have burst into tears. In the end, both Wei Ying-wu's "To a Friend on Autumn Night" and Snyder's "Robin" poems manage to project the deepest emotion without falling into sentimental ity. One of the most common themes in the classical Chinese poetry of the T'ang Dynasty is the separation of friends. If we peruse the "^BC, p. 45. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 5 1 Chinese anthology familiar to Gary Snyder, the T'ang-shih san-pei-shou tu-pen used in Professor Chen's Berkeley seminar, we find many examples of this type of "friendship poem". Tu Fu, Yuan Chen, and Wang Wei, whan Snyder nominated as his three favorite T'ang poets, all wrote poems dealing with the separation of friends. One of the outstanding examples of this type of poetry is Wang Wei's "Wei City Song" & . A seven-syllable quatrain &] in the original Chinese, "Wei City Song" reads as follows in a recent English version: In the city of Wei morning rain dampens the dust By the traveler's lodge greener and greener the willows grow Let me persuade you to drain just one more cup Once out of the Yang fortress73 There will be no friends. However, as early as 1915, this poem was made available to American readers by Exra Pound in his Cathay. Attributing the poem tc "Rihaku or Omakitsu," the names of Li Po and Wang Wei respectively as pro nounced in Japanese, Pound translated the poem as follows: Light rain is on the light dust The willows of the inn-yard Will be going greener and greener, But you, Sir. had better take wine ere your departure, For you will have no friends about you When you come to the gates of Go.74 A comparison of Pound's version with the recent English version will show enough differences in the diction and the vocabulary, with Pound's 73 David Rafael Wang, "Four Poems of Separation" in Sumac: An Active Anthology, Vol. 3, No. 3 (Spring, 1971), p. 94. "Wei City Song" is numbered 1 of the "Four Poems of Separation." ^Ezra Pound, Personae (New York: New Directions, 1926), p. 137. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 5 2 version being more formal in such a line as: But you, Sir, had better take wine ere your departure On the other hand, Chinese place names are better preserved in the recent version in such lines as: In the city of Wei and Once out of the Yang fortress We realize, after a little research, that "the gates of Go" in Pound’s version came from the Japanese reading of Professors Mori and Ariga, the two Japanese Sinologists who helped Fenollosa in "deciphering" the Chinese manuscript. Despite the differences between the vocabulary and diction of these two versions of Wang Wei's poem, we can get the same feeling out of "For you will have no friends about you / When you ccrae to the gates of Go" (from Pound's version) and "Once out of the Yang fortress / There will be no friends" (from the recent version). This feeling is nothing less than the pain of separation. Although Gary Snyder's "August on Sourdough, a Visit from Dick Brewer" is not a translation or even an imitation of Wang Wei's "Wei City Song," it re sembles the T'ang poem in three respects. First of all, while the pro tagonist in Wang Wei's poem meets his friend at a traveler's lodge (or the "inn-yard" in Pound's version), the "I" in Snyder's poem meets Dick Brewer in a one-room little cabin high up the Sourdough Mountain. Secondly, a ritual, is involved in each separation - the protagonist in Wang Wei's poem persuades his friend to "drain just one more cup" (or "take wine ere your departure" in Pound's version), while the "I" in Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 5 3 Snyder's poem lends his friend his poncho, a prized possession and a prime necessity when one lives far up the mountainside away from the encroachment of civilization. Thirdly, both protagonists of the poems remind their friends of the great distance they must cover in their journey. For instance, in Wang Wei's poem, we have "Once out of the Yang fortress / There will be no friends." (Here, we may pause to note that, during the T'ang Dynasty, "the Yang fortress" was considered a western border of China.) And in Snyder's poem, it ends with: You down the snowfield flapping in the wind Waving a last goodbye half hidden in the clouds To go on hitching clear to New York; Me back to my mountain and far, far west. For those of us who know the geography of both the United States and China, the distance between Sourdough Mountain and New York certainly exceeds that between Wei City and the Yang fortress. Yet, in both Wang Wei's and Snyder's poems, the admonishment about the distance is more psychological uicui geographical. What it basically stresses is that distance stands in the way of the reunion of friends. In other words, the pain of separation is made more acute through the awareness of the distance. Although the details in Wang Wei's "Wei City Song" and Snyder's "August on Sourdough, a Visit from Dick Brewer" are dis similar, the feelings that these two poems evoke in a reader are sim ilar. Both poems bring to mind many poems of a similar mood in T'ang poetry, written by such poets as Li Po, Tu Fu, and Wei Ying-wu and 7: 3BC, p. 25. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 5 4 usually bearing such a title as "Sending Off" The unique characteristics of poetry, according to Confucian critics, are usually summarized in four Chinese words an expression attributed to Confucius himself. The terra can roughly be translated into English as "tender and deeply sincere in feeling." We have seen that Snyder’s "friendship poem", such as "August on Sour dough, a Visit frcm Dick Brewer,” fulfills these qualifications. An other poem in Snyder’s The Back Country which strikes us this way is his "Kyoto Footnote": She said she lived in Shanghai as a child And moved to Kobe, then Kyoto, in the war; While putting on her one thin white brassiere, She walked me to the stair and all the girls gravely and politely said take care, 7g out of the whorehouse into cool night air. Frcm the grammatical point of view, Snyder’ s lire "out of the whorehouse into cool night air" has left out the subject, the verb, and a definite article. But we know the line actually means: "[I step] out of the whorehouse into [the] cool night air." It is precisely the emission of the subject, the verb, and a definite article that adds to the feeling of impersonality in this line. Here, we find that Snyder has learned his lesson from his study of classical Chinese poetry, in which the constant omission of the subject lends the poems, such as Wang Wei’s "Deer Park" and Wei Ying-wu's "To a Friend on Autumn Night" (both of which he translated in his Phi Theta Annual paper), a curious 7 f i BC, p. 75. This poem first appeared in the "Li Po Issue" of the Galley Sail Review, Vol. 2, No. 1 (Winter, 1959-60), p. 19. The issue was guest-edited by David Rafael Wang. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 5 5 "detachment." Furthermore, the omission of the definite article "the" before "cool night air" makes the air something more universal and less limited to one locale. While we knew that the locale of this particular poem is Kyoto, we feel the universality of "cool night air." Again, Snyder has learned a lesson frcm classical Chinese poets. And this lesson can only be sunmarized as: make the poem as compressed as possible and emit all words that do not absolutely contribute to the image. Here the Chinese dictum reminds us of the first two principles of the American Imagists: 1. Direct treatment of the "thing," whether subjective or objective. 2. To use absolutely no word that did not contribute to the presentation.^' In this light, we recognize Snyder’s link to the early Imagists as well as to the classical Chinese poets. In a long poem entitled "To the Chinese Comrades," we find Sny der joshing Mao Tse-tung, the ruler of China. Though this poem has no Chinese precedent, it achieves a distinct Zen humor in such lines as: Chairman Mao, you should quit smoking. Don’ t bother those philosophers Build dams, plant trees, dont kill flies by hand. Marx was another westerner, it’s all in the head. You dont need the bomb, stick to farming. ^ Poetry, Vol. I, No. 6 (March, 1913), p. 199. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 156 Write some poems. Swim the river. those blue overalls are great. Dont shoot me, let’s go chunking. In this quote, Snyder chides Chairman Mao for trying too hard to emulate Marx and all the westerners. He suggests that progress (as typified by the nuclear bomb) is only an illusion (’ ’ it's all in the head") and that Mao should be content with writing his poems and swim ming in the Yangtze River, two activities for which Mao is renowned in China. Snyder further suggests that Mao should "go drinking" with Sny der himself and not shoot him, since drinking was an activity which united all the leading T'ang poets and shooting (or the use of gun powder to kill people) was an invention of the West. Such activities as exploding bombs and shooting people, as Snyder implies in his poem, are Western diseases which Mao should control. The alternative to such activities are: "Build dams, plant trees" and "stick to farming" — all of which Mao is known to have done. Furthermore, in Snyder's ref erence to Mao's dam-building, we are reminded of Mao's own poem en titled "Swimming" , written in June, 1956, in which the chair- 79 man not only enjoys "Swimming across the ten-thousand-li Long Kiang" Mao's poem and in bringing up both dam-building and swimning the river, Snyder might have paid a subtle tribute to Mao by his indirect , but also surveys "the rocky dam at the western reaches" Snyder might have been familiar with 78BC, p. 102 79Long Kiang ( ) is better known to Western readers as the Yangtze. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 5 7 references to the content of Mao’s poem. Snyder's joshing of Mao Tse-tung in "To the Chinese Comrades" has also a more serious side to it. For the poem not only warns Mao against: progress (which Snyder regards as a Western disease), but also suggests simple living ("stick to farming" and "those blue overalls are great") as an alternative. To Snyder, as with Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu, the way Eof the world] is not the way [of the sages]. And his poem, "The Way is Not a Way" in Regarding Wave, clearly illustrates this point of view: scattered leaves sheets of running water. unbound hair. loose planks on shed roofs, stumbling down wood stairs shirts un done. a_ children pissing in the roadside grass. This poem is a simple celebration of spontaneity and freedom. As in many Taoist poems, the "running / water" is a central metaphor. The natural flow of the running water is equated with "scattered leaves," "unbound hair," "loose / planks," "stumbling down," undone shirts, and "pissing in the roadside grass." Again, we may recall Lao Tzu's teach ing that fluidity is the essence of life and rigidity the essence of death. The adjectives, "scattered," "unbound," "loose," and "un done" and the participles "running," "stumbling," and "pissing" combine to produce an affect of spontaneity or freedom frcm artificial restraint. Read in this light, the poem "The Way Is Not a Way" is an exemplum of the Taoist ideal. Furthermore, Snyder's choice of the poem's title 80™, RW, p. 51. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 5 8 clearly reveals his indebtedness to both Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu, be cause the title is basically a paraphrase of The Tao [Way] that can be 81 told of / Is not the eternal Tao” from Tao Teh Ching and of ”If the 82 Way is made clear, it is not the Way" from the work of Chuang Tzu. Comparing "The Way Is Not a Way" with "Hiking in the Totsugawa Gorge" ( a poem we have already discussed), we immediately see a similarity of outlook in these lines: shirts un done children pissing in the roadside grass [frcm "The Way is Not a Way"] and pissing watching a waterfall [frcm "Hiking in the Totsugawa Gorge"] In both of these poems, there is no artificial restraint imposed frcm without to curb one's natural function, such as urinating. And from the Taoist point of view, the difference between the natural and the artificial can be illustrated by Chuang Tzu's parable: "What do you mean," inquired the Earl of the River, "by the natural and the artificial?" "Horses and oxen," answered the Spirit of the Ocean, "have four feet. That is the natural. Putting a halter on a horse's head, a string through a bullock's nose — that is the artificial." "Therefore it has been said, do not let the artificial obliterate the natural; do not let effort obliterate destiny; do not let enjoyment be sacrificed to fame. Diligently observe these precepts without fail, and thus you will revert to the original [primordial] innocence."83 81scr, p. 51. 83Watson, pp. 39-40. 83SCT, p. 77. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 15 9 The return to the primordial innocence (or the state of the babe) is the ultimate ideal of Taoism, for, having achieved the innocence of an infant, one looks with constant surprise and appreciation at all of nature. And in looking upon nature with a child’s naivete, oi«e for gets about artificial standards and measures. With a child’s fresh look and "untainted” perspective, the unity of all things becomes pos sible, as in Snyder’s poem "Willow": the pussy of the pussy-willow unfolds into fuzz on the leaf, blonde glow on a cheek; willow pussy hair.®4 Here we find the "pussy" of the pussy-willow metamorphosing into fuzz on the leaf, which in turn is equated with the "blonde glow on a [girl’s] cheek" (not to mention the association of "pussy" with the female sex organ in American slang). As the "blonde glow" could have been due to the reflection of the light blonde hair in the sun, we find a unity of willow + pussy + hair (all of which suggest one another be cause of their resemblance). As willow, pussy, and hair are all soft and have a quality of fluidity, they again suggest the archetypal, yin symbol in Taoism. Snyder uses many titles in his Regarding Wave (19- 70), that remind us of the yin symbol. Seme of these titles include: "Sand," "Running Water Music," "Beating Wings," "All the Spirit Pavers Went to their Dancing Place," "Long Hair," "Pleasure Boats," "Willow," and "The Good Earth." In all these titles, we find the common denomin ator of fluidity, for sand, music, outspread wings, dancing, long hair, 84 RW, p. 82. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 6 0 boats undulating,swaying willow trees, and the soil of the earth all share a natural rhythm and flow. And this rhythm and flew in nature, according to Snyder, is precisely the rhythm and flow of poetry as well For Snyder claims In his statement on poetics: "I’ve just recently come to realize that the rhythms of ny poems follow the rhythm of the physical work I'm doing and life I’ m leading at any given time— which 85 makes the music in ny head which creates the line." In referring to his book, Riprap (1958), Snyder further adds: "Walking, climbing, placing with the hands [in laying stones to make a trail for horsesJ, I tried writing poems of tough, simple, short words, with the complex ity far beneath the surface texture. In part the line \&s influenced by the five- and seven-character line Chinese poems I'd been reading, 86 which work like sharp blows on the mind." From our examination of Gary Snyder’s prosody, we discover that he has occasionally approximated the form of the five-syllable quatrain in one of his "Hitch" haikus, and the form of the seven-character line in "August on Sourdough, a Visit from Dick Brewer." But, on the whole, Snyder's form and rhythm vary from poem to poem, as fluid as "the rhythms of nature" itself. Snyder's Myths and Texts Gary Snyder's Myths and Texts is a long poem in three sections — a poem which has no precedent or equivalent in classical Chinese po etry. The first section entitled "Logging" consists of fifteen 85 See note 46. *^See note 56. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 6 1 individual poems; the second section "Hunting" of sixteen poems; and the third section "Burning" of seventeen poems. Frcm the titles of these three sections, we can infer that the poem, which deals respec tively with the experience of a logger, a hunter, and a forest-ranger, is concerned with the preservation and destruction of nature, as typi fied by its forests and its wildlife. The genesis of this poem is told by Snyder in his statement on poetics: Myths and Texts grew between 1952 and 1956. Its several rhythms are based on long days of quiet in lookout cabins; settling chokers for the Warm Springs Lumber Co. (looping cables on logs £ hooking them to D8 caterpillars— dragging and rumbling through the brush); and the songs and dances of Great Basin Indian tribes I used to hang around. The title comes frcm the happy collections of Sapor, Boas, Swanton, and others made of American Indian folktales early in the century; it also means the two sources of human knowl edge— symbols and sense-impressions. I tried to make ray life as a hobo and worker, the question of history 6 philosophy in ny head, and the glimpses of the roots of religion I'd seen through meditation, peyote, andf t 7 "secret frantic rituals" into one whole thing. . . . Here, we find that Snyder has made several significant statements about the origin of his "rhythms" in Myths and Texts. First of all, he says that his "rhythms" come from the life he led ("long days of quiet in lookout cabins"), his work ("settling chokers for the Warm Springs Lumber Co."), and "the songs and dances of Great Basin Indian tribes." In addition, he gets his texts from sitting in meditation (zazen), hallucinatory drug (peyote), and "secret frantic rituals" which may in volve trance and intoxication. Sometimes, as "a hobo and worker," Snyder hitchhiked or rode a freight train from one end of the American 87 Allen, p. 421. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 6 2 continent to the other. His lifestyle, characterized by being con stantly "on the road," approximates that of Basho, the Japanese Zen poet, who recorded his travels in The Narrow Road of Oku. Here we may be reminded that both Basho and Gary Snyder were strongly conditioned by both Taoism and Buddhism in their lifestyle. As Zen Buddhists, they subscribe to the Buddhist belief that everything in this world is il- lusionary as well as the Taoist belief that the only permanence is change (as typified by the different states of water). As everything in this world is illusionary and as nothing is real, the Zen Buddhists look at the universe with total "detachment," regarding all beings, animate and inanimate, as equals. As the only permanence is change, the Zen Buddhists derive their pleasure frcm observing, contemplating, and living in the moment (before the moment disappears into the flux). The concept of change is found early in Chinese philosophy, even before the crystallization of Taoism and Buddhism. For instance, in the I Ching (or the Book of Changes) it is stated that: ... in the changes there is the Supreme Ultimate. This generates the two primary forms (the yin and the yang). The two primary forms generate the four modes (major and minor yin and yang). The four modes gene rate the eight trigrams. The eight trigrams determine good and bad fortune. . . . To this theory of changes, Taoism adds the concept of self-transforma tion: If we insist on the conditions under which things develop and search for the cause thereof, such search and insistence will never end, until we came to scme- thing that is unconditioned, and then the principles of 88 SCT, p. 196. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 6 3 self-transformation will become clear. . . . There are people who say that the penumbra is conditioned by the shadow, the shadow by the body, and the body by the Creator. But let us ask whether there is a Creator or not. If not, hew can he create things? If there is, he is incapable of materializing all the forms. There fore before we can talk about creation, we must under stand the fact that all forms materialize by themselves. If we go through the entire realm of existence, we shall see that there is nothing, not even the penumbra, that does not transform itself beyond the phenomenal world. Hence everything creates itself without the direction of any Creator. Since things create themselves, they are unconditioned. This is the norm of the universe.89 In Gary Snyder's Myths and Texts, the poet seems to take trans formation as "the norm of the universe." The transformation operates in a variety of ways. First of all, there is the sudden change in lo cale: what starts out to be one country quickly becomes another in a remote place. Examples of this kind of change are found in: Bodhidharma sailing the Yangtze on a reed Lenin in a sealed train through Germany Hsuan Tsang, crossing the Pamirs Joseph, Crazy Horse, living the last free starving high-country winter of their tribes. (Here we find the transition from China, where the Yangtze River flows, to Germany where the Soviet leader rode "in a sealed train," to the border of China, India, and Afghanistan [the PamirsJ, and finally to the North American continent, the tribal home of Crazy Horse. In ad dition to the rapid transition frcm place to place, we also notice that Snyder mingles facts with fiction. For instance, "Bodhidharma sailing the Yangtze on a reed" is a Buddhist legend, whereas "Lenin in a sealed 89SCI, p. 243. 99Gary Snyder, Myths £ Texts (New York: Totem-Corinth, 1960), p. 40. Hereafter, the work will be cited as MT. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 164 train through Germany” is a historical fact.) Pine of Seami, cedar of Haida Cut dcwn by the prophets of Israel the fairies of Athens the thugs of Rone both ancient and modem; Cut dcwn to make rocan for the suburbs Bulldozed by Luther and Weyerhaeuser9! (Here we find the pine of Japan, the hone of Zeami the Non dramatist, and the cedar of the Indians cut dcwn by natives of Israel, Greece, and Rcme, and finally bulldozed by two natives of Germany.) The ancient forests of China logged and the hills slipped into the Yellcw Sea. Square beams, log dogs, on a tamped-earth sill. San Francisco 2 x 4fs were the woods around Seattle.92 (Here the forests of China quickly merge with "the woods around Seattle".) A second type of change in Myths and Texts is that which re sults frcm the impermanence of world affairs or the quick passage of time. Two examples are: Pine sleeps, cedar splits straight Flowers crack the pavement. Pa-ta Shan-jen (A painter who watched Ming fall) lived in a tree: "The brush May paint the mountains and streams Though the territory is lost."93 (Here the "Ming" referred to is obviously the Ming Dynasty whose down fall was brought about by the invasion of the Manchus. Pa-ta Shan-jen 91MT, p. 14. 92MT, p. 4. 93MT, p. 15. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 165 lived on to paint the mountains and streams of his homeland, even when his homeland was lost to the foreign invaders.) Face in the crook of her neck felt throb of vein Smooth skin, her cool breasts All naked in the dawn , r tyrdes sing forth from every bough” where are they now qu And dreamt I saw the Duke of Chou (Here the poet is reminiscing about a former girlfriend who appears as prominently in a dream to him as the Duke of Chou ^ 'A supposedly appeared in a dream to Confucius. The reader may find a reference to "and dreamt I saw the Duke of Chou" in the Confucian Analects.) A third type of change in Myths and Texts may be described as the process of renewal or rebirth. Examples of this kind of change are: Buddha fed himself to tigers S donated mountains of eyes (through the years) To the blind”5 (Here, obviously, the Buddha must be reborn in order to feed himself to tigers and that he must have "mountains of eyes" to donate them continually to the blind.) Flung from demonic wombs off to some new birth A million shapes - just look in any biology book. 94 MT, p. 38. 95, MT, p. 29. 95mt,p. 27. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 166 (Here, Snyder is obviously referring to the popular Buddhist belief that one can get reborn in different shapes. According to the Buddhist concept cf Karma, one may get reborn variously as a horse, a dog, a pig, or even as a cockroach, depending on hew he led his life.) It’s a shame I didn’ t kill you, Yang Kuei Fei, Cut down in the old apartment Left to bleed between the bookcase and the wall, I'd hunt you still, trail you frcm town to tewn. But you change shape.9? (Here, Snyder is referring to the legend of Yang Kuei Fei, the favor ite concubine of Ming Huang of the T'ang Dynasty JL 685-762, who was forced to hang herself frcm a beam when the T’ ang soldiers re volted in protest against her nepotism and the usurpation of power by her relatives. According to legend, the forlorn emperor, Ming Huang, consulted Taoist priests about the prospect of reunion with her after her death, and was granted an audience with her in the land of the im mortals. She appeared to the emperor in the form of "The Ever True" In Snyder's version of the legend, he deliberately mixed T'ang China with modem America. The juxtaposition of Yang Kuei Fei with "the old apartment" and "the bookcase and the wall" suggests that al1 reality is illusory and that nothing remains permanently in this world. The reader interested in the Yang Kuei Fei legend may find it rewarding to read Po Chu-yi's "A Song of Unending Sorrow" or the first chapter of the Japanese Tale of Genji.) A fourth type of change in Myths and Texts— and the most cru cial transformation of all— is the change frcm nothing into something. 97 MT, p. 19. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 6 7 In other words, it is the Taoist "self-transformation". Although this self-transformation is seen throughout the Myths and Texts, the best examples are found at the beginning and the end of the bock. For in stance, at the beginning: q o The morning star is not a star But in the end: Flame tongue of the dragon Licks the sun qq The sun is but a morning star3 The transformation of the morning star which is "not a star" into the sun is brought about by the dragon’s tongue. Here we may recall that the dragon, in Chinese art and literature, is "the symbol of the in finite." We may further recall Laurence Binyon’s discussion of the dragon in Chapter V of The Flight of the Dragon, in which he equates the dragon with the "sovereign energy of the soul."'*'90 The Chinese term for this "sovereign energy of the soul" is ch’ i itself. And, in this light, the transformation of the insignificant morning star (in the beginning) into the sun (in the end) is made possible through the ch’i of the creator. But, as the Taoists believe that "everything creates itself without the direction of any Creator," it is the uni versal ch'i (the invisible spirit that links man with heaven and earth), rather than tne cn’i of any specific creator or poet, that 98TTT, p. 4. 99 MT, p. 48. ^°°Laurence Binyon, The Flight of the Dragon (1911; rpt. New York: Wisdom of the East Series-Grove Press, 1961), p. 25. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 6 8 brings about the transformations in the universe as well as Snyder's individual work. Grasping this principle of Taoism, we begin to under stand what Lu Chi means when he states: What joy there was in an this, the joy which sages and worthies have coveted. He was taxing Non-Being to produce Being, calling to the Silence, importunate for an answer: he was engrossing the great spaces within a span of silk, belching forth torrents (of language) from the inch-space of the heart.101 Here, we see hew it is possible to produce the Infinite ["torrents (of language)"] frcm the Finite ["the incn-space of the heart"], and Being (language) out of Non-Being (silence). The Ch'i of Gary Snyder In the light of Taoist theories, we might say that Snyder's ch'i, as a poet is linked with the ch'i of the universe. And it is through his zazen ("sitting in meditation") and his having "cultivated a sense for the intuitive powers in general" that he was able to link his ch'i with that of the cosmos. According to Snyder himself, his development of his "intuitive sense" came chiefly through his study of Chinese poetry and his cosmic consciousness through his "study of Ch'an [Zen Buddhism] in Japan."■^ On the other hand, the manifesta tion of Snyder's ch'i as a poet is best seen through his rhythm and form. In Professor Chen Shih-hsiang's translation of Lu Chi's Wen Fu * 1 rn “E. R. Hughes, trans., The Art of Letters: Lu Chi's "Wen Fu," A.D. 302 (New York: Bollingen Series-Pantheon, 1951), p. 98. 1Q2Snyder, letter dated 12.VII.40069 (1969). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 16 9 (Essay on Literature), Gary Snyder's former teacher amphasizes the concept of change in "the making of a composition": A composition comes into being as the incarnation of many living gestures. It is (like the act of Tao) the embodiment of endless change. ... if a poet masters the secret of change and order, He will channel them like directing streams to receive a fountain; But once a false move leads to reckless floundering, The end and the beginning are thrown into confusion, Celestial blue and earthy yellow con founded, Dull mud and dregs to chaos return, all light fails.103 Lu Chi, in Professor Chen's translation, further adds these observa tions: The elect and the forsaken are separated no wider than a hair's breadth. A pithy saying at a crucial point May whip all parts into a whole.l^4 To observe if Snyder has mastered "the secret of change and order" (in other words, the secret of rhythm and form, the external manifesta tions of his ch'i), let us examine hew a particular poem in Myths and Texts functions: Atok: creeping Maupok: waiting to hunt seals. The sea hunter 1 03 Chen Shih-hsiang, trans., Essay on Literature [Wen Fu], by Lu Chi, in Cyril Birch, ed., Anthology of Chinese Literature (New York: Grove Press, 1965), p. 209. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 170 watching the whirling seabirds on the rocks The mountain hunter horn-tipped shaft on a snowslope edging across cliffs for a shot at goat "Upon the lower slopes of the mountain, on the cover, we find the sculptored forms of animals apparently lying dead in the wilderness" thus Fenollosa On the pottery of Shang It's a shame I didn't kill you, Yang Kuei Fei, Cut dcwn in the old apartment Left to bleed between the bookcase and the wall, I'd hunt you still, trail you from town to tcwn. But you change shape. death's a new shape, Maybe flayed you' d be true But it wouldn't be through. "You who live with your grandmother I'll trail you with dogs And crush you in ny mouth." - not that we're cruel - But a Iran's got to eatl°5 When we first look at this poem (from the "Hunting" section in Myths and Texts), we are sanewhat baffled by Snyder's abrupt transitions. What starts out to be Eskimos hunting ("Atok: creeping / Maupok: waiting / to hunt seals") quickly becones Fenollosa's commentary on the art of the Shang Dynasty (c. 1300 B.C.), then becones Yang Kuei Fei (8th century) of T'ang China bleeding to death in an apartment (which is an obvious anachronism), and finally becones contemporary America ("You who live with your grandmother / I'll trail you with dcgs. . . ")• But when we re-read the poem again, these seemingly unrelated details begin to fall ir.to place. For the activities of the Eskimos "watching the whirling seabirds on the rocks" and "edging across cliffs for a 105MT, pp. 18-19. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 17 1 shot at goat" are essentially the same as those of the ancient Chinese of the Shang Dynasty, hut the difference is that the Chinese recorded these activities o r . "the pottery of Shang," which became the delight of such an expert on Oriental art as Ernest Fenollosa. In Snyder's second stanza, the poet makes an allusion to the Yang Kuei Fei legend (which we have already discussed), suggesting that despite her death in a rebellion she remains inaortal in our memory ("But you change shape.") And because of Buddhist reincarnation or her karma, Yang Kuei Fei could as easily be "cut down in the old apartment" and be "left to bleed between the bookcase and the wall" in this century as she had died violently twelve centuries earlier in T'ang China. But Snyder also reminds us that "death's a new shape," because death transforms the appearance of all living beings. In saying "Maybe flayed you'd be true / But it wouldn't be through," Snyder is obviously punning on the word "true" and making an allusion to the reputed infidelity of Yang Kuei Fei, whose secret liaison with An Lu-shan, a Tartar, was a cause in touching off the rebellion in 755. Here "true" implied "fidelity" to the Emperor Ming Huang. But as Yang Kuei Fei was untrue or un faithful to the emperor, "Maybe flayed you'd [Yang Kuei Fei would be] true." And "But it wouldn't be through" adds the suggestion that the Yang Kuei Fei's situation may be re-enacted through history, as, ac cording to one version of the legend, she metamorphosed into the Im- has suggested the cyclical nature of history as well as the immortality of legend through his reference to Yang Kuei Fei. . In this stanza of the poem, Snyder Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 172 In Snyder's last stanza, we are unsure of the speaker of the quoted conversation. But from the tone of "You who live with your grandmother / I'll trail you with dogs / and crush you in my mouth," we can tell that it is revenge that prompted this harsh-sounding state ment. This revenge is analogous to the revenge of the T'ang soldiers against Yang Kuei Fei, whose death (by hanging) they demanded as a condition of quelling the rebellion brought about by An Lu-shan. Also, trailing one with dogs suggests the hunting down of escaped convicts in the southern part of the United States. In this light, we can in terpret this activity as a merciless revenge of either a group, such as the T'ang soldiers, against one individual (such as Yang Kuei Fei) or of organized society, such as a posse in the south, against one social outcast (such as an escaped convict). But Snyder ends his poem with a wryly ironical note: — not that we're cruel — But a man's got to eat Here his statements make us pause to wonder if we really need to hunt down our fellowmen, whether Yang Kuei Fei or escaped convicts, in or der to satisfy our hunger ("But a man's got to eat"). Furthermore, we wonder if the rationalization "not that we're cruel / But a man's got to eat" justifies our killing of anyone, whether animals, such as seals and goats, or human beings, such as Yang Kuei Fei or an escaped convict. We are reminded of Buddha's practice of abstaining from meat, because strictly speaking, in eating any flesh we may be eating our brothers or sisters in a different reincarnation. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 17 3 But Snyder's poem is open to other interpretations. Going through the three stanzas of the poem, we find that the first one deals with hunting for food (the vocation of the Eskimo hunters), the second one with hunting for revenge (the sacrifice of Yang Kuei Fei), and the third one with a rationalization for hunting ("not that we're cruel— / But a man's got to eat"). Whereas the Eskimos may have a legitimate reason for hunting since they need food for survival, whereas the T'ang soldiers may have an adequate excuse for demanding the death of Yang Kuei Fei (who was indirectly responsible for the An Lu-shan rebellion in 755), there is neither a legitimate reason or an adequate excuse for trailing someone who lived with his grandmother with a pack of dogs in order to crush him "in my mouth." Reading Snyder's poem in the light of the different justifications for hunting, we find that the Eskimos can be exoneratec of their guilt because they need food, that the T'ang soldiers can be pardoned because they demanded the restora tion of order in the empire, but that the thrill-hunters (such as those who "trail you with dogs / And crush you in my mouth") are accountable for their guilt. Furthermore, the poem seems to suggest a progressive degeneration of values, with "primitive" Eskimos hunting for food, "sophisticated" Chinese hunting for revenge, and the "civilized" mod ems hunting for thrills. In discovering that the poem starts with the Eskimos hunting ("Atok: creeping / Maupok: waiting/ to hunt seals") and ends with a modem rationalization for hunting ("— not that we're cruel / But a man's got to eat"), we find not only a progressive degeneration of values, but also a cyclical reference to man's eating habit. By a cyclical reference to man's eating habit, we mean that the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 7 4 poem starts with shewing us the activity of hunting to acquire food and ends with giving us the reason for hunting ("But a man's got to eat"). In each case, "eating" is man's justification for his acts of violence. If "eating" leads to the violence of hunting, should we not, perhaps, reconsider our "eating" habit? In this light, we see that Snyder's poem can be interpreted as a Buddhist's plea for mercy , or uni versal compassion, for according to the Buddha, man perpetuates his sin in the killing of any sentient being, human or animal. Snyder's Myths and Texts can be viewed as a demonstration of the Buddhist belief that all appearance is illusory or deceptive, be cause the long poem, which appeared to be formless (full of rapid transitions and free association) in the beginning, turns out to be carefully designed in the end. The unity of Myths and Texts lies in Snyder's use of metamorphosis as the leitmotif of hie long poem. This metamorphosis illustrates the Buddhist principle that nothing is per manent or real in this world as well as the Taoist principle that the only permanence is change. In this light, Snyder's selection of primordial images fron the myths of diverse cultures (including those of China, Japan, Aztec, Mayan, Inca, and Californian Indians) in his Myths and Texts serves to demonstrate that, despite the barriers of languages and cultures, all mankind shares a collective unconscious. Ultimately it is only through man's sharing of the universal, the racial memory of all mankind, that he can redeem himself from the Bud dhist cycle of endless deaths: "Earthly Mothers and those who suck the breasts of earthly mothers are mortal - Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 7 5 but deathless are those who have fed ,„ at the breast of the Mother of the Universe." The impermanence of the world and the unreality of what we gen erally consider to be reality are stressed by Snyder in such lines as: The city of the Gandharvas, not a real city, Only the memory of a city Preserved in seed frcm beginningless time. as well as in the exchange between two mythic characters: Coyote: "I guess there never was a world anywhere" Earthmaker: "I think if we find a little world, "I can fix it up."108 The above conversation between Coyote and Earthmaker may strike us as being merely humorous in the beginning. But, upon careful reflection, we suddenly realize that Snyder is implying that the best one can do with any world, "real" or fictional, is to "fix it up." The world of Myths and Texts is no more substantial than Prospero' s island in The Tempest, and as "all things, including the individual, are in a state 109 of constant flux" (according to the Buddhist belief): Earth! those beings living on your surface none of them disappearing, will all be transformed. And even words are transformed, once they have been pronounced: When I have spoken to them When they have spoken to me, frcm that moment on, MT, p. 39. 107MT, p. 42. 108 Ibid. Here we catch the distinct voice of Snyder the ecologist. 109SCT, p. 268. 110MT, p. 47. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 7 6 their words and the bodies which they usually use to move about with, will all change. As change is the leitmotif of Myths and Texts, it is the only principle thdL governs the composition of Snyder's long poem. Snyder’ s Myths and Texts evolves "allotropically" (to borrow a phrase from Hugh Kenner in his ccnroentary on Pound's Cantos) rather than "logotropiral ly. " It progresses, as in a musical composition, by echoes and rever berations as well as variations on a theme. For, different as they are in nationalities and separated as they are by time, the characters Crazy Horse, Pa-ta Shan-jeh, Gautama Buddha, Chao-chou the Zen Master, Ray Wells the "big Nisqually," and the hobos and loggers who appear i n . the poem, are the embodiments of the same cosmic consciousness. Their actions and their words echo one another and reverberate throughout trie long poem. And when John Muir in the book describes his experience of climbing Mt. Ritter, he becomes the spokesman of all the characters as well as of Snyder the poet himself: After scanning its face again and again, I began to scale it, picking my holds With intense caution. About half-way To the top, I was suddenly brought to A dead stop, with arms outspread Clinging close to the face of the rock Unable to move hand or foot Either up or down. My doom Appeared fixed. I MUSI’ fall. There would be a moment of Bewilderment, and then, A lifeless rumble down the cliff To the glacier below. My mind seemed to fill with a Stifling smoke. This terrible eclipse Lasted only a manent, when life blazed Forth again with preternatural clearness. I seemed suddenly to become possessed Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 177 Of a new sense. My trembling muscles Became firm again, every rift and flaw in The rock was seen as through a microscope, My limbs moved with a pcsitiveness and precision With which I seemed to have Nothing at all to do.H2 For John Muir's statement "I seemed to become possessed / Of a new sense" indicates his attainment of Zen satori. From the moment he at tains satori, "My limbs moved with a positiveness and precision / With which I seemed to have / Nothing at all to do." And it is precisely in John Muir's passage frcm his individual awareness of the effort of his struggle into the cosmic consciousness "With which I seemed to have / Nothing at all to do" that he gains his sure footing or attains his satori. What John Muir had to go through in order to climb to the top of Mt. Ritter is precisely what Snyder had to go through in the composition of his Myths and Texts. In other words, John Muir's de scription of his experience in climbing Mt. Ritter is a metaphorical illustration of Snyder's conquest of the contents of Myths and Texts. According to Lu Chi: . . . the source of poetry is, like the air frcm the Bellows, the eternally generative Void, And it will forever breed with Heaven anc. Earth.H3 And, as a Zen Buddhist, Gary Snyder would have agreed that it is the interpenetration of the Void (Sunyata) and Heaven and Earth that brings about the creation of a poem. Or, we may say, the source of poetry MT, p. 39. 113 Chen Shih-hsiang in Birch, p. 212. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 7 8 can be traced to an awareness of emptiness ("the eternally generative Void") on one hand and a cosmic consciousness ("breed with Heaven and Earth") on the other. Accepting the doctrine that the world is full of emptiness (unreal and unsubstantial), the Zen poet creates seme thing out of nothing, for he realizes that "Apart from the Mind, there is nothing to create."^-1 * And in his act of creation, he proves himself as subject to change as "[the] Buddha [who] fed himself to tigers / S donated mountain of eyes / (through the years) / To the blind." For poetry, like the world in the Buddhist concept, is nothing real or sub stantial. It cannot prove or disprove that anything has happened. But, through our association with the mythical characters and legendary persons in the magic isle of Myths and Texts, we can at least rejoice momentarily even when we are surrounded by an ocean of the Void. As "the embodiment of endless change" (to borrow Lu Chi’s words), Snyder's Myths and Texts illustrates the Taoist concept of endless self- transformation. And, as the Taoist transformation is cyclical, we feel the inevitability of the end when "The morning star [which] is not a star" is transformed into "The sun [which] is but a morning star." And this transformation of nothing ("not a star") into scmething signifi cant (the sun) is precisely a metaphorical equation of the transforma tion of "empty" words into a meaningful poem. 114 SCT, p. 326. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER I V CONCLUSION In this dissertation we have shewn the affinities of seme con temporary American poets - especially Ezra Pound, Wallace Stevens, Marianne Moore, and Gary Snyder - with classical Chinese art and poet ry. Instead of proving any Chinese influence on Wallace Stevens and Marianne Moore, both of whcsn could not read any Chinese, we demonstra ted in Chapter I how their poetry could make much sense when read in the light of Chinese aesthetics. In the cases of Pound and Snyder, their interest in the Chinese language and their fascination with the classical poetry of China led them beyond what Stevens called "a second-hand contact with China. Adapting the Chinese ideogram to his cwn idiosyncratic purposes, Pound equates it with phanopoeia and uses it to enhance tie visual appeal of his cwn poetry. Furthermore, in his reading of classical Chinese poetry, Pound finds confirmation in the first two of his Imagist dicta: 1. Direct treatment of the 'thing./ whether subjective or objective. 2. To use absolutely no word that did not contribute to the presentation. See Holly Stevens, ed., Letters of Wallace S'(.evens, p. 229. The ex pression came frcm a letter dated Sept. 23, 1922. In this letter, Stevens told Harriet Monroe: "For a poet to have even a second-hand contact with China is a great matter; and a desk that sees so much trouble is blessed by such reversions to innocence." 179 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 8 0 As a trailblazer in twentieth century American poetry, Pound has influenced the post-Imagist poets in their use of language, in their respect for Chinese culture, and in their affection for Li Po. We notice, for instance, that in post-Imagists as varied as Gary Sny der and W. S. Merwin, Denise Levertov and Sylvia Plath, the language 2 tends to be "hard and dry" and "free frcm emotional slither." In other words, it is a language stripped dcwn to the essentials, with no words wasted. Following the lead of Pound, younger American poets, including Robert Bly, Philip Whalen, W. S. Merwin, James Wright, and Gary Snyder, have translated Chinese poetry or written poems in imitation of the Chinese. In their private conversation, they talked of Li Po more as a contemporary than as a Chinese poet who died 1210 years ago. Frcm time to time, we encountered in little magazines poetic tributes to Li Po. In fact, a dissertation could probably be written about the "Li Po poems" in American Literature since Pound published his Cathay in 1915. In the aftermath of Pound's idiosyncratic "discovery" of the ideogram, Snyder not only studied Chinese at the University of Cali fornia, but also went to Kyoto - the Japanese city modeled after the ancient Chinese capital, Chang-an - to study Zen buddhism. His 2 Used by Ezra Pound in slightly different wordings on numerous oc casions. See, for instance, such varying expressions as "hard and clear," "harder and saner," "austere," " clean and hard" in Blast, I, No. 1 (June 20, 1914), his "Vorticism" article in the Sept. 1, 1914 issue of The Fortnightly Review, and Sane Imagist Poets (1915). The words "free frcm emotional slither" are quoted in Coffman, Imagism: A Chapter for the History of Modem Poetry (1951), p. 137. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 8 1 knowledge of Chinese and his Zen orientation made him a poetic medium of Wang Wei, Wei Ying-wu and Han Shan, three T’ ang dynasty Buddhist poets. Imbued with the Zen spirit, he wrote Myths and Texts, a work that could be best "illuminated" and interpreted in the light of Bud dhist and Taoist idology. Unlike Pound, whose ching ming is adapted frcm Confucian philosophy, Snyder is an admirer of Lao Tzu and Chuang Tsu (the Taoist patriarchs) and has no patience with Confucius: "Man is the heart of the universe the upshot of the five elements, bom to enjoy food and color and noise..." Get off my back Confucius There’s enough noise now.3 Alluding to the Chinese legend that Confucius was said to have called upon Lao Tzu to consult the latter about li / T ' j L . Snyder ex tols Lao Tzu at the expense of Confucius: Surrender into freedom, revolt into slavery - Confucius no better - j . (with Lao-Tzu to keep him . ' n check) In his preference for Lao Tzu over Confucius, Snyder stands op posed tc Pound philosophically. While the Confucianism of Pound led him to stress "order" and "brotherly deference," the Zen of Snyder led him to the Taoist ideal of simplicity and freedom: How pleasant to squat in the sun Jockstrap S zoris -- 3Gary Snyder, Myths and Texts (New York: Totem/Corinth, 1960), p. 11. Hereafter, the work will be cited as MT. ^The word li has no strict equivalent in English. It has been vari ously translated as "proper conduct," "decorum," "ceremony," and "the observance of rituals" among counties., other interpretations. SMT, p. 40. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 18 2 Or having a wife and baby living close to the ocean, with skills for gathering food. But in his use of language, Snyder follows Pound's Imagist principles and writes a poetry which is concise and bone-clean. His "hard and dry" poetry is evinced in such lines as: Lay down these words Before your mind like rocks placed solid, by hands In choice of place, set Before the body of the mind in space and time: Solidity of bark, leaf, or wall riprap of things ... In his succinctness, Snyder seems to have followed the Fenollosa-Pound principle of "eschewing adjectives, nouns and intransitive forms wher ever we can, and seeking instead strong and individual verbs." Sny der's practice substantiates the Fenollosa-Pound theory in a stanza such as the following: Lie on the mats and sweat in sunmer, Shiver in winter, sit and soak like a foetus in the bath. Paikaru and gyosa at Min Min with Marxist students full of China Look for country pot-hooks at the Nijo junk store Get dry bad red wine to drink like a regular foreigner frcm Maki's, Trudging around with visitors to Gardens. Here we may notice that "strong and individual verbs" dominate almost every line, such as "lie" and "sweat" in line 1, "shiver," "sit," and "soak” in line two, "look" in line four, and "get" in line Gary Snyder, Riprap S Cold Mountain Poems (1958; rpt. San Francisco: Four Seasons Foundation, 1965), p. 36. 7 Gary Snyder, "Things to Do around Kyoto" in Stephen Berg and Robert Mezey, eds., Naked Poetry: Recent American Poetry in Open Forms (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1969), p. 354. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 8 3 five, not to mention the participle "trudging" in the last line. In this light, we could say that Snyder’s poetics agrees with Pound’s. Besides agreeing with Pound in his poetic principles, Snyder - more than any other American poet - has two things in cannon with though for different reasons. Pound, who translated the work as The Classic Anthology Defined by Confucius, shares with Confucius the be lief that: The Odes [the Shih Ching] will arouse you, give you food for thought, teach you how to make friends, shew you the way of resentment, bring you near to being useful to your parents and sovereign, and help you remember the names of many birds, animals, plants and trees.8 In other words, both Confucius and Pound see the Shih Ching as didactic in purpose, as a fit book to instruct the young. In contrast, Snyder regards the work as a masterpiece of Chinese folk poetry. With his interest in anthropology and oral literature, he reads the Shih Ching to rediscover the rites and customs of ancient China and to trace the influence of these folk songs "through history, on various periods of Chinese poetry." The second thing Snyder has in common with Pound is that both of them admire Tu Fu, Li Po's greatest contemporary. In a private ®This is Achilles Fang's translation taken frcm his Introduction to Ezra Pound, The Classic Anthology Defined by Confucius (Cambridge, Mas " ' ' ‘ 1 1 ' " is Pound. Both of them hold the Shih Ching in high esteem, a s 'A . O k . * - ' f ^Gary Snyder, letter to this auxhor dated 26.VII.1971. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 184 ccr.varsa.tian with me in 1957, Pound professed that his favorite Chinese poet was Tu Fu instead of Li Po. But not having had a Tu Fu manuscript frcci Fenollosa, Pound was unable to translate China's greatest Confu- cian poet, whose writing is difficult to any non-Chinese because of its constant references to Chinese place-names and allusions to Chinese literary classics. If we consider Pound a difficult poet because of his allusions to Hcmer, Ovid, and Dante, then we would consider Tu Fu far more difficult because of his allusions to ancient Chinese history and the Four Becks ¥9 and Five Classics , the canons of ancient Chinese literature ( wen).^ Pound's secret admiration for Tu Fu stems mainly frcm sharing the same philosophical belief with the Chinese poet, an avowed Confucianist. To the Chinese, Tu Fu, more than any other Chinese poet, is the Confucian poet par excellence. His poetry abounds with learned allusions to Confucian classics; he is scholarly in the Confucian sense of the word. In addition, like many Confucian scholars, Tu Fu is faithful in recording historical inci dents, especially the years of political corruption and nepotism in the capital (in such a poem as "A Song of Beauty" ^ and the years of turmoil and famine following An Lu-shan's rebellion in 755 (in such poems as Lament for the Nobilities" ^ 2- '$> , "Lament by the ^The word "literature" is a loose translation of the Chinese "weh,"^ which has no equivalent in English. For instance, ancient Chinese wen includes history, philosophy, and belle-lettres but excludes drama, short stories, and novels. J ”L "A Song of Beauty" is my cwn translation of the title, / • - ^ For an English prose translation of the poem, see "Ballad of Lovely Women" in David Hawkes, A Little Primer of Tu Fu (London: Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1957), pp. 26-27. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. River," "Homeless Separation," ^ % ' j and "A Song of Fading Autumn," ^ jn such poems as "Soldiers and Car riages" ^ ^ and "Northern Expedition" it> he depicts the devastation of the civil war. And in poems such as "The Newlywed's Separation" , "The Old Conscript's Separation" $'J, and "Hsin-An Officer" , 1 * + he paints a vivid picture of the plight of the cannon people caught in the holocaust of war. Many of his poems are autobiographical in nature. For instance, in a long poem entitled, "From the Capital to Feng-Hsien" (S'?1 J ! t S tJL -2- )1S he records hew his youngest son starved to death ( Z?-jyU & ) when the corrupt officials in the capital were feasting. The pathos of these poems suggests comparison with that of the Pisan Unless otherwise indicated, the translations of all these titles are my own. ^"Lament for the Nooilities" 2 3 " $ , and "Lament by the River" 3 ^ are available respectively as "The Unfortunate Prince" and "Ey the Lake" in A Little Printer of Tu Fu, pp. 43-44 and p. 55. The reader may find Hawkes' exegesis of these poems more help ful than his prose translations. While William Hung's Tu Fu: China's Greatest Poet (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1952) is thorough in its-coverage of Tu Fu poems, the work is of interest only to Sinologists. ^For an English prose translation of "Soldiers and Carriages" - fc , see "Ballad of the Amy Carts" in A Little Primer of Tu Fu, p. 17. Again, Hawkes' exegesis surpasses his translation! ^For "The Newlywed's Separation" % ' J , see David Rafael Wang's English version in Virginia Tufte, ed., High Wedlock Then Be Honoured (New York: Viking Press, 1970), pp. 55-55. ^"From the Capital to Feng-Hsien" ^ -5_ £ & is rendered as "Five Hundred Words from Chang-An to Fihg- Hsien" in Wil.li.am Hung, Tu Fu: Cnina's Greatest Poet, pp. 87-89. The line it S' ' f TU & ip- is translated by Hung as * ’ I am told my infant boy has died of hunger" (sec p. 89). with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 8 6 Cantos, in which we find such deeply moving lines as: The enormous tragedy of the dream in the peasant's bent shoulders Manes I Manes was tanned and stuffed, Thus Ben and la Clara a Milano by the heels at Milano — [frcm Canto DOdV] and and 0 white-chester martin, God damn it, as no one else will carry a message, say to La Cara: amo. [frcm Canto IKXVI] the loneliness of death came upon me (at 3 P.M., for an instant) [frcm Canto LXXXIIJ and If the hoar frost grip thy tent Thou wilt give thanks when night is spent. [frcm Canto LXXXIV] The pathos of Pound's lines is further augmented by the fact that he composed them when he was imprisoned in a steel cage in the disciplin ary camp of the United States Army in Pisa. In other words, Pound was able to distill the essence of his suffering into poetry much as Tu Fu was able to weave magic out of his personal suffering (including the starvation of his children and the constant disruption of his family life) from the effect of the Chinese civil war. Thus the affinities between Tu Fu and Pound can be summarized as follows: (1) Both Tu Fu and Pound admire Confucius and Mencius, as evinced by Tu Fu's Confucian allusions in his poetry and Pound's translation of Ta Hio ^ , Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 8 7 The Unwobbling Pivot , the Analects Fa, and excerpts frcm Mencius -J- . (2) Both Tu Fu and Pound follow the precepts of Con fucius and stress history in their poetry. We need only to think of Tu Fu’s numerous autobiographical poems in which he records the horrors of the civil war and Pound’ s Chinese Cantos (Cantos LII-LXI) to be convinced of their historical orientation. (3) Both Tu Fu and Pound are autobiographical poets, who transmute their personal suffering into poetry of universal significance. Such poems as Tu Fu’s ’ ’ From the Capital to Feng-Hsien" C tJL -2- W ^ ) and "Thatch Lodge" ( jiT ) and Pound's Pisan Cantos best exemplify their inpulse to create poetry out of their per sonal agony. Like Ezra Pound, Gary Snyder is a great admirer of Tu Fu. Con sidering Snyder’ s Zen orientation, we would expect him to prefer Li Po, ’ jho is regarded as a Taoist poet, to Tu Fu, an avowed Confucian poet. In a letter to me, Snyder professed that his favorite poets included Tu Fu and Wang Wei. We can easily understand his liking for Wang Wei, who is a Zen poet and who is known for his preference of the quietism of Lac Tzu to the activism of Confucius. But Snyder went so far as to say: "The poet Tu Fu is the one that really stones me S always has." Neither in his letters nor in his conversation did Snyder mention Li Po, although he contributed three poems * c o the "Li Po Issue" of the Galley Sail Review.^ Two of the poems he contributed to that issue are highly Taoist in their orientation. They were entitled "Hunting" and "This Poem Is for Deer" and were reprinted in Myths and Texts *j C Gary Snyder, letter to this author dated 12.VII.40069. ^See The Galley Sail . Review, 2, No. 1 (Winter, 1959-60), pp. 19-21. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 8 8 respectively as #2 and #8 in the "Hunting" section of the long poem.1® The first of these two poems which starts vith the lines "Atok: creep ing / Kaupok: waiting / to hunt seals" w.is analyzed in Chapter III of this dissertation. The second one, entitled "Tiis Poem Is for Deer," lU , contains an allusion to the "Five Peaks" in such lines as: "I dance on all the mountain? On five mountains, I have a t.mcing place When they shoot at me I run To my five mountains"1® The "five mountains," better known to the Chinese as the "Five Peaks," refer to the five sacred mountains in Chinese mythology. They are specifically Heng Shan i^- ^ in the province of Shansi iL 2? , Hihg Shan in Hunan , T'ai Shan iU in Shantung ^ Hua Shan ^ in Shensi ® , and Sung Shan in Honan $$ . Of these mountains, the most famous is T’ . i i Shan, which Pound has appropriated as a major symbol in his Pisan Cantos. Despite Pound’s Confucianism and Snyder’s Zen, both the T'ai Shan in the Pisan Cantos and "my five mountains" in "This Poem Is for Deer" symbolize a refuge frcm worldly strife. Using such contrasting tone and imagery as: Scared out a cottontail Whipped up the winchester Shot off its head. The white body rolls and twitches In the dark ravine As we run down the hill to the car.^O and '^See Gary Snyder, Myths S Tests, op. 18-19 for #2 and pp. 24-25 for £ 8. 19MT, p. 24. 21L-, Ibid. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 189 Deer don't want to die for me. I'll drink sea-water Sleep on beach pebbles in the rain Until the deer ccme down to die in pity for my pain.21 Snyder reminds v i s of man's insensitivity to other animals and pleads subtly for ’ die sparing of animal lives. Furthermore, the reference to "ny five mountains" suggests that animals are safe only on the sacred mountains, where divine compassion rather than human "pity" spares them frcm annihilation. Despite Pound and Snyder's different philosophical orientations , the plea for compassion or mercy rib resounds both m the Pisan Cantos and Myths and Texts. Despite the fact that Li Po and Gary Snyder write seme 1200 years apart and in two totally unrelated languages, we find that they have these: things in common. First, both Li Po and Snyder admire Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu and consider Confucius irrelevant, if not a nui sance. Their lack of respect for Confucius is evinced by Snyder's lines "Get off my back Confucius / There's enough noise now" and Li Po's ("Phoenix Song" laugh at Kung).^ Sec ondly, both of these poets allude to Taoist mythology in their poetry 21Mr, p. 26. ^See Li Po's poem, "Sent Singing from Lu Shan. . ." Jj*ih J%. ' I f in Ir |l , ed., Selected K?ems of Li Po # & (Hong Kong: i 1957.), p. 167. The first two lines of the poem K-. ifK- % u can be roughly trans lated as "I am a madman from Ch'u / With Phoenix Song I laugh at Con fucius." The "madman" refers to a hermit, who disapproved of Confu cius’ traveling from state to state in behalf of his political ideas. Comparing, Confucius to a phoenix whose moral personality had weakened ( i& -> 'ZT 1iT tL i ) , the hermit suggested that Con fucius cease his political activity . Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 9 0 and are concerned with the Taoist theme of endless transformation. Thirdly, they both create extremely successful love poems, as typified by Li Po's "Ch'ang-Kan Hsing" -|L T IT (translated by Pound as "The Poems for Robin," "Alysoun," and "Another for the Same."^ Since there is no public record or private admission of Snyder being influenced by Li Po, we have restricted ourselves to shewing sane of the affinities between the two poets. However, we knew that Snyder which he used at Berkeley in Professor Chen Shih-hsiang's class, con tains poems of Wang Wei and Tu Fu as well as Li Po. It is interesting to note that in the "Li Fo Issue" of the Galley Sail Review to which Snyder contributed two poems reprinted later in Myths and Texts, Philip Whalen contributed a poem entitled "Hymnus ad Patrem Sinensis." We may recall that Whalen is one of Snyder's closest friends and his for mer rocsimate at Reed College. Whalen's "Hymnus ad Patrem Sinensis" reads as follows: I praise those ancient Chinamen who left me a few words Usually a pointless joke a silly question a line of poetry druhkenly scrawled on the margin of a quick spashed picture bug, leaf, caricature of Teacher On paper held together now by little more than ink And their own strength brushed momentarily over it - Their world and several others since Gone to hell in a handbasket, they knew it. The Snyder poems can be found respectively on p. 27, pp. 45-47, p. 57, and p. 73 of The Back Country (New York: New Directions, 1968). River Merchant's Wife: A Letter")*"Mulberry on the Road" PI? and "White-Head Chant" ^ ,and Snyder's "After Work," "Four must have read Li Po, because the text T* ang-shih san-pei-shou tu-peh. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 9 1 Cheered as it whizzed by And conked out among the busted spring rain cherryblosscm wine jars Happy to have served us all.^ In the line "Usually a pointless joke a silly question a line of poetry,1 ' Whalen obviously refers to the Zen of such Chinese poets translated as Cold fountain Poems). In the line "drunkenly scrawled on the margin of a quick splashed picture" Whalen alludes to Li Po's reputation of composing poetry while he was drunk. And "caricature of Teacher," with the Teacher referring to Confucius, suggests Li Po's lack of respect for the latter. The Taoist sangfroid is suggested in the concluding stanza in which the world "Gone to hell in a handbasket" is "Cheered as it whizzed by," while "conked out among the busted spring rain cheiryblosscm wine jars," the "Pater Sinensis" is "Happy to have served us all." In this poem, Whalen seems to have captured the Taoist essence when he paradoxically considers the "Pater Sinensis" "to have served us all" when he is "conked out" in the midst of wine and cherryblosscm. In other words, Whalen, like Snyder, seems to have s-iggested that all things being evanescent we might as well leave them alone. Ultimately, with Whalen, as with Snyder, the quietism of Lao Tzu is to be preferred over The "idea in action" of Confucius. In this respect, Whalen and Snyder align more with Li Po in their atti tude toward life than with Tu Fu and Ezra Pound. We have shewn seme of the affinities between Tu Fu and Ezra Pound and between Li Po and Gary Snyder. While Li Po has become ^t f The Galley Sail Review, 2, No. 1 (Winter, 1959-60), p. 2. The poem is reprinted in Philip Whalen, On Bear's Head (New York: Coyote- Harcourt, Brace & World, 1969), p. 61. as Wang Fan-chih Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 9 2 accessible to American readers through Pound's Cathay (1915) and Wang and Williams' The Cassia Tree (1956),25 Tu Fu remains a serious chal lenge to translators. Although imitations of Tu Fu have been made by such poets as Carolyn Kizer, Paul Blackburn, arid George Quasha, no American poet has came close to capturing the spirit of the Confucian poet. Unfortunately, Pound is too old to attempt Tu Fu at this time. It remains to be seen if any Sinologist will train himself to be a poet to do justice to the poetry of Tu Fu in an American version. The study of Sino-American Poetic Relationship is only in its initial stage. Except for L. S. Dembo's The Confucian Odes of Ezra Pound and Wai-lim Yip's Ezra Pound's Cathay, no serious attempt of can- paring the poetics of the two nations has been undertaken. Perhaps, Sinologists who spent too much time examining the literal meaning of Chinese words in a poem should turn to examining what constitutes its poetry. They might even profit from reading American imitations of Chinese poetry, such as Paul Blackburn's "Chengtu - after Tu Fu" and David Rafael Wang's "Cool Cat" (dedicated to Gary Snyder).^® 25 For The Cassia Tree, see David Rafael Wang and William Carlos Wil liams , The Cassia Tree: A Collection of Translations and Adaptations frcm the Chinese in James Laughlin, ed., New Directions in Prose and Poetry 19 (New York: New Directions, 1966), pp. 211-231. Arthur Waley's The Poetry and Career of Li Po, 701-762 A.D. (London: George Allen and Unwin, and New York: Macmillan, 135C) and Shigeyoshi Obata's The Works of Li Po, the Chinese Poet (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1922) also contain translations of Li Po's poems, but they can hardly be considered as American poetry. 26 For Blackx>u.rn's poem, see Sumac, 1, No. 3 (Spring, 1969), p. 7. For Wang's poem, see New Directions in Prose and Poetry 19, p. 231. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 9 3 They might even compare Witter Bynner's translations of Li Po with 97 William Carlos Williams' "Widow's Lament in Springtime" and ask why the latter, a distinctly American poem, conveys more of a Chinese aura than the former, which aimed at literal exactness. Until Sinologists are willing to became ccmparatists, the study of Chinese poetry in the United States will remain in its infantile stage. For to make an ade quate translation of a Chinese poem into English, a scholar must have these qualifications: (1) a sound knowledge of the Chinese language and the Chinese tradition; (2) an awareness of the limitations and strengths of both Chinese and English; and above all (3) a realization of the similarities and differences of Chinese and American poetics. If such scholars were found, then an American Renaissance based upon Chinese ideas (Pound's "new table of values") would take place as as suredly as the Italian Renaissance was ushered in through the redis covery of classical Greek ideas. Perhaps, the new Renaissance has 9ft been launched with Snyder's translation of Han Shan. It remains to be seen if Snyder's example will inspire younger American poets to Chinese studies and better translations. 27 For Witter Bynner's translations cf Li Po, see Witter Bynner and Kicng kang-hu, trans., The Jade Mountain: A Chinese Anthology (New York: Anchor-Doubleday, 1964), pp. 39-56. For Will jams' poem, "The Widow's Lament in Springtime," see The Collected Earlier Poems of William Carlos Williams (New York: New Directions, 1951), p. 223. 28 Snyder’s Han Shan translations, which first appeared in Evergreen Review #6 (1958), are reprinted in his Riprap S Cold Mountain Poems, pp. 39-49. Snyder's own preface and notes appear on p. 50. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 9 4 Although we have not proven any definite Chinese influence on Ezra Pound and Gary Snyder in this dissertation, we have shewn hew Pound's original poetry, especially his Cantos, has profited from his idiosyncratic usage of the Chinese ideogram as well as his allusions to Chinese mythology. Also, we have shown hew Gary Snyder's discovery of modes of perception - chiefly Taoist and 3uddhist - in the Chinese tradition enabled him to attain his unique American satori. While Pound and Snyder have not metamorphosed into Chinese poets through their study of Chinese poetry, both have used their knowledge of the Chinese tradition as a means to creating respectively The Cantos and Myths and Texts, two poetic microcosms which synthesize Chinese ideologies with their unique American visions. If we could accept Achilles Fang's designation of Ezra Pound as a "Confucian poet,” then we might consider Gary Snyder as a Taoist-Zen poet. After all, both Pound and Snyder are willing to be regarded as Chinese poets, as typi fied by Pound's deliberate choice of the Confucian-sounding f-tt- (Protector of Virtii) and Snyder's selection of both the Taoist-sounding 8 h % t L (Timber Beast) and the Buddhist-sounding Jkb/® * (Devotee of Wind-hearing) as their respective Chinese names ( U > :.29 ^ /^‘ en and ff^'te, both Confucian virtues, are extremely difficult to translate into English. They suggest kindness, benevolence, anc mutuality.. lin shou, literally means "forest beast." "Timber Beast" is Snyder's own rendition. M r * ch'ii-shih can also be translated as "dweller" or "retired scholar-." It suggests passivity rather than activity. -&%Ynao has no strict equivalent in English. It is usually the third name of ^Chinese, after his ming, his private personal name, and his tzu, his public personal name. hao might be considered as a courtesy name. It was often the name of the residence or country retreat of a writer. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 9 5 BIBLIOGRAPHY PRIMARY SOURCES: i Moore, Marianne. Complete Poems. New York: Macmillan/Viking, 1967. _______. A Marianne Moore Reader. New York: Cor.Tpiss-VUdng, 1961. _______. 0 To Be a Dragon. New York: Viking Press, 1959. _______. Predilections. New York: Viking Press, 1955. Pound, Ezra Loanis. ABC of Reading. 1934; rpt. New York: New Direc tions, 1960. ] i A Luroe Spento and Other Early Poems. New York: New!Direc tions, 1365. . The Cantos. New York: New Directions, 1970. , ed. The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry, "by Ernest Fenollosa. London: Stanley Nott, 1936. j f _, trans. 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New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1918. . Personae: Collected Poems. New York: New Directions, 1926. _ . Polite Essays. 1937; rpt. Freeport, New York: Books for Libraries Press, 1966. _ , ed. Profile: An Anthology Collected in MCMCg. Milan: 'John Scheiwiller, 1932. _ . The Spirit of Romance. 1910; rpt. New York: New Direc tions, 1953. , trans. Ta Hio, Ihe Great Learning, ed. Glenn Hughes. 'Seattle: University of Washington Chapbooks, No. 14, 1928. . Translations. New York: New Directions, 1963. Snyder, Gary. The Back Country. New York: New Directions, 1968. _______. Earth House Bold: Technical Notes S Queries to Fellcw £>harma Revolutionaries. New Vork: New Directions, 1969. ______. Myths S Texts. New York: Totem/Corinth, 1960. _______. Regarding Wave. New York: New Directions, 1970. _______. Riprap & Cold Mountain Poems. San Francisco: Four Seasons Foundation, 1965. _______. Six Sections from Mountains and Rivers without End Plus One" San Francisco: Four Seasons Foundation, 1970. 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Creator WAND, DAVID HAPPELL HSIN-FU (author)

Core Title CATHAY REVISITED: THE CHINESE TRADITION IN THE POETRY OF EZRA POUND AND GARY SNYDER.

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag Literature, Modern,OAI-PMH Harvest

Language English

Contributor Digitized by ProQuest (provenance)

Advisor Thomas, Dante (committee chair), [illegible] (committee member), Clothier, Peter D. (committee member)

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c17-225100

Unique identifier UC11352155

Identifier 7300787.pdf (filename),usctheses-c17-225100 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier 7300787.pdf

Dmrecord 225100

Document Type Dissertation

Rights WAND, DAVID HAPPELL HSIN-FU

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the au...

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