英美文学选读

第 22 讲： Ezra Pound

主讲教师：陈幸子 讲师

Ezra Pound

The father of modern poetry

庞 德 (1885—1972)

Life Experience(1885-1972)

• Born in Hailey,Idoho in 1885. • Met William Carlos Williams and Hilda Dolittle at

the University of Pennsylvania• Sailed for Europe in 1908. • Came into contact with Hulme and his Poets’ Club.• Appointed himself foreign editor of Poetry

Middle Period

• From 1913 began his study of the Chinese language and ancient Chinese culture.

• In 1914, abandoned imagism in favor of Vorticism; got married.

• During W.W. I, assisted young writers• In 1924 moved to Italy and became involved in

Fascist politics, broadcasting over Radio Rome against allies.

Later Life

• In 1945, returned to America and was arrested on charge of treason.

• In 1946, acquitted, and declared insane.• In 1958, released from St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in

Washington. • In 1972, died in Venice a recluse.

Points of Views

The artist was the arbiter and the “saviour” of the race aiming to purify the arts and to dump the old into the dustbin and bring forth something new.

To him life was sordid personal crushing oppression, and culture produced nothing but “intangible bondage”.

Chinese history and the doctrine of Confucius are a source of strength and wisdom with which to counterpoint Western gloom and confusion.

He saw a chaotic world that wanted setting to rights, and a humanity, suffering from spiritual death and cosmic injustice, that needed saving.

Representative Works

• “In a Station of the Metro” (1913)• Hugh Selwyn Mauberly (1920)• The Cantos (1917-1959)• Cathay (1915)

Translation of ancient Chinese poetry

• Homage to Sextus Propertius (1917)Sextus Propertius was a Latin elegiac poet who was born around 50–45 BC and died shortly after 15 BC.

人群中幽然浮现的一张张脸庞， 黝黑的湿树枝上的一片片花瓣。

In a Station of the Metro

The apparition of these faces in the crowd; Petals on a wet, black bough.

Possible Themes

• Love, friendship, death.

• Transience of beauty and the permanence of art

• The modern culture, alienation from the

contemporary world

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;

Petals on a wet, black bough.

人群中幽然浮现的一张张脸庞， 黝黑的湿树枝上的一片片花瓣。

In a Station of the Metro ——Ezra Pound

Is the air heavy and damp? Is the subway dark and smell of sweat?

an image for those beautiful faces, for there is a sense of beauty in them

a depiction of the subway station

Pound sees the beauty of what each

individual contributes to our daily lives

and how we as a society rely on one

another, even if we are just "faces in

the crowd."

appearance

ghostly

the faces of petals of a flower

bring beauty to an otherwise

dismal,wet and dark existence.

人群中这些面庞的闪现；湿漉的黑树干上的花瓣。 （赵毅衡）

这几张脸在人群中幻景般闪现；湿漉漉的黑树枝上花瓣数点。 （飞白）

出现在人群里这一张张面孔；湿的黑树枝上的一片片花瓣。 （张子清）

这些面孔似幻象在人群中显现；一串花瓣在潮湿的黑色枝干上。 （江枫）

人潮中这些面容的忽现；湿巴巴的黑树丫上的花瓣。 （罗池）

人群中幻影般浮现的脸 潮湿的，黑色树枝上的花瓣 （钟鲲）

人群里这些脸忽然闪现；花丛在一条湿黑的树枝。 （流沙河）

人群中，这些面孔的鬼影；潮湿的黑树枝上的花瓣。 （余光中）

In a Station of the Metro

• an Imagist poem by Ezra Pound published in 1913 in Poetry. The poem attempts to describe Pound's experience upon visiting an underground metro station in Paris in 1912, and Pound suggested that the faces of the individuals in the metro were best put into a poem not with a description but with an "equation". Because of the treatment of the subject's appearance by way of the poem's own visuality, it is considered a quintessential Imagist text.

Imagism

• Imagism was a poetic vogue that flourished in England and even more vigorously in America, between the years 1912 and 1917.

• The imagist proposals were for a poetry which, abandoning conventional poetic materials and versification, is free to choose any subject and to create its own rhythms, uses common speech, and presents an image or vivid sensory description that is hard, clear, and concentrated.

Characteristics of Imagist Poetry

• Typically written in free verse and undertakes to render as precisely and tersely as possible the writer’s impression of a visual object or scene.

• Often the impression is rendered by means of metaphor, or by juxtaposing the description of one object with that of a second and diverse object.

Imagism: principles

Direct treatment of the “thing”, whether subjective

or objective; To use absolutely no word that does not

contribute to the presentation; As regarding rhythm, to compose in the sequence

of the musical phrase, not in the sequence of a

metronome.

• A poem about the commercialization and debasement of art, about the feeling of frustration and failure on the part of the artist, and about the poet himself.

• Two parts: 1---13 poems 2---5 poems

Hugh Selwyn Mauberley (1920)休 · 赛尔温 · 莫伯利

Hugh Selwyn Mauberley (2)

• about a poet whose life, like Pound's, has become sterile and meaningless

• published in June 1920, marking his farewell to London. He was disgusted by the lives lost during the war and could not reconcile himself with it.

• made up of 18 short poems, read as autobiographical.

• begins with a satirical analysis of the London literary scene, then turns to social criticism and economics, and an attack on the causes of the war.

The Cantos 诗章 (1915-1962)

• Pound’s “intellectual diary since 1915”.• Pisan Canto is the best one, new model for

contemporary poets.• Language: intricate and obscure• Theme: complex subject matters• Form: no fixed framework, no central theme,

no attention to poetic rules

The Cantos (2)

• a long, incomplete poem in 120 sections, each of which is a canto. Most of it was written between 1915 and 1962, although much of the early work was abandoned and the early cantos, as finally published, date from 1922 onwards. It is a book-length work, widely considered to present formidable difficulties to the reader. Strong claims have been made for it as the most significant work of modernist poetry of the 20th century. As in Pound's prose writing, the themes of economics, governance, and culture are integral to its content.

The Cantos (3)

• In kaleidoscopic manner, lacking any evident overall plan or continuing narrative, the cantos move with very free association over diverse aspects and eras of history, American, European, and Oriental, for all time is treated as contemporary. (varied subjects)

• Similarly, there is no distinction made in the use of diverse languages, and the English is often peppered with Greek, Latin, Provencal, Italian, and Chinese, according to the subject of the passages of frequently shifting topics. (varied languages)

The Cantos (4)

• The elliptical style ranges from laconic and esoteric juxtapositions to lengthy allusive associations. (varied ellipsis)

• Among all these varieties there are relationships which apparently are meant to evaluate history by comparison, and to present a morality for the individual based on Confucian thought and one for society depending upon the ostensibly humanitarian use of state-controlled credit and money.

Evaluation of Pound

• [p.163]+[p.170]

Homework

• Please find out images presented in Pound’s poem “In a Station of the Metro”, and make a brief analysis of the poem.

谢谢！！再见！！