China and the West

Angela Jung Palandri chose Ezra Pound for her Ph.D. in English and Comparative Literature : Ezra Pound and China [ID D29081].
"My first contact with Pound was in 1952. I was then a foreign student from China still struggling with the English language. Early that year I attended a seminar at the University of Washington in Seattle. Sitting next to me was a young man who kept on writing Chinese characters in his notebook. Mistaking him for a student of the Chinese language, I pointed out that some of his ideograms were written incorrectly. He showed me the book from which he was copying. It was The cantos of Ezra Pound. My initial interest in Pound was aroused primarily by the poet's interest in Chinese. When research failed to satisfy my curiosity, I decided to write to Pound at St Elizabeths Hospital. Imagine my surprise when Pound's first letter dated Febr. 27, arrived : 'I will try to answer your questions when you get here in April. I like to get letters but can not do much in the way of replay'. The second letter from Pound was dated March 4. Along with this letter was a separate page containing a Chinese quatrain of sixteen ideograms. The four-character line is typical of the Confucian odes which Pound had translated… During my four months in Washington D.C., I visited Pound regularly once a week. Upon arriving, I wrote to Pound. I was given an appointment on the following Saturday… First he brought a chair for me and then he brought two armsful of books. Among them were the Analects and Fenollosa's essay, his Money pamphlets, the bilingual edition of Cavalcanti's Rima and the Stone classic edition of his translation of Confucius interleafed with Chinese text. 'The only way to learn the literature of a foreign language is to have the original text with the translation', he explained'. There was a pirated, bilingual edition of James Legge's translation of the Four books of Confucius. The margins inside were covered with notes or comments. 'This little book has been my bible for years', remarked Pound, 'the only thing I could hang onto during those hellish days at Pisa. Had it not been for this book, from which I drew my strength, I would really have gone insane, so you see how I am Indebted to Kung'… 'I have never heard how Chinese poetry should be read, but I like to play with it my own way'. He began to chant his Chinese verse in the old fashioned sing-song Manner I had been taught as a child. He drummed his fingers on his knee to mark the duration and stress of each syllable. 'Occidentals have a lot to learn from the Chinese, the ideogrammic method as well as the metrics, the Chinese tones are very musical. They make you sing. That's the way poetry should be in any language'.
My visits thereafter were less exciting but more pleasant. The most important event for Pound and for me, was T.S. Eliot's visit on June 21. Pound turned to me and said : 'If you have any questions to ask Mr. Eliot, here is your chance. After all, it isn't every day that you meet such an eminent personality. I had prepared a list of question…"