Cathay at 100: A Conversation

                                                                                                                        Cathay  at  100:  A  Conversation       Timothy  BILLINGS,  Christopher  BUSH,  Yunte  HUANG,   Josephine  PARK,  Marjorie  PERLOFF,  QIAN  Zhaoming,    Haun  SAUSSY,  Richard  SIEBURTH     The  Invitation:     In   April   1915   a   slim   volume   of   verse   was   published   by   Elkin   Mathews   in   London,   Cathay:  For  the  Most  Part  from  the  Chinese  of  Rihaku,  from  the  notes  of  the  late   Ernest   Fenollosa,   and   the   Decipherings   of   the   Professors   Mori   and   Ariga.   Ezra   Pound’s   Cathay   is   just   100   years   old,   and   we   all   know   what   it   did   to   transform   English-­‐‑ language   poetry   (especially   American).   It   has   also   generated   some   fine   scholarship   over   the   years—   and   lots   of   interesting   disagreement.   With   a   century   of   changing   perspectives  now  behind  us,  wouldn’t  it  be  a  good  moment  (however  adventitious)   to   sit   down   and   talk   about   the   differences   that   Cathay   made,   and   the   differences   between  its  earliest  readers’  responses  and  ours  today,  and  other  related  topics?     Here’s   what   I   would   like   to   invite   you   to,   if   you   like   the   idea:   a   conversation   over  email  about  Cathay,  to  be  pursued  in  odd  moments  over  the  next  few  weeks  or   possibly   months,   following   the   turns   of   real   conversation.   At   some   point   I   would   then  edit  it  down  and  send  it  to  each  of  you  for  final  approval  and  revisions.  What   do  you  think?  A  little  hundredth-­‐‑birthday  party  for  the  slim  khaki-­‐‑colored  volume.     The  Conversation:     Haun   Saussy:   Everyone   acknowledges   that   the   appearance   in   1915   of   Cathay   did   something  to  change  the  style  and  manner  of  American  poetry—  and  over  the  years,   English   poetry   too.   Just   what   that   “something”   was   we   might   want   to   spend   some   time  trying  to  pin  down;  also  how  it  happened,  how  the  Imagist  idea  of  what  a  poem   is   took   root   and   found   partisans.   It   is   astonishing   that   these   changes   should   have   begun  with  a  translation  from  a  language,  Chinese,  that  had  done  very  little  to  affect   English   writing   up   to   then.   A   language,   too,   that   the   “translator”   (a   two-­‐‑headed   prodigy,  Fenollosa-­‐‑Pound)  did  not  quite  know  (Pound  knowing  less  than  Fenollosa  at   this   point,   Fenollosa   largely   dependent   on   his   Japanese   intermediaries).   Now   reorientations  in  literary  style  and  sensibility  often  come  as  a  result  of  translations.  As   Pound   himself   observed,   most   innovations   in   English   verse   have   come   about   as   a   ©Chinese  Literature:  Essays,  Articles,  Reviews  37  (2015)        162     Chinese  Literature:  Essays,  Articles,  Reviews  37  (2015)   result   of   “steals   from   the   French.”   But   usually   the   precondition   of   such   an   effect   is   hundreds   of   years   of   close   contact   between   the   languages   involved   (at   literary   and   everyday  levels).  The  literatures  of  England  have  been  mediating  Latin  since  the  time   of   Caedmon,   French   since   1066,   Italian   since   Chaucer,   and   so   forth.   Chinese   poetry   was  an  unknown  in  1915,  and  it  is  astonishing  to  see  it  taking  in  short  order  the  role  of   a   model   for   what   modern   poetry   ought   to   be.   How   could   we   account   for   this   prodigious  irruption,  made  through  one  slender  volume  of  short  poems  in  the  second   year  of  a  terrible  war?     Marjorie   Perloff:   I   think   the   “prodigious   irruption”   took   place   in   response   to   the   maudlin   verses   of   the   Georgian   poets   who   were   Pound’s   contemporaries   in   the   England  of  1915.    Here’s  an  average  one  by  Frank  Prewett:     To  My  Mother  in  Canada,  from  Sick-­‐‑Bed  in  Italy                                                   Dear  mother,  from  the  sure  sun  and  warm  seas   Of  Italy,  I,  sick,  remember  now   What  sometimes  is  forgot  in  times  of  ease,   Our  love,  the  always  felt  but  unspoken  vow.   So  send  I  beckoning  hands  from  here  to  there,   And  kiss  your  black  once,  now  white  thin-­‐‑grown  hair   And  your  stooped  small  shoulder  and  pinched  brow.   Here,  mother,  there  is  sunshine  every  day;   It  warms  the  bones  and  breathes  upon  the  heart;   But  you  I  see  out-­‐‑plod  a  little  way,   Bitten  with  cold;  your  cheeks  and  fingers  smart.   Would  you  were  here,  we  might  in  temples  lie,   And  look  from  azure  into  azure  sky,   And  paradise  achieve,  slipping  death'ʹs  part.   But  now  ’tis  time  for  sleep:  I  think  no  speech   There  needs  to  pass  between  us  what  we  mean,   For  we  soul-­‐‑venturing  mingle  each  with  each.   So,  mother,  pass  across  the  world  unseen   And  share  in  me  some  wished-­‐‑for  dream  in  you;   For  so  brings  destiny  her  pledges  true,   The  mother  withered,  in  the  son  grown  green.     Accustomed   to   such   clichés   as   “thin-­‐‑grown   hair,”   “stooped”   shoulder   and   “pinched   brow,”  not  to  mention  the  rather  questionable  sentiment  of  comforting  the  “withered”   mother   by   assuring   her   that   her   son’s   “grown   green,”   think   of   what   a   thrill   it   must   have  been  for  readers  to  confront  the  “Chinese”  inflections  of              Cathay  at  100:  A  Conversation   163         Here  we  are,  picking  the  first  fern-­‐‑shoots   And  saying:  “When  shall  we  get  back  to  our  country?   Here  we  are  because  we  have  the  Ken-­‐‑nin  for  our  foemen.  .  .  .     “Direct  treatment  of  the  thing”!  Present  tense.  Proper  names.       A  total  breath  of  (Chinese?)  fresh  air.     Haun   Saussy:   The   example   is   perfect,   Marjorie.   It’s   not   only   that   the   rhetoric   is   sentimental   and   unoriginal,   but   the   bald-­‐‑faced   lie   in   making   the   Italian   campaign   of   WWI  sound  like  a  study-­‐‑abroad  cruise,  and  the  untroubled  proximity  of  such  lines  as   “And   paradise   achieve,   slipping   death'ʹs   part”  with   actual   death   and   dismemberment—all  that  makes  Cathay  seem  like  a  moral  exercise.       Timothy   Billings:   Now   that’s   some   muzzy   language.   Indeed,   I’ve   found   that   getting  students  to  appreciate  or  even  perceive  the  irruption  of  Cathay  always  requires   just   such   an   example   for   comparison   because   they   are   so   likely   to   find   the   poems   unremarkable   or   even   stodgy   alongside   the   poetry-­‐‑slams   that   shape   their   sense   of   what   is   ground-­‐‑breaking   today.   For   Pound,   Li   Bo   clearly   stood   for   what   blasted   Victorian-­‐‑Georgian   sensibilities—precisely   what   Waley   disliked   so   much   about   him.   You  can  see  it  even  in  the  epitaphs  he  adapted  from  Giles’  History  of  Chinese  Literature   before  he  laid  his  hands  on  Fenollosa’s  notebooks:     FU  I       FU  I  loved  the  high  cloud  and  the  hill,   Alas,  he  died  of  alcohol.       LI  PO       And  Li  Po  also  died  drunk.   He  tried  to  embrace  a  moon   In  the  Yellow  River.     Fu  Yi  hated  muzzy  language,  too,  as  Pound  reminds  us  in  the  Cantos.    I’m  struck  by   how   he   set   these   epigraphs   on   the   same   page   in   Lustra   as   a   poem   called   “Our   Contemporaries,”  which  had  first  appeared  in  Blast,  obviously  as  a  stark  contrast:     WHEN  the  Tahitian  princess     Heard  that  he  had  decided,     She  rushed  out  into  the  sunlight  and  swarmed  up   a  cocoanut  palm  tree,       But  he  returned  to  this  island          164     Chinese  Literature:  Essays,  Articles,  Reviews  37  (2015)   And  wrote  ninety  Petrarchan  sonnets.       NOTE.  II  s’agit  d’un  jeune  poète  qui  a  suivi  le  culte  de  Gauguin  jusqu’à  Tahiti  même   (et   qui   vit   encore).   Étant   fort   bel   homme,   quand   la   princesse   bistre   entendit   qu’il   voulait   lui   accorder   ses   faveurs   elle   montra   son   allégresse   de   la   façon   dont   nous   venons  de  parler.  Malheureusement  ses  poèmes  ne  sont  remplis  que  de  ses  propres   subjectivités,  style  Victorien  de  la  “Georgian  Anthology.”1     It  sounds  as  if  Pound  had  someone  specific  in  mind,  but  in  any  case  he  was  eager  to   masculinize  his  China  against  the  possible  perception  of  softness.  The  point  is  that,  for   Pound,  Li  Bo  embodied  the  roots  of  Chinese  poetry  as  dramatized  by  the  trajectory  in   Cathay  from  the  very  ancient  odes  of  the  Shijing  represented  by  “Song  of  the  Bowmen   of  Shu”  through  the  late  Han  “19  Ancient  Poems”  (古詩十九)  represented  by  the  “The   Beautiful   Toilet”   then   on   to   “Rihaku”   (Li   Bo)   himself;   and   in   that   transhistorical   essence  was  supposed  to  be  the  corrective.           Richard   Sieburth:   That   poem   is   an   unambiguous   satirical   slap   at   Rupert   Brooke   (1886-­‐‑1915),  who  published  a  sequence  of  poems  about  his  three  months  in  the  South   Seas  in  his  1914  and  Other  Poems,  published  in  early  1915.  As  in  Pound’s  French  note,   Brooke   was   believed   to   have   fathered   a   daughter   with   a   Tahitian   woman   named   Taatamata,   and   indeed   his   book   1914   and   Other   Poems   did   contain   a   number   of   sonnets  which  Pound  considered  to  be  in  the  Victorian  style  of  the  Georgian  Anthology   (which   was   sponsored   by   Brooke’s   and   Siegfried   Sassoon’s   close   friend   Edward   Marsh.   Pound   loathed   Brooke,   largely   because   his   association   with   the   (gay)   Bloomsbury  group  and  because  he  was  being  marketed  by  the  (gay)  Edward  Marsh  as   the   blue-­‐‑eyed   boy   of   British   poetry.   Marsh   was   very   close   to   the   young   Winston   Churchill  who,  as  First  Lord  of  the  Admiralty,  made  possible  Brooke’s  commission  as   a   temporary   sub-­‐‑lieutenant   in   the   Royal   Naval   Volunteer   Reserve.   Marsh   and   Churchill   are   also   crucial   in   promoting   Brooke   to   the   status   of   a   national   war   poet.   One   of   his   war   sonnets   from   1914   and   Other   Poems   (“The   Soldier”)   is   read   from   the   pulpit  of  St.  Paul’s  cathedral  on  Easter  Sunday,  the  4th  of  April,  in  1915.  When  Brooke   dies  (from  an  infected  mosquito  bite)  later  that  month  (on  the  23rd)  on  a  British  naval   ship  on  the  way  to  Gallipoli,  he  is  then  turned  into  a  kind  of  national  martyr.  Pound   first   published   this   poem   about   Brooke   in   the   second   issue   of   BLAST   (in   July   1915)   and  made  quite  a  number  of  further  enemies  with  it—after  all,  BLAST  was  all  about   attacking   the   British   literary   establishment   (Marsh/Churchill).    By   the   way,   Pound’s   paranoid  mood  is  apparent  in  the  final  note  to  Cathay  (which  was  published  that  same      [Translation  of  Pound’s  note:  This  is  about  a  young  poet  (still  living)  who  followed  the  cult  of   Gauguin  all  the  way  to  Tahiti.  As  he  is  a  very  handsome  young  man,  when  the  dusky  princess   heard  that  he  was  willing  to  bestow  his  favors  upon  her  she  showed  her  delight  in  the  way  we   have   indicated.   Unfortunately   his   poems   are   filled   only   with   his   own   subjective   views,   in   the   Victorian  style  of  the  Georgian  Anthology.]   1        Cathay  at  100:  A  Conversation   165   spring   of   1915,   2   days   after   Brooke’s   “The   Soldier”   was   read   at   St.   Paul’s).   In   this   afterword,  he  refers  to  the  “personal  hatred  in  which  I  am  held  by  many”  and  to  his   association   with   Wyndham   Lewis   and   Gaudier-­‐‑Brzeska   which   he   feels   will   lead   “to   the   depreciation   of   the   whole   book   of   translations.”   How   “Our   Contemporaries”   is   positioned   in   the   Lustra   volume   is   important   to   take   into   account.   First,   Brooke   represents   a   kind   of   facile   (Polynesian   /   Far   Eastern)   “exoticism”   (Gauguin,   but   obviously   not   the   “exote”   of   Segalen),   which   Cathay   will   try   to   destroy.   And   Brooke   represents   the   British   establishment’s   version   of   patriotic   war   poetry.   Which   Cathay,   too,   will   denounce,   in   that   it   provides   a   completely   different   example   of   (anti-­‐‑)   war   poetry,   of   the   sort   that   Henri   Gaudier   can   understand   in   the   trenches.   This   shows   something   very   important   about   that   spring   of   1915   in   England   when   Cathay   was   published.     Timothy   Billings:   By   the   way,   I’m   just   putting   the   final   touches   on   a   new   critical   edition  of  Cathay,2  so  I’ve  spent  a  lot  of  time  with  Fenollosa’s  manuscripts  in  the  last   couple  of  years  and  this  has  been  eye-­‐‑opening  in  many  ways.  Mori  explains  in  one  of   his  lectures  that  Rihaku  ran  off  to  the  mountains  with  five  other  poet-­‐‑scholars  to  drink   hard  and  recite  their  poems  to  each  other,  only  to  be  named  by  the  locals  (as  Fenollosa   glosses  it):  Chiku  kei  riku  itsu,  bamboo,  valley,  six,  abandon/extraordinary  (竹溪六逸).   On   the   verso   page   across   from   this   Pound   wrote   “Bamboo   Bums.”  He   clearly   liked   Li’s  style  as  much  as  he  loathed  the  likes  of  Prewett’s.       Richard  Sieburth:  Since  you’re  working  on  a  much-­‐‑needed  critical  edition  of  Cathay,   I   am   wondering   whether   you   could   help   me   with   some   very   specific   information   about   the   Fenollosa   notebooks.   I’m   working   on   some   of   Pound’s   very   late,   private   texts  (1962-­‐‑72)  in  which  he  is  mulling  about  his  entire  career,  doing  penance,  trying  to   rectify  his  various  errors  and  omissions.  At  one  point  he  writes:  “Credit  to  that  other   Jap   in   the   Fenollosa   note   books.”   I.e.,   he   had   thanked   Profs.   Mori   and   Ariga   on   the   title  page  of  Cathay,  but  now  seems  to  regret  having  left  out  a  third  scholar.  Who  was   this   “other   Jap.”?   Pound   had   gone   back   to   the   Fenollosa   notebooks   at   Brunnenburg,   and   even   considered   applying   for   some   sort   of   fellowship   that   would   subsidize   his   further  work  on  them.  See  my  Library  of  America  edition,  p.  1201,  and  the  note  to  “By   the   River   of   Stars”   on   p.   1340.3  When   will   there   be   a   decent   facsimile   ed.   of   the   original  Fenollosa  notebooks?  Where  are  they  housed?       Qian   Zhaoming:   The   “other   Jap”   might   be   Hirai   or   Shida.   In   September   1896   Fenollosa   worked   with   Hirai   on   twenty-­‐‑two   poems,   eight   of   them   by   Wang   Wei   (Omakitsu)   and   the   rest   by   Li   Po   (Rihaku).   In   1898   Fenollosa   worked   with   Shida   on      Cathay:  A  Critical  Edition  (New  York:  Fordham  University  Press,  forthcoming  2016).      Ezra   Pound,   Poems   and   Translations,   ed.   Richard   Sieburth   (New   York:   Library   of   America,   2003).     2 3      166     Chinese  Literature:  Essays,  Articles,  Reviews  37  (2015)   Tao   Qian   “To-­‐‑em-­‐‑mei.”   See   the   Fenollosa   notebook   entitled   “Hirai   &   Shida,”   in   the   Yale  Collection  of  American  Literature  (Beinecke  Library,  Yale  University).  In  1916-­‐‑18   Pound  made  an  attempt  at  translating  Wang  Wei.  See  my  Orientalism  and  Modernism,   chapter   6,   and   the   “Appendix:   A   transcript   of   Pound’s   drafts   for   8   poems   of   Wang   Wei.” 4  In   1935   and   1958-­‐‑59   Pound   twice   revisited   Fenollosa’s   notes.   See   Pound’s   “Notes  for  editions  of  the  lectures,”  ca.  1935,  and  “Notes  for  editions  of  the  lectures,”   1958-­‐‑59  (both  in  the  Beinecke  collection).  I  published  the  former  in  Paideuma  1-­‐‑3  (2002),   with   a   short   article.   Your   Ezra   Pound:   Poems   and   Translations   proved   most   helpful   when   I   was   preparing   the   forthcoming   New   Directions   edition   of   Cathay   with   Fenollosa’s  notes  plus  the  Chinese  originals.5         Timothy   Billings:   Many   thanks   for   all   that   information   on   Brooke.   It   serves   my   point  perfectly,  which  is  that  we  can  see  even  in  the  arrangement  of  poems  in  Lustra   that   Pound   was   deploying   a   putatively   Chinese   aesthetics   and   “spirit”   against   the   likes   of   Brooke   and   everything   he   stood   for   in   Pound’s   mind.   (Clearly,   there’s   no   small   amount   of   hypermasculine   posing   on   Pound’s   part,   too,   as   you   suggest.)    Remember   that   moment   in   his   two-­‐‑part   essay   “Chinese   Poetry”   (1918)   where  he  quotes  “South-­‐‑Folk  in  Cold  Country”  (Li  Bo'ʹs  古風五十九其六),  then  says  of   it:   “There   you   have   no   mellifluous   circumlocution,   no   sentimentalizing   of   men   who   have   never   seen   a   battlefield   and   who   wouldn’t   fight   if   they   had   to.   You   have   war,   campaigning   as   it   has   always   been,   tragedy,   hardship,   no   illusions.”   The   sentimentalizer  is  his  bug-­‐‑bitten  dandy.  Three  heroes:  Gaudier-­‐‑Brzeska  fighting  in  the   trenches,  Li  Bo  embracing  the  moon  in  an  intoxicated  reverie,  and  Brooke  swatting  at   mosquitoes.   You   choose.   I'ʹm   harping   on   Lustra   because   it   is   not   just   a   collection   but   the   culmination   of   Cathay,   the   revised   edition,   including   four   new   translations,   and   then  the  line  “End  of  Cathay.”  The  poems  adapted  from  Giles  are  outside  that  cluster,   but  not  outside  the  discursive  leverage  that  Cathay’s  poetics  are  intended  to  effect.   The   person   who   contributed   most   to   the   notebooks   aside   from   Mori   and   Ariga   was  Hirai  Kinza  平井金三  (1859-­‐‑1916).    A  very  interesting  person,  about  whom  you’ll   find   plenty   in   English   if   you’re   interested.   “Mr.   Shida”   (whom   I’ve   not   been   able   to   identify)  also  worked  on  many  poems  with  Fenollosa  in  the  early  years  before  he  met   Mori.  But,  to  answer  the  question:  I  suspect  the  person  Pound  wants  to  credit  is  Hirata   Tokuboku  平田  禿木  (1873–1943),  who  sometimes  translated  for  Mori  instead  of  Ariga,   and   who   had   also   translated   for   Umewaka   Minoru   梅若   実   (1828–1909)   during   Fenollosa’s   tutorials   on   Noh   drama,   in   addition   to   offering   his   own   commentaries.  Pound  mentions  Hirata  a  few  times  in  the  preface  to  the  Noh  edition,   and  at  one  point  even  refers  to  the  manuscript  as  the  “Fenollosa-­‐‑Hirata  draft.”  I’d  put   my   money   on   him   as   the   one   Pound   is   trying   to   recall.   The   Fenollosa   papers   also      Qian  Zhaoming,  Orientalism  and  Modernism:  The  Legacy  of  China  in  Pound  and  Williams  (Durham:   Duke  University  Press,  1995).     5  Cathay:   Centennial   Edition,   edited   by   Qian   Zhaoming   with   a   preface   by   Mary   de   Rachewiltz   (New  York:  New  Directions,  2015).     4        Cathay  at  100:  A  Conversation   167   show  that  he  spent  at  least  one  evening  studying  Chinese  poetry  with  his  friend,  the   formidable  Okakura  Kakuzō  岡倉  覚三  (1862–1913),  which  I  don’t  think  has  ever  been   noted  before.  When  Chris  first  suggested  to  me  the  idea  of  doing  a  critical  edition,  he   repeatedly  stressed  the  importance  of  trying  to  understand  the  Japanese  mediation  at   work,  which  we  have  attempted  to  do.  To  go  back  to  Haun’s  prompt,  we  could  even   call   Cathay  a   seven-­‐‑headed   prodigy,   instead   of   a   two-­‐‑headed   one,   including   also   the   Japanese   intellectuals   just   mentioned.   I   think   it’s   crucial   to   consider   which   intellectuals  helped  generate  the  cribs  for  which  poems  because  their  abilities  varied   so  greatly.  In  some  cases,  for  example,  Pound  translated  directly  from  the  notebooks   that   the   young   Ariga   prepared   entirely   by   himself   for   Fenollosa’s   use,   thus   lopping   the  heads  of  Mori  and  Fenollosa  clean  off  the  prodigious  creature.  (Sorry,  that  was  a   weird  metaphor.)   There’s   no   question   but   that   Fenollosa’s   notebooks   at   the   Beinecke   Library   are   hard  to  read.  Pound  himself  admitted  that  it  was  a  chore  to  decipher  Fenollosa’s  “not   overly   legible   writing,”   and   it   is   no   accident   that   most   work   has   been   done   on   the   typescripts   among   the   papers;   and   those   who   have   ventured   into   transcription   have   made   many   errors,   starting   with   Kenner.   To   be   sure,   it   helps   a   great   deal   to   know   what   the   Chinese   hiding   behind   the   curtain   is—if   the   word   in   the   original   is   gu   鼓,   Fenollosa’s  not  overly  legible  scrawl  probably  reads  “drum”  and  not  “dream”  (as  one   scholar  transcribes  it).  The  new  Fordham  edition  includes  diplomatic  transcriptions  of   all  the  poems  and  their  accompanying  commentaries.     Richard  Sieburth:  This  is  not  a  huge  insight,  but  I  find  myself  thinking,  given  that   E.P.  meets  Mary  Fenollosa  at  the  home  of  a  distinguished  Bengali  poet,  Sarojini  Naidu,   that   the   whole   Orientalist   background   of   Cathay   in   part   involves   the   publicity   campaign   by   Pound   and   Yeats   for   Tagore,   whose   (very   “Orientalizing”)   self-­‐‑ translations  of  Gitanjali  are  published  in  late  1912  with  an  introduction  by  Yeats;  this   will  result  in  Tagore’s  being  awarded  the  Nobel  Prize  in  1913.  Pound  is  also  in  touch   (again   via   Yeats?)   with   Kali   Mohan   Ghose,   with   whom   he   co-­‐‑translates   “Certain   Poems  of  Kabir,”  first  printed  in  the  Modern  Review  in  Calcutta  in  June  1913  (the  very   year  he  acquires  the  Fenollosa  papers).    It’s  interesting  to  think  of  the  China  of  Cathay   as   a   construct   arising   out   of   (or   against)   Indian   (Hindu   or   Sikh)   traditions   of   verse,   and  at  the  same  time  as  arising  out  of  (or  against)  japonaiserie,  which  involves  not  just   Whistler,   the   Freer   Collection   (there’s   a   big   Fenollosa   connection   there),   the   haiku   contests   being   run   in   the   Mercure   de   France   (see   Schwartz’s   ancient   book   on   the   influence   of   the   Far   East   on   modern   poetry6),   the   Impressionists—I   know   you   have   written  brilliantly  about  this,  Chris  Bush—but  of  course  also  the  whole  pro-­‐‑Japanese   political  climate  of  the  Roosevelt  administration  (Port  Arthur,  Fenollosa  being  invited   by   Roosevelt   to   lecture   at   the   White   House),   and   this   general   notion   that   Japan   was      William   Leonard   Schwartz,   The   Imaginative   Interpretation   of   the   Far   East   in   Modern   French   Literature,  1800-­‐‑1925  (Paris:  Honoré  Champion,  1927).     6      168     Chinese  Literature:  Essays,  Articles,  Reviews  37  (2015)   the  historical  “curator”  of  a  decadent  (and  about  to  be  lost)  Chinese  culture.  In  short,   Cathay   as   a   kind   of   (avant-­‐‑garde)   (anti-­‐‑war)   attempt   to   parry   post-­‐‑symbolist   japonaiserie  and  the  current  (theosophical)  exoticisms  of  Hindoo  cultishness    (Tagore,   Vivekananda,  all  the  “yogi  stuff”  that  Pound  and  Hilda  Doolittle  [later  known  as  H.D.]   had  been  into  as  college  kids),  plus  a  kind  of  Rooseveltian  view  that  it  will  take  Japan   (or   U.S.-­‐‑Japan)   to   resurrect   China.   (An   early   version   of   E.P.’s   delirious   Salò   Italo-­‐‑ Japanese   AXIS   in   service   of   Confucian   China.)7  In   other   words,   Cathay   is   not   just   a   break   with   the   contemporary   poetic   diction   of   the   Georgians   (Rupert   Brooke,   or   the   hapless   poet   Marjorie   cites),   but   also   an   intervention   into   how   to   translate   the   (Oriental)  Other.  Giles  is  of  course  taken  to  task.  But  the  interesting  anticipations  (in   terms   of   vers   libre   as   developing   out   of   the   “prose   tradition”   in   verse)   are   Judith   Gautier’s  translations  of  classical  Chinese  verse  into  prose,8  and  then  Stuart  Merrill’s   1890  Pastels  in  Prose,  an  anthology  of  prose  poetry  which  includes  English  versions  of   Judith   Gautier’s   French   translations.   Pound   does   know   of   the   American   symboliste   Stuart  Merrill  since   he  cites  him  in  his  “Essay  on  French  Poets”  in   Make  it  New  (first   written  in  1913)  and  Merrill  comes  up  in  the  Pisan  Cantos  (“en  casque  de  cristal  rose   les  baladines”).  Merrill’s  Pastels  in  Prose  is  worth  looking  at:  the  initials  (or  capitals)  of   his  versions  of  Gautier’s  Livre  de  jade  are  totally  fin-­‐‑de-­‐‑siècle  attempts  at  representing   Western   letters   as   Oriental   ideograms—and   look   forward   to   the   (Chinese-­‐‑y)   initials   Pound  had  designed  for  the  Cantos  by  Dorothy  Pound  (or  Strater  or  Gladys  Hynes).   Not  as  radical  as  Segalen’s  Stèles,  mais  quand  même.  .  .         Among   these   late   notebooks,   there’s   this   funny   exchange   re:   Mary   Fenollosa   between   Olga   Rudge   and   Pound,   I   imagine   around   1966   or   1967   at   Sant’   Ambrogio,   above  Rapallo.  Here  it  is.     E.P.   dictated   in   conversation   to   O.R.   –   re   Yeats   entourage-­‐‑   (S.   Ambrogio)    [RS:   this   is   in   Olga’s  hand]       “I  don’t  think  I’ve  had  a  vision  for   a  long  time”  (how  long?)   “sixty  years”  [RS:  E.P.  joking  about  the  Yeats  theosophical  milieu.]   (had  he  seen  Mrs  Fenollosa?)   “he  saw  Mrs  Fenollosa  –  not  after  book  came   out  –  he  never  heard  from  her  after  –  thinks     she  did  not  like  it.    May  not  have  liked   it.    Had  not  sent  ms.    She  may  have   come  to  Yeats  with  Suragini  [sic,  for  Sarojini].    “Don’t  think   D.  [Dorothy  Pound,  E.P.’s  wife]  saw  her”       (E.  liked  her).    “I  suppose                                        On   this   episode,   see   Hugh   Kenner,   The   Pound   Era   (Berkeley:   University   of   California   Press,   1971),  463-­‐‑471.   8  Judith  Walter  [sic],  trans.,  Le  Livre  de  jade  (Paris:  Alphonse  Lemerre,  1867)  and  Judith  Gautier,   trans.,  Le  Livre  de  jade,  poésies  traduites  du  chinois  (Paris:  Félix  Juven,  1902).     7        Cathay  at  100:  A  Conversation   169   about  50  –  not  more-­‐‑  still  good  looking-­‐‑   pretty  rather  than  handsome  –  prettyish…   I  dunno”  (intelligent?)  “She  certainly   seemed  to  be.”    “She  sent  me  ms  &     then  50  or  250  £  to  work  on  it.”       One  final  intervention,  coming  out  of  my  last  contribution  re:  “the  prose  tradition   in   verse”   and   the   (French)   legacy   of   translating   (exotic   or   ancient)   texts   into   prose— which  eventually  gives  rise  to  the  modern  prose  poem.  The  real  “prose”  (or  vers  libre   “prosiness”)   of   Cathay   can,   I   think,   be   also   rooted   back   to   Allen   Upward’s   “Scented   Leaves   from   a   Chinese   Jar”—published   in   Poetry   magazine   in   1913   (onwards);   see   Bartebly.com   on   the   web   for   this,   or   to   be   found   (most   interestingly)   in   Robert   Duncan’s  edition  of  Allen  Upward’s  The  Divine  Mystery  (Santa  Barbara:  Ross-­‐‑Erikson,   1976).  Pound   anthologized   Upward’s   poems   in   his   Des   Imagistes   (1914),   his   Catholic   Anthology   (1915),   and   his   Profile   (1932)—so   Upward   is   therefore   a   very   significant   figure  to  him.  He  reviews  his  Divine  Mystery  in  the  New  Freewoman  (November,  1913),   and  in  the  New  Age  (April,  1914)—in  the  essay  “Allen  Upward  Serious.”    Both  pieces   were   chosen   by   Pound   to   be   reprinted   at   the   very   end   of   his   life   in   Cookson’s   1972   edition  of  his  Selected  Prose.9  As  far  as  I  can  tell,  the  first  critic  to  take  note  of  Upward’s   impact  on  Pound  (particularly  as  concerns  the  Indian  origins  of  his  notion  of  “vortex”)   is   Donald   Davie   in   his   Penguin   Modern   Masters   volume   on   E.P.   (1975).  Eliot   Weinberger  has  also  written  on  Upward’s  Indic  vortex.     Here   is   Upward’s   “The   Swallow   Tower”   from   the   completely   synthetic,   completely   imaginary   prose   poetry   of   his   1913   “Scented   Leaves   from   a   Chinese   Jar.”  Fast-­‐‑forward  this  poem  to  1915,  while  passing  it  through  the  sieve  of  Imagism(e)   and  Vorticism,  and  you  get  something  like  Pound’s  Cathay  in  prose  lineation.    Here  is   Upward’s  “Chinese”  poem,  in  all  its  poème-­‐‑en-­‐‑prose-­‐‑ness:                            Amid  a  landscape  flickering  with  poplars,  and  netted  by  a  silver  stream,  the   Swallow  Tower  stands  in  the  haunts  of  the  sun.      The  winds  out  of  the  four  quarters   of   heaven   come   to   sigh   around   it,   the   clouds   forsake   the   zenith   to   bathe   it   with   continuous  kisses.  Against  its  sun-­‐‑worn  walls  a  sea  of  orchids  breaks  in  white  foam;   and  from  the  battlements  the  birds  that  lit  below  are  seen  like  fishes  in  a  green  moat.   The   windows   of   the   Tower   stand   open   day   and   night;   the   winged   Guests   come   when  they  please,  and  hold  communication  with  the  unknown  Keeper  of  the  Tower.     This,   in   1913,   is   about   as   close   as   any   British   poetry   gets   to   Segalen’s   Stèles   or   Rimbaud’s   Illuminations   (which,   of   course,   Upward   did   not   know,   but   Pound   discovers   Rimbaud   in   the   annus   mirabilis   of   1913)—or,   for   that   matter,   incredibly,   about   as   close   as   British   poetry   gets   to   something   beginning   to   parse   as   classical   “Chinese”  verse—two  years  before  Cathay.       9  Ezra  Pound,  Selected  Prose  1909-­‐‑1965,  ed.  William  Cookson  (London:  Faber,  1973),  403-­‐‑412.        170     Chinese  Literature:  Essays,  Articles,  Reviews  37  (2015)   Upward,  and  of  course  Binyon  (“Bin  Bin”)  at  the  British  Museum.  This  is  all  old   news,  but  I  think  that  STAYS  NEWS.     Christopher   Bush:   Now   a   different   kind   of   instigation:   How   might   we   usefully   think  of  Cathay  not  (or  not  only)  as  a  singular  instance  of  English  bumping  up  against   Chinese,  but  as  at  the  crossroads  of  multiple  international  trends?   For   example,   Paul-­‐‑Louis   Couchoud   and   his   friends   tried   their   hand   at   haiku   by   1905.  Some  of  these  seem  programmatically  anti-­‐‑rhetorical:     Une  simple  fleur  de  papier  /  Dans  un  vase.  /  Église  rustique.                          A  simple  paper  flower  /  In  a  vase.  /  A  rustic  church.     Ville  endormie.  /  Un  garde  de  prison  passe,  /  Un  volet  s’ouvre.                          A  sleeping  city.  /  A  prison  guard  goes  by,  /  A  shutter  opens.     Les  chirurgiens  /  Examinent  l’intestin  /  De  la  bicyclette.                          The  surgeons  /  Examine  the  bicycle’s  /  Intestine.     The  following  year  Couchoud  had  published  “Épigrammes  lyriques  du  Japon,”  which   was  certainly  known  by  some  in  the  Imagist  crowd.  The  best  poems  from  this  group   are,   I   think,   Vocance’s   Cent   visions   de   guerre,   which   wouldn’t   have   been   published   until  after  Cathay  —and  I  have  no  reason  to  think  Pound  knew  them  (I’m  pretty  sure   he   didn’t).   But   there   were   lots   of   poets   working   against   the   tradition   of   eloquence,   sometimes   even   taking   East   Asian   poetry   as   their   model,   but   in   any   event   usually   working  toward  short,  sometimes  very  short,  forms.  “Free  verse”  is  too  broad  and  too   specific   to   cover   all   the   bases,   because   some   of   it   was   happening   in   prose.   (An   interesting,   if   oddball   example   here:   Félix   Fénéon’s   Nouvelles   en  trois  lignes,   but   probably  also  some  prose  poetry).   These   are   some   fairly   idiosyncratic   examples,   I   suppose,   but   I   think   the   general   points   are   worth   pursuing:   French   and   other   linguistic   traditions   that   inflected   how   this  “Chinese”  got  invented;  prose  as  well  as  verse  innovations  from  the  period.  None   of  that  is  meant  to  distract  from  the  conversation  about  how  our  little  book  must  have   sounded  when  it  landed  in  the  midst  of  Georgian  verse,  just  to  say  that  I  suspect  there   are  other  subplots,  even  if  I  haven’t  connected  all  the  dots  yet.     Josephine   Park:   I’m   joining   the   conversation   late   because   it’s   been   so   great   to   eavesdrop…wonderful  to  hear  that  two  new  editions  are  forthcoming,  and  I’ve  been   struck  by  all  of  these  suggested  “subplots.”  The  irruption  of  Cathay  out  of  a  cluster  of   international   friendships   —   the   texture   of   these,   rife   as   they   are   with   the   sense   of   “moral  exercise”  and  “personal  hatred,”  thrillingly  reopens  contexts  for  the  little  book.   After   many   many   moons   I’ve   just   reread   the   poems   and   I   am   surprised   by   how   different   they   feel   from   each   other.   (And   actually   EP’s   assessment   of   Mrs.   F.   as   “prettyish”   and   not   handsome   weirdly   resonated   here   and   there…especially   upon          Cathay  at  100:  A  Conversation   171   reading  a  final  line  like  “And  I  am  sad”  —  to  think  that  Pound  could  end  with  that!   but  get  away  with  it  via  anaphora  &  mirroring  opening.)  I  wasn’t  surprised  of  course   to  feel  the  feelings  as  I  read  these,  and  the  wonder  of  “Exile’s  Letter”  seemed  to  me  to   leap  all  the  way  to  the  Pisan  Cantos.  And  it  struck  me  all  over  again  that  so  much  of   the  fresh  air  here  is  let  in  via  caesura.  None  of  this  is  news!  just  sensation.     But   the   thread   of   specifying   and   expanding   contexts   made   me   wonder   again   about  “The  Seafarer.”  The  pointed  contrast  to  that  “foreign  fastness”  of  course  does  its   work   for   Cathay,   whose   poems   feel   to   me   quite   expansive   in   comparison—there’s   room   for   “thinking”   (in   the   sense   of   the   final   line   of   “Exile’s   Letter”)   in   them.   But   I   wonder   how   to   rebalance   this   inserted   context   with   the   developing   cluster   of   this   conversation...   And   how   great   to   discover   “Bamboo   Bums”   (prequel   to   Dharma   Bums)!—     Richard  Sieburth:   Just   a   little   riff   on   Josephine’s   (welcome!)   remark   on   “fresh   air”   being   let   in   by   the   caesurae.    Pound   writes   in   ABC   of   Reading:   “I   once   got   a   man   to   start  translating  ‘The  Seafarer’  into  Chinese.    It  came  out  almost  directly  into  Chinese   verse,  with  two  solid  ideograms  in  each  half  line.  Apart  from  ‘The  Seafarer’  I  know  of   no  other  European  poems  of  the  period  that  you  can  hang  up  with  the  ‘Exile’s  Letter’   of   Li   Po,   displaying   the   West   on   a   par   with   the   Orient.” 10  So   not   only   the   contemporaneity  /  synchrony  of  the  Seafarer  with  Li  Po,  and  the  thematic  similarities   (exile,   solitude,   etc.),   but   some   sort   of   sense   that,   via   the   strong   hemistichs   of   Old   English,   there   is   a   line   structure   in   common.   Not   to   mention   the   way   he   applies   Anglo-­‐‑Saxon  alliteration  and  appositional  structures  to  his  Cathay  versions.  In  “Exile’s   Letter,”  the  thing  that  most  interests  me  is  the  massive  use  of  the  paratactic  “And”  to   begin  lines  (certainly  one  of  the  places  to  look  for  the  origins  of  Hemingway’s  “ands”),   and,   in   the   second   half   of   the   poem,   from   line   36   on,   the   way   the   whole   thing   is   carried  by  participial  verbs  (without  tense,  without  aspect,  verbs  of  sheer  process)— nearly   twenty   of   them,   ending   with   the   final   word,   “thinking.”   Excessive   -­‐‑ings   generally   being   a   no-­‐‑no   in   English   verse,   but   here   handled   masterfully,   almost   to   stream-­‐‑of-­‐‑conscious  effect.     Also  re:  “Letter,”  the  importance  of  the  epistolary  model  for  Pound.  In  his  piece   on   “Chinese   Poetry”   (To-­‐‑Day,   May   18),   he   compares   “The   River-­‐‑Merchant’s   Wife:   A   Letter”  to  Ovid’s  “Heroides”  (and  to  Browning’s  dramatic  monologues),  but  the  Ovid   strikes   me   as   more   important:   fictitious   letters   written   by   mythological/imaginary   women   to   lovers   who   are   absent   or   who   have   abandoned   them,   the   first   sustained   corpus  of  verse  in  the  West  in  which  a  man  (Ovid)  is  writing  as  a  woman  (in  a  state  of   loss   or   mourning).   Men   writing   in   the   guise   of   women   are   much   more   frequent   in   classical  Chinese  tradition,  I  understand.  Li  Po’s  original  title  is  “Changganxing,”  i.e.   “The   Song   of   Changgan.”    Pound   moves   “song”   into   the   epistolary,   placing   writing,   rather   than   singing,   at   the   center.   Working   as   I   am   on   late   late   Pound,   the   most     10  Ezra  Pound,  ABC  of  Reading  (New  Haven:  Yale  University  Press,  1934),  51.        172     Chinese  Literature:  Essays,  Articles,  Reviews  37  (2015)   uncannily  proleptic  line  in  the  whole  volume  is  for  me:  “The  lone  man  sits  with  shut   speech.”  (In  “Sennin  Poem  by  Kakuhaku.”)     Timothy   Billings:   Jo’s   “Seafarer”   question   and   Richard’s   riff   put   me   in   mind   of   a   place   in   the   Fenollosa   notebooks   where   Mori   is   lecturing   about   the   use   of   ancient   music   instruments   in   association   with   poetry,   and   Pound   writes   in   the   margin   “Jazz.”         Richard   Sieburth:   Re:   “jazz”:   this   must   be   a   later   marginalia   to   the   Fenollosa   notebooks  (i.e.  not  in  the  teens).    First  time  E.P.  mentions  jazz  (I  believe)  in  his  critical   writings   is   in   his   1929   emendation   of   his   “Il   Miglior   Fabbro”   chapter   in   The  Spirit  of   Romance,  where  he  speaks  of  Arnaut’s  “jazzy  lyric  measures”  (p.  38),  though  Canto  7   (first  published  on  Aug  21,  1921),  does  include  the  line  “And  beneath  the  jazz  a  cortex,   a   stiffness   or   stillness.”    And   in   the   Chinese   Cantos   (pub.   1940),   this,   from   Canto   55:   “a.d.  860,  Y  TSONG  his  son  brought  a  jazz  age  HI-­‐‑TSONG.”      The  ancient  musicians  I   listened  to  in  Li  Xiang  struck  me  as  pure  players  of  jazz.       Timothy   Billings:   It’s   often   impossible   to   know   when   he   was   making   various   annotations  in  the  notebooks.  I  do  have  a  vague  recollection  that  the  jazz  note  was  in   pen,  which  he  used  on  his  second  pass  in  the  30s.   I   love   that   story   about   translating   “The   Seafarer,”   but   I   have   to   say   that   I   don’t   believe  it.  I  can’t  help  but  think  that  if  the  translator  started  rendering  the  poem  into   some   kind   of   tetrasyllabic   (四言)   verse,   it   was   because   Pound   told   him   to   do   it   that   way.    Pound  also  says  that  the  poor  fellow  worked  at  his  desk  for  2  hours  and  never   came   back.   (You   can   just   imagine.)   It’s   not   impossible   or   inconceivable   to   do   it   in   tetrasyllabics,  but  it  would  be  very  very  hard,  and  I  think  it  is  misleading  for  Pound  to   suggest  that  it  just  naturally  came  out  that  way.  And  as  for  the  caesura,  it  would  be   easier   to   render   the   line   in   heptasyllabics   with   a   “breathing   particle”   xi   兮   in   the   middle,  thus  falling  into  3  characters  per  half  line,  but  even  that  would  be  a  challenge,   if   not   more   of   one   (and   would   be   a   bit   like   squeezing   Homer   into   a   sonnet   sequence).    I  think  Liang  Shiqiu  did  a  translation,  and  although  I  can’t  pull  it  up  at  the   moment,  I’ll  tell  you  right  now  it’s  not  in  2-­‐‑characters  per  half  line.    (But  that’s  partly   his   way   of   translating,   including   Shakespeare.)    Take   a   look   at   this   snippet   of   a   translation  by  Li  Funing  李賦寧:                          Cathay  at  100:  A  Conversation   173     冰雹在我周圍陣雨般落下;  在那裡我只聽見     大海的咆哮,  冰鎖海浪聲,和天鵝的歌唱;     塘鵝的叫聲供我消遣;  三趾鷗的囀鳴     代替了人類的笑聲;  海鷗的叫聲就是日常喝的蜂蜜酒。11     Or  this  by  Wang  Zuoliang  王佐良:     多少次隨船航行,     大浪可怖,立在船頭     通夜守望不眠,     貼岸顛簸。     徹骨的寒冷,     風霜凍僵了雙足,     鐵鏈如冰。怨恨     砍劈我的心,     飢餓使我  厭倦人世。12     You   get   my   point.   I’m   also   not   sure   what   Pound   means   by   “two   solid   ideographs.”   Putting   aside   the   problem   with   the   term   “ideograph,”   what   does   “solid”   mean?    I   don’t  think  he  means  what  Chinese  speakers  mean  when  they  distinguish  shi  實  (solid)   words   from   xu   虛   (empty)   words,   though   it’s   very   possible   that   by   that   point   in   his   studies  he  did  mean  that.  If  that’s  the  case,  he  may  have  been  describing  two  to  four   or  five  actual  characters  per  half-­‐‑line  depending  on  how  many  particles  and  auxiliary   (“empty”)   words   were   used.   There’s   much   more   to   say   about   the   caesura,   and   I’m   aware  that  I’m  not  really  following  Jo’s  point,  but  I  just  want  to  point  out  that  at  least     11  Pound'ʹs  version  of  the  same  lines  reads:       Hung  with  hard  ice-­‐‑flakes,  where  hail-­‐‑scur  flew,         There  I  heard  naught  save  the  harsh  sea         And  ice-­‐‑cold  wave,  at  whiles  the  swan  cries,         Did  for  my  games  the  gannet’s  clamour,     Sea-­‐‑fowls’  loudness  was  for  me  laughter,         The  mews’  singing  all  my  mead-­‐‑drink.  (lines  17-­‐‑22)     12  Pound'ʹs  version  reads:           and  there  I  oft  spent       Narrow  nightwatch  nigh  the  ship’s  head     While  she  tossed  close  to  cliffs.  Coldly  afflicted,         My  feet  were  by  frost  benumbed.   Chill  its  chains  are;  chafing  sighs     Hew  my  heart  round  and  hunger  begot         Mere-­‐‑weary  mood.  (lines  6-­‐‑12)          174     Chinese  Literature:  Essays,  Articles,  Reviews  37  (2015)   in  Cathay,  Pound  never  follows  the  caesura  in  the  Chinese  line:  to  the  point  where  he   seems   unaware   of   it.   He   was   surely   aware   of   the   couplet   structure   of   the   verses   he   was   translating   because   Mori   talked   about   it   quite   a   lot,   and   I’m   sure   that   Pound’s   overwriting  the  couplet  was  deliberate,  even  though  he  often  follows  the  line-­‐‑by-­‐‑line   structure   quite   closely,   as   he   also   does   with   “The   Seafarer.”    In   fact,   much   has   been   made  of  how  much  Pound  has  radically  adapted  his  sources  in  Fenollosa,  but  I  don’t   hear  people  observing  how  closely  he  followed  the  cribs  most  of  the  time  (like  “The   Seafarer”),  in  some  cases  using  EXACTLY  the  line  that  Fenollosa  recorded  as  a  rough   paraphrase,  or  the  same  line  with  only  the  slightest  alteration.  As  for  the  couplet  and   caesura,  closely  examining  the  cribs,  I’m  also  struck  by  how  Pound  a  couple  of  times   uses   a   hemistich   and   enjambment   to   break   the   couplet   structure,   turning   two   lines   into  three,  as  for  example:     玉簫金管坐兩頭   美酒樽中置千斛     Musicians  with  jewelled  flutes  and  with  pipes  of  gold   Fill  full  the  sides  in  rows,  and  our  wine   Is  rich  for  a  thousand  cups.     All  this  brings  me  back  to  Chris’s  comments  about  the  influence  of  the  haiku  or  tanka   on   early   Modernism   and   also   those   “scented   leaves”   of   Upward’s,   which   I   think   we   all  know  were  only  “from  a  Chinese  jar”  because,  after  he  made  them  up,  he  stuffed   them   in   a   “Chinese   jar”   for   a   while.   There   seems   to   have   been   a   longing   for   and   a   conception   of   the   “Oriental”   short   poem,   which   puts   Pound’s   emphasis   on   “Exile’s   Letter”   and   “The   Seafarer”   into   an   interesting   light.   I   think   Pound   liked   Upward’s   pieces   so   much,   partly   of   course   because   of   their   imagistic   approach   to   the   representation   of   a   single   thing,   but   also   because   they   conformed   to   the   expectation   that  East  Asian  lyrics  were  and  ought  to  be  very  short  and  enigmatic,  which  (like  the   Ovid  analogue  that  Richard  mentioned  for  the  cross-­‐‑gendered  ventriloquizing  poems)   also   conformed   to   a   familiar   sense   of   the   epigrammatic   poem   from   Catullus.   Short   pithy  lyrics.  The  Upward  pieces  are  just  awful,  and  it  never  ceases  to  amaze  me  that   Pound   liked   them;   but   they   clearly   conformed   to   his   expectation   of   what   Chinese   verse   should   be—at   least   before   he   started   actually   studying   Chinese   poetry.   In   a   well-­‐‑known  letter  to  Harriet  Monroe,  he  reports  with  surprise  that  Upward  told  him   that  they  were  not  “paraphrases.”  Pound  also  at  one  point  mentions  with  some  relief   that  there  are  not  any  Chinese  epics  to  do  battle  with,  but  only  short  poems—which  is   notable   since   that   is   precisely   what   had   been   held   against   the   Chinese   literary   tradition  at  least  as  far  back  as  Du  Halde,  and  also  against  the  Chinese  philosophical   tradition   in   the   17th   century,   since   Laozi   and   Confucius   were   described   as   so   many   random   sayings   without   logical   argument   in   the   Aristotelian   tradition.   And   yet,   despite   all   of   Mori’s   comments   on   the   jueju   絕句,   Pound   didn’t   really   focus   on   that   either,  perhaps  because,  by  the  time  he  started  studying  the  notebooks,  his  notion  of          Cathay  at  100:  A  Conversation   175   Chinese   poetry   had   begun   to   be   revised.  Consider   this:   We   all   know   about   the   conflation  of  two  Li  Bo  poems  into  “River  Song,”  which  resulted  from  Pound  quickly   flipping  through  the  notebooks  when  he  first  got  them  and  assigning  numbers  to  the   cribs  before  he  had  really  read  them.  In  some  cases,  this  resulted  (as  in  “River  Song”)   in  numbering  two  poems  as  one,  whereas  in  other  cases  it  resulted  in  numbering  one   poem   as   two   or   more.   When   Pound   numbered   that   first   of   Li   Bo’s   59   gufeng   古風   (Ancient  Airs)  poems  (the  first  in  the  big  book  of  Li  Bo),  he  assigned  the  24-­‐‑line  poem   12   numbers   as   though   it   were   12   very   short   poems,   which   is   apparently   what   he   expected  to  find.  He  did  this  partly  because  Mori  lectured  the  hell  out  of  that  poem,   and   each   couplet   is   surrounded   by   a   sea   of   commentary,   but   I   also   think   it   was   because   Pound   was   looking   for   haiku-­‐‑like   poems.    But   there   is   that   desire   to   find   some  kind  of  narrative  lyric  or  lyric  narrative,  which  (let’s  remember)  is  exactly  how   Sweet  was  characterizing  “The  Seafarer,”  as  Robinson  pointed  out  a  long  time  ago.13   And  that’s  what  憶舊遊寄譙郡元參軍  (“Exile’s  Letter”)  allowed  him  to  do—to  work  at   that  intersection  of  lyric  and  the  narrative  creation  of  a  persona.    I  think  that’s  partly   why  they  receive  such  high  praise  from  Pound.     Christopher   Bush:   This   is   something   of   a   free   association   (and   I’m   traveling,   so   I   can’t  track  down  the  reference),  but  Segalen  somewhere  (I’m  pretty  sure  it  is  in  a  letter   to   his   wife,   Yvonne)   talks   about   how   English   would   be   the   better   language   for   his   “steles”:  tending  more  naturally  toward  the  monosyllabic,  etc.  (I  believe  the  context  is   that  she  did  a  translation  into  English  of  one  of  his  drafts.)  This  is  a  little  piece  of  trivia   in   terms   of   Segalen,   but   it’s   interesting   that   he   would   invoke   English   as   the   better   language   for   sounding   “Chinese”   at   almost   exactly   the   same   time   Pound   was   doing   Cathay   and   “The   Seafarer.”   As   the   terms   “chinoiserie”   and   “japonisme”   suggest,   so   much  of  East  Asian-­‐‑inspired  aesthetics  in  the  West  are  mediated  through  French  (or  at   least   “French”!)   interpretations   and   precedents—more   or   less   the   opposite   set   of   rhetorical  and  poetic  values.   It   seems   that   at   this   moment   (1913-­‐‑1915)   what   it   meant   to   sound   “Chinese”   in   European   languages   shifts   from   a   more   hypotactic   and   ornamented   chinoiserie   (associated  with  other  “Oriental”  languages),  to  an  emphatically  paratactic  model  for   which   Anglo-­‐‑Saxon   might   be   evoked   as   a   parallel.   (Some   critics   have   wondered   if   Segalen’s  attraction  to  Chinese  steles  had  something  to  do  with  the  the   menhir  of  his   native  Brittany.  Maybe  there  is  some  way  to  connect  the  dots  there,  starting,  I  would   think,   with   a   close   look   at   the   style   of   Segalen’s   late   faux-­‐‑medieval   “Quest   for   the   Unicorn.”)   I   guess   this   is   fairly   obvious   with   respect   to   what   makes   Cathay  different   from   earlier   translations,   but   I’m   groping   back   toward   my   suspicion   that   Pound’s   book   might   usefully   be   read   in   relation   to   a   broader   international   trend   against   eloquence,  hypotaxis,  long  periods.      Fred   C.   Robinson,   “‘The   Might   of   the   North’:   Pound’s   Anglo-­‐‑Saxon   Studies   and   ‘The   Seafarer,’”  The  Yale  Review  71  (1981-­‐‑82),  199-­‐‑224.   13      176     Chinese  Literature:  Essays,  Articles,  Reviews  37  (2015)     Yunte  Huang:  There  are  laggards  and  stragglers,  and  then  there  are  really  laggards   and   stragglers—my   apology   for   being   so   late   to   the   party,   even   though   I’ve   been   listening   closely   to   the   dialogues   here.   Just   got   to   Leipzig   yesterday,   here   for   a   conference  on  the  Pacific.  Will  be  looking  for  traces  of  Lin  Yutang,  who  did  his  Ph.D   in  linguistics  here  at  the  university.   The   reason   I   brought   up   Lin   Yutang   is   that   he   and   Pound   represent   different   approaches   to   what’s   Chinese,   poetic   or   otherwise.   Lin’s   is   more   of   an   ethnographic   approach,   getting   to   the   essence,   zeitgeist,   Dasein,   and   so   on   through   interpretation;   whereas   Pound’s   work,   as   in   Cathay,   is   really   an   example   of   culture   in   the   making   (even   though   theoretically   Pound   would   be   in   Lin’s   camp   by   believing   that   one   can   get  to  the  essence  of  a  culture).  I'ʹm  reminded  of  what  the  Chinese  poet  Yang  Lian  said   at   the   Pound   conference   in   Beijing   in   1999:   “The   Cantos   are   complete   only   in   their   Chinese   translation.”   As   someone   who   did   translate   the   Cantos   into   Chinese   (I’m   in   the   process   of   bringing   out   a   revised   edition   of   my   translation   of   the   Cantos),   I’m   intrigued   by   the   hyperbole   of   Yang’s   statement,   which   was   made   in   part   after   his   reading  of  my  translation.14  As  much  as  one  should  take  that  statement  with  a  grain  of   MSG,  there’s  a  kernel  of  truth  to  it.  More  importantly,  I  think  the  reverse  is  also  true:   Pound’s  Cathay  and  Cantos  completed  what’s  Chinese,  or  kept  what’s  news  in  Chinese   as  news.   Which  brings  me  to  my  second  point:  the  vital  importance  of  Fenollosa’s  essay.  I   never   bought   the   Poundian   gospel   (à  la   the   great   Hugh   Kenner)   that   it   was   Pound’s   poetic   genius   that   rescued   Chinese   poetry   from   the   scholarly   drudgery   of   Fenollosa.   To   me,   Fenollosa’s   essay   is   as   critically   rigorous,   poetically   inspiring,   and   field-­‐‑wise   (avoiding   the   dreaded   term   “disciplinary”)   groundbreaking   as   Charles   Olson’s   Call   Me   Ishmael.   So,   while   we   celebrate   Cathay   at   100,   we   should   also   recognize   the   groundwork  and  groundbreaking  work  done  by  Fenollosa.     Haun   Saussy:   I   see   in   Cathay   and   Fenollosa’s   The   Chinese   Written   Character   as   a   Medium  for  Poetry  a  readiness  to  learn  from  distant  others  that  amounts  to  an  ethics  of   taste,  if  I  can  say  that  without  too  much  pecksniffery  (2015  version).  What  bothers  me   about   the   chinoiserie   of   e.g.   Upward   is   that   nothing   intervenes   to   disturb   his   expectations  about  what  “writing  Chinese-­‐‑style”  must  be.  It’s  as  if  you  said  to  a  new   acquaintance,   “I   want   to   know   you,   but   only   if   you   act   in   accordance   with   my   fantasies   about   you.”   Not   very   promising   for   the   friendship.   But   a   poetics   or   translation-­‐‑practice  of  respect  for  autonomy  would  be  based  on  a  maxim  more  like  “I   want   to   know   you   because   I   have   no   idea   what   you’re   going   to   say   or   do   next.”   To   change  the  taste  of  the  reading  public,  and  to  do  it  durably,  is  to  create  a  desire  that   supplants  an  existing  desire  and  makes  you  see  the  old  desire  as  hollow,  false,  futile.   Cathay  didn’t  sound  like  anything  that  passed  for  Chinese  in  1915.  It  took  the  risk  of     14  Huang  Yunte 黃運特,  trans.,  Bisa  shizhang  比薩詩章  (Guilin:  Lijiang,  1998).          Cathay  at  100:  A  Conversation   177   not  being  accepted  as  poetry  or  as  translation.  I  somehow  think  that  risk  is  related  to   the   feeling   one   has   of   the   speakers,   especially   the   female   speakers,   of   these   poems   occupying  a  considerable  space  of  autonomy.  The  river-­‐‑merchant’s  wife,  as  you  know,   promises  to  come  to  meet  him  “as  far  as  Cho-­‐‑fu-­‐‑sa.”  We  don’t  know  how  far  that  is,   but   I’ve   always   guessed   that   it   was   far   enough   to   show   commitment   but   not   a   step   more,   as   if   to   travel   beyond   that   landmark   would   have   indicated   too   much   subservience   to   the   absent   husband.   These   poems   too,   by   not   sounding   like   most   of   the  available  poetry  in  English  as  of  their  date  of  publication,  come  part  of  the  way  to   meet   us   but   don’t,   like   some   others,   jump   in   our   laps   and   flatter   us.   Moralists   have   always   had   a   field   day   denouncing   other   aspects   of   Pound’s   behavior   (and   he’s   an   easy  target  for  that),  but  in  this  instance  he  chose  well,  with  nobody  telling  him  what   to   do.   It   may   not   be   as   noticeable   in   2015,   but   that’s   because   of   the   great   success   of   Cathay,   the   way   its   idiom   became   one   of   the   great   languages   of   modernism   in   American   English.   I   like   to   think   we   can   return   to   the   risk   even   as   we   mark   the   success.       (June-­‐‑July  2015)