Religion 3: Confucianism and Taoism

In the early 1910s Ezra Pound was introduced to Taoism and Confucianism--two of the mainstays of ancient Chinese philosophy; henceforth, what may be seen as Taoist and Confucian sensibilities vied for control of his work, just as the two had vied for control of the philosophical landscape of ancient China. Although Pound condemned Taoism, the allusive aspects of his literary work have affinities with it; and although he always admired Confucianism, the dogmatic aspects of his work are partly the result of its influence.

Both Confucianism and Taoism developed between the sixth and fourth centuries B. C. in China. In key ways, these philosophies are strikingly different. For Taoists, the Great Tao or “Way” is immeasurable and uncontrollable and yet not beyond human apprehension. If people would remain still in their hearts, and free from willfulness and delusions of control, then they could recognize both the Great Tao and their own place within it. Confucianism, however, is a practical, willful, and controlling philosophy that generally suggests that humankind is the center of its own universe. Its contrast with Taoism shows through each philosophy’s unique response to the significance of words. Taoists believe that words are temporary conveyances of shifting meaning. Confucians believe that words contain and control meaning; they are meaning-traps, without which meaning would drift and society would fall into disorder.

By December 1913 Pound was in possession of the renowned Asian art historian Ernest Fenollosa’s notes, including scores of translations of Chinese Taoist poetry. He quickly recognized that this poetry was terse, polished, and most importantly, emotionally allusive. He had admired these qualities in the verse of Western classical and medieval poets such as Sappho and Dante, but had been unable to achieve the same effect in his own verse. Starting in 1913, however, the character of Pound’s work changed noticeably. This was especially evident in Cathay(1915), his volume of translations taken from the Fenollosa notes. Pound began to achieve with words what fellow poet T. S. Eliot suggested was the ability to actually modify inarticulate emotions by presenting them in precise words and images. In short, Pound’s poetry developed an emotional allusiveness. His translation entitled “The Jewel Stairs Grievance,” from Cathay, serves as a prime example:

The jewelled steps are already quite white with dew

It is so late that the dew soaks my gauze stockings,

And I let down the crystal curtain

And watch the moon through the clear autumn.

Both Fenollosa and Pound observed that the reader is never told that a woman impatiently waits for someone--yet strained impatience is precisely the emotion produced by the poem. Such an emotional movement out of details towards emotional truth is typical of Taoist poetry.

At very nearly the same time that Pound was working through the Taoist poems in the Fenollosa notebooks, he began reading G. M. Pauthiers French translations of the four classical Confucian texts. Unlike Taoist thought, which came to Pound first as poetry, Confucian thought first came to him as social and political science. Confucius was concerned with effective governance during a time of political instability in China. He proposed the maintenance of social order. This social order began with the precise definition of words. Precise definitions were necessary in order to explain the inarticulate thoughts of virtuous men in leadership roles. Their virtuous character would thus extend outwards through words until it was manifest as an entire state, living in ordered harmony. As can be imagined, the social application of Confucianism in China had a spotty history. Despite the best of intentions, its emphasis on order sometimes turned into obsession and towards intolerance of difference. More than once in the history of China, Confucian philosophy served as the warrant for human oppression.

Many Sinologists maintain that the less formal approach to life and living implied in Taoist (and later, Buddhist) philosophy served as a social corrective to Confucian rigidity in China. Further, as time passed, the popular reception of the philosophies, as well as the specific content of their canonical texts became crossbred with one another. Pound, however, did not have the hundreds of years of polemical contention behind him as did Chinese Confucianism and Taoism. He thus failed to recognize or obtain the kind of symbiotic understanding that the two phi1osophies in China had developed over time. Consequently, his work sometimes evokes a Taoist allusiveness, and at other times, illustrates the kind of rigidity to which Confucianism sometimes tended. Furthermore, in the l920s, Pound began to combine his understanding of Confucianism with his understanding of Italian Fascism. As a result, his various calls for social and aesthetic order intensified, and he began to show a willingness to subordinate the human spirit to the principle of social order. He had come to this willingness as much through his belief in Confucianism as from his belief in Fascism. But it stood in stark contrast to the Taoist sensibility that he had developed through translation and his ongoing poetic work. Something clearly had to give. Many of Pound’s readers feel that it was the allusiveness in his poetry that did so.

In the late 1930s, Pound read J. A. M. de Moryiac de Maillas Histoire Generale de la Chine, an eighteenth century French translation of a Chinese history text. De Maillas source had been a politicized Confucian account of Chinese history. It condemned Taoists and Buddhists for all social ills in China, and praised Confucians for all that had gone well. Pound likewise started a campaign of invective against Taoists in his writings. This campaign corresponded in time to the intensification of his efforts to promote the Confucian-FascistItalianState. When that state finally collapsed in 1945, so did much of Pound’s Confucian vision. Many scholars note the resurgence of a Taoist sensibility in Pound

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Time, Space,

neither life nor death is the answer (115/808)

Robert Kibler

EDITORIAL NOTES

  1. Parag. #3, quotation from Cathay: provide page number