The Confucian Ideas In The Cantos

Ezra Pound is an American poet, a translator, a critic, and an editor, who is a controversial figure of profound importance thedevelopment of poetry in the twentieth century.In the 1920s, while staying in London, Pound established his status as a famous poet by getting two of his important long poems, Homage to Sextus Propertius and Hugh Selwyn Mauberley published. Before this, the translated collection Cathay had already won him a great reputation in composing free verses. And the first section of The Cantos, Canto 1-1.6, was published in 1925 too. This publication signified the beginning of a new era梩he Pound era.Pound's great epic, The Cantos, was commenced about 1917; the installments in book form were published at intervals from 1925 to 1970. This long "poem including history" reaches from Greek-Roman cuhue Chinese culture, European and American culture to the modern world The epic was originally meant to present the crisis of modern soorety and to find out the crucial remedy for the disease, so that a glorious civilization likes that of ancient Greece and ancient China could be reestablished.According to this essay, the remedy Pound found was Confucianism of Oriental China. Thus the thesis of this essay is the Confucian ideas in The Cantos. It aims to sort out a developing line of Confucian ideas in the 117 cantos, and to get a conclusion that Confucian ideas form the ethical structure of The Cantos.In the first fifty cantos, the Confucian ideas are concentrated in Canto XIII and Canto XLIX. The Confucian wisdom and die harmony with nature are the subjects of these two cantos. These two cantosfunctioned as a mirror to reflect the evilness of western society so that the Occidental civilization could also begin a self-discipline.In China Cantos, the ultimate purpose of the detailed narration of ancient Chinese history was to provide proofs for a historicai rure stated by Pound: "The translator would end by asking the reader to keep on re-reading the whole digest until he understands HOW these few pages contain the basis on which the great dynasties were founded and endured, and why, lacking this foundation, the other and lesser dynasties perished quickly."Having found the remedy, Pound was eager to utilize it in reality. But unfortunately he mistakenly took the Fascism header-Benito Mussolini as a modern Confucian. Because of this wrong choice, Pound's tragical fate was inevitable. But on criticizing the stupidity of Pound's behaviours, we have to think of the good intension of Pound to fulfill his Confucian dream in reality.Ezra Pound's mind state after the Second World War, as she we, the later cantos, was sad, and full of retrospective, meditative thoughts. When the ideal society in reality proved to be impossible, Pound turned to build a paradise in his dream, a paradise with peace, harmony, and Confucian ethics.Conclusively to say, Ezra Pound, who is an unyielding fighter against evilness and unfairness, still deserves to be a great modern poet. Particularly the pious faith on Confucianism and his persistent efforts of realizing an earthly paradise, make him a real superior man in the modem world.