JUXTAPOSITION AND ITS LIMITATIONS An Explanation of Obscurity in Ezra Pound's Poetry

JUXTAPOSITION AND ITS LIMITATIONS An Explanation of Obscurity in Ezra Pound's Poetry

In 1918, Ezra Pound gave his explanation as to why he had translated Cathay: 'It is because Chinese poetry has certain qualities of vivid presentation; and because certain Chinese poets have been content to set forth their matter without moralizing and without comment that one labours to make a translation.' The key interests here are the 'vivid presentation,' the absence of 'moralizing,' and the avoidance of 'comment.' Without being fully aware of the scope and depth of the issue, Pound had stumbled upon three important characteristics of classic Chinese poetry. 'Vivid presentation' pertains to the visual concreteness Chinese poetry strives for; absence of moralizing describes the objectiveness and impersonality found in a typical T'ang poem; and avoidance of comment, which indicates that the poet does not resort to prosaic syntax and linear exposition in an effort to 'explain' the sense of his poem, heightens the non-conceptual quality in Chinese poetry. These three qualities observed by Pound were to become the guiding principles of his ideogrammic method.