Communications in Humanities Research ISSN: 2753-7072
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Research Article

Ezra Pound: Merits and Defects in Approaching Eastern Poetry

Zijun ZhouClifton College*

* Corresponding author: [email protected]

Abstract

Many literati consensually consider Ezra Pound a very significant figure in bringing Eastern poetry into the English world. His Cathay and In A Station of the Metro manifest his engagement in Chinese and Japanese poetry respectively. Rarely have scholars systematically discussed and evaluated the interconnection between the three languages’ poetry displayed in Pound’s work. Therefore, this article aims to provide a comparative and comprehensive analysis of Pound’s works, Chinese ancient poems and haikus. It begins with an overview of poetry and then moves to introducing how English and Eastern poetry differ. In the discussion, Chinese and Japanese poetry have been explored respectively and jointly. This article, from the perspective of one with mastery or intermediacy in all three languages, aims to provide some more accurate and aesthetic translations of Chinese poems by poets including Wang Wei, and haikus by haijins such as Bashō. These translations (unless specified, original) better serve to compare and contrast Pound’s poems and their Eastern counterparts. A series of close, dialectic analyses demonstrate that Pound both possessed merits and defects in approaching Eastern Poetry. This study provides a more thorough account of this significant literary crossover, from which it is hoped that future studies discover how Pound developed and/or popularised certain styles in this process.

Keywords: Ezra Pound; haiku; Chinese poetry; translation
Published: December 7, 2023
DOI: 10.54254/2753-7064/20/20231389
Volume: CHR Vol.20
pp. 285-298
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