The Space Art Of Ezra Pound's The Cantos

Ezra Pound,as the founder of Modernist Poetry Movement in twentieth century,with all his innovative spirit,extensive knowledge and massive poems and translations,enormously enriches the British and American literature,producing indelible and far-reaching influence on contemporary and subsequent poetry creation.An increasing number of scholars and researchers,both at home and abroad,have been paying attention to Pound study for a long time,from the diverse aspects,such as poetry,translation,cultural criticism and so on.However,few of them conduct researches on the perspective of spatial criticism.Actually,in the process of Pound's poetic creation,the utilization of modern poetic techniques,like image juxtaposition,fragmentation,montage and flash-back,which are always linked closely with the appearance of space,confirms that space plays an important role in his poems.It also shows that Pound can be associated with the emergence and development of spatial criticism in the field of literature in the late twentieth century.This thesis will re-examine Pound's epic The Cantos,analyzing the spatial forms in detail and elaborating the relation between different kinds of space,real and imagined,and the themes with spatial criticism,by means of Soja's thought of three kinds of space,“the first space”,“the second space” and “the third space”.At the very beginning,brief introduction of Ezra Pound is summarized,including his personal and literary life and his literary review.Then it will illustrate the origin and development of space theory,as well as its research status specifically in literature.In the main body of this thesis,three kinds of physical space,namely,city space,ocean space and cosmic space,are noted.Then with the analysis of these three kinds of physical space,it draws a conclusion that the space in The Cantos not only serves the background of the poem,but also bears and contains his political ideal indirectly,reflecting his worry about existing society and his pursuit of light and order.At last,it also tests and verifies the productivity of space in The Cantos.Through the spatial construction of history and the spatial aggregation of themes,as wellas some modern poetic techniques,such as images juxtaposition,fragmentation and montage,Pound makes known his political relief and ideal,namely,reconstructing the society with light and order.What's more,it can be figured out that Pound's special political ideal and yearning for social pattern should be closely tied up with his understanding of the traditional Chinese Confucian thoughts.In other words,Pound hopes the governor can rebuild the light and order of the society with the aid of the traditional Chinese Confucian thoughts.In a word,the utilization of modern techniques is the key for us to re-examine Pound's The Cantos with spatial criticism,instead of the traditional and stereotyped ways.Space plays an non-negligible role in poetry,and space theory provides us a new research perspective and theoretical dimension for digging into the value and intention of Pound's poetry.