La Drie`re: Craig La Drie`re (1910-78), professor of English at the
Catholic
University of America,
hosted EP in his Washington home before EP left for Italy.
hosted EP in his Washington home before EP left for Italy.
Ezra-Pounds-Chinese-Friends-Stories-in-Letters
--
Thank you for your excellent suggestion/have been thinking along that line
too/Dr Carsun Chang also likes the idea/he'll leave here for Seattle by bus Feb. 17/and then enplane for the Capital about Feb. 22/so he'll see you on Feb 25 or 26 or 27/and explain why he has to use the James Legge translation/because that's the available one here!
C. H. Kwock
? : xin meaning ''make it new,'' used as a salutation.
James Legge translation: in his lectures Chang cited Confucian ideas in Legge's translation. Kwock
had sent EP English translations of these lectures.
736 Grant, S. F. 12/18/54
pound and carsun chang 105
William McNaughton's Memoir:
''What Pound and Carsun Chang Talked About at St Elizabeths''
I met Dr Chang through mutual friends in the intellectual Chinese community in Washington, DC. Chang then had a private cubicle at the Library of Con- gress, where he was working on his book on neo-Confucian philosophy. When he heard that I was acquainted with Pound, he asked if it would be possible for me to introduce him to Pound. Having received Pound's permission to do so, I took Dr Chang with me the next time I went to St Elizabeths. It was almost certainly the second or third Tuesday in November 1953. Over the next eighteen months Dr Chang went to see Pound many times. I would judge that there were a total of about ten interviews between the two men, all taking place not later than May 1955.
During their Wrst meeting Pound told Chang--rather frankly, I thought, in view of Chang's absorption at that time in his work on neo-Confucianism--that he (Pound) wanted Confucianism as Confucius had it and that he ''found little of interest in later dilatations. '' Among ''late dilutations'' it was clear that Pound intended to include neo-Confucianism.
Pound and Dr Chang talked about Pound's work; about Leopoldine reforms; and about Thomas JeVerson. Chang knew a good deal about JeVerson. He told Pound how he had come to draft a constitution for China on JeVersonian principles. The draft later became the basis of the Constitution which was adopted and which is still supposed to be in eVect in Taiwan.
On one of my visits to St Elizabeths with Carsun Chang, Pound said to him, ''If there were only four Confucians in China who would get together and work with each other, they could save China. '' ''Four? '' Dr Chang laughed. ''One is enough. '' In the exchange Chang showed himself, perhaps, to be the more orthodox Confucian. But into the Rock-Drill cantos, Pound did write from the Canonic Book of History the idea that ''? / ? / ? / ? / it may depend on one man'' (86/583). Before Dr Chang and I left that day, Pound said to me, ''Bring him out again. He is somebody you can talk to. He is interested in the deWnition of words. '' Mrs Pound also asked me to bring Chang out again. ''Eppy,'' she said, ''is very hungry for adult company out here. ''
Later on Chang asked Pound to write an introduction for his book on Chinese philosophy. Pound wrote one page in which he said he thought that the reader would be delighted with a book about a thinker who once clapped his hands with joy at the sight of a leaf. Chang decided not to use the introduction. He had wanted something more scholarly, and Pound had written the introduction ''like a poet. '' (In addition to his formal Chinese education, Dr Chang had been a post- graduate student in Germany, and his attitude perhaps had been colored by Germanic ideas of scholarship. ) From Chang's manuscript Pound got the ''rules for a man in government'' which appear at the beginning of Canto 89:
106 pound and carsun chang
To know the histories ?
? to know good from evil
And know whom to trust.
Sometime during one afternoon Chang made the usual objections to Fenol- losa's treatment of the Chinese written character. The talk then turned to James Legge and Arthur Waley, Pound remarked: ''The trouble with Legge's versions is, whenever Confucius disagrees with St Paul, Legge puts in a footnote to say that Confucius must be wrong. ''
Chang quoted the Analects occasionally in Chinese (in his Jiangsu dialect), and then he would translate the passage into very good English. When Pound and Dr Chang took their leave of each other, Pound bowed to Dr Chang over his hands, Chinese-style, and Dr Chang reciprocated.
Chang admired the ''remarkable genius'' of Pound's translations of many paragraphs in the Analects, but he felt that sometimes Pound ''went too far. '' As a speciWc example of Pound's ''going too far,'' Dr Chang cited Pound's version of Analects 8. 2. 2: ''Gentlemen 'bamboo-horse' to their relatives [The bamboo is both hard on the surface and pliant] and the people will rise to manhood. '' (Legge has: ''When those who are in high stations perform well all their duties to their relations, the people are aroused to virtue. '') Chang could not accept the ''bamboo-horse'' translation for tu3 ? , ''ideogrammic'' as it was. Smiling, Pound said he understood the criticism but did not accept it.
I have a note from Pound, dated ''23 Maggio,'' but not postmarked because it was delivered by hand. I believe that it was written 23 May 1954. The note says: ''About time to see Chang again/ get him onto some real occidental writers/ Ric/S/V, as just a bit later than that his neo-Kungists. ETC. '' ''Ric/S/V'' is, of course, Richard St Victor; and the ''neo-Kungists'' are the neo-Confucian philosophers on whom Chang was writing at the time. Pound never did get Chang back to ''essential Confucianism'' and oV the ''neo-Kungists. ''
As important as the ''subjects of conversation'' between two men are the emotional tone and the intellectual spark that plays between the conversants. Between Dr Chang and Pound, for what I could see, there was a genuine aVection; and if during their talks it was clear that Chang excited Pound intellectually, it was apparent afterward, as we rode in our taxi back to Capitol Hill, that Pound excited Dr Chang as well. For Pound, working as he was to get some of the ''wisdom of China'' into his Paradise, the friendship perhaps matched his ideas about ''the laying on of hands,'' as one astute scholar has called it.
7
Achilles Fang and Pound's Classic Anthology ''The barbarians need the ODES''
Much of the Pound-Achilles Fang correspondence during 1953-8 deals with the Confucian Odes project. For Pound the 305 odes handed down from Confucius were both songs to be sung and characters to be deciphered. Accordingly, his edition of the Odes would have to include a singing key and a Chinese character text facing his English translation. In October 1948 Pound consulted Willis Hawley about typeset- ting the characters of the odes. Hawley sent Pound the photocopies of three Chinese texts, suggesting that it would be ''practical to reproduce [one of these texts] instead of setting type'' (Lilly). Of the three texts, the Tang script was ninth century, Song script was eleventh century, and the seal script alone was from Confucius' era. Naturally Pound chose the seal script text for his edition of the Odes.
In 1949-50 the Odes seal text supplied by Hawley passed from James Laughlin of New Directions to Laughlin's printer Dudley Kimball. Numerous letters concerning the layouts of the three-way Odes project were exchanged between Pound, Hawley, Laughlin, and Kimball. Laughlin working on the Stone-Classics edition of The Great Digest & The Unwobbling Pivot became increasingly reluctant to take on another complex project. By late 1951 Pound was losing patience. It was at that point that Achilles Fang came to his rescue (see Fig. 7. 1). He approached the director of Harvard University Press, Thomas Wilson, and succeeded in stirring an interest.
The letters collected here provide a detailed record of Pound's and Harvard's conXicting desires, and of Fang's role as a mediator. Harvard's enthusiasm was for Pound's translation of the Odes. Pound, however, absolutely would not pull out from his manuscript the singing syllables and the characters (see Figs. 7. 2 and 7. 3). The negotiation of a contract broke down in late November 1952 after a letter from Wilson gave Pound the impression that Harvard did not value the sound key and the seal text. Pound began to think of other publishers. In January 1953 John Kasper, co-editor (with David Horton) of the Square Dollar series, reported to Pound Macmillan's and Twayne's interest in this project (Lilly). Meanwhile, Achilles Fang assured Pound that Harvard University Press would carry out his wishes. Right
108 a. fang and pound's classic anthology
before Kasper was going to get the Odes manuscript from Fang, Pound changed his mind. With his energy almost exhausted he would have to rely on Fang to see the project through, and the logical place for the Harvard scholar to do his part of the job was Cambridge. By June 1953 Harvard Press oVered Pound two contracts, Wrst to publish a ''trade edition'' and then to bring out a three-way, ''scholar's edition. '' In August Pound signed both contracts.
Pound experienced little excitement when the ''trade edition'' of the Odes, The Classic Anthology DeWned by Confucius, came out in 1954. ''WHEN the real edition is done,'' he grumbled, ''there shd/alzo be a[n] index, or table of contents, or both'' (Letter 112). He was pleased, though, with Fang's introduc- tion, which includes a syllable-for-syllable transcription of Ode 1 and a footnote announcing a ''forthcoming,'' three-way edition of the Odes. Fang's eVort to aYx a seal script ? (Odes) on the cover also won Pound's approval (see Fig. 7. 4). Several other details of the production, nonetheless, made him paranoid. The typography of his name larger than that of Confucius on the cover especially irritated his eye. ''It is the most BEEyewteeful anthology in the world,'' he told Fang, ''and CONFUCIO had more to do with making it than had yr/anon/ crspdt'' (Letter 112). ''Remember I want <to see> front matter of real EDI- TION when and/or/if'' (Letter 115). However, the ''real EDITION'' never appeared.
Pound's correspondence with Fang of 1956-8 is characterized by impatience. Fang kept assuring Pound that Wilson had no intention to back out. Pound began to suspect whether the delay could have been caused by Fang's wasting time on the accuracy of his sound key. He wrote wryly to him on 4 February 1956: ''if you are waiting to satisfy your letch for precision Gaw Damn it/there is NO alphabetic representation of chinese sound, let alone any fad of spelling it in amurkn alPHAbet'' (Letter 123). By mid-June 1956, when there was still no movement, he wrote to Wilson, stating: ''IF this means that Fang is bored with matter I wish you would return me the ms/and I myself prepare it for the press'' (Beinecke).
In 1955-8 Achilles Fang busily corresponded with Pound's family (wife Doro- thy, son Omar, and daughter Mary Rudge) and friends in eVorts to get Pound released from St Elizabeths Hospital (see Fig. 7. 5). In a letter of 10 August 1955 to Archibald MacLeish, for instance, he wrote: ''I told [Mary] everything you told last winter--that the psychiatrists are willing to release him, that Dr Milton E[isenhower]. could be of some use, and that EP is the only obstacle'' (Beinecke). Meanwhile, he was preparing his dissertation. In late 1956, perhaps as a result of Pound's chiding, he put aside all other projects to work on the sound key and the seal text. For nearly a year from January to October 1957, however, Fang neglected to inform Pound of the progress of the project. Pound grew restless and annoyed. He questioned Wilson on 14 October 1957 as to what was holding up the ''proper edition of the Confucian Anthology. '' Wilson's reply was that the press did not yet have the complete manuscript: ''To be just as frank
a. fang and pound's classic anthology 109
as you are, we have no real desire to publish the complete text, but we are ready to do so when the complete manuscript is in our hands . . . We agreed, as the correspondence shows it very clearly, to publish the scholars' edition when Dr. Fang had completed his editorial work and the necessary introduction; not all of the material is yet in our hands; when it is, we will go ahead, unless you wish to withdraw the manuscript. If the latter is your wish, we should be very glad to fall in with it'' (Beinecke).
Bewildered and furious, Pound turned to Fang for an explanation: ''this puts ALL the blame on you for the delay in publication of the Odes in the ONLY form that interested me in the least'' (Letter 126). Since January, according to Fang, everything essential had been held in the oYce of the Harvard Press editorial department. The only thing that he had not turned in was an introduction. To him it was unnecessary. Should Harvard Press insist on having it, he said, he would write it in a short while. Harvard's demand for an introduction was legitimate. For Pound, however, this was an excuse, betraying the US system of education's ''hatred of the Chinese Classics'' (Letter 126). His bitterness was not assuaged by Fang, who tried to take all the blame: ''Let me take all the blame from each side if need be. Let's have the book at all costs. Barring accidents, we may see the book out next year'' (Letter 127). This did not at all help close the rift between them. ''Fang after years of patient Wdelity,'' Pound warned, ''in danger of losing the respect and friendship of illustrious translator because a cheap, super- market dirtShirt, fumbles and fusses, and IMPEDES'' (Beinecke).
Pound's last letter to Achilles Fang is dated 18 May 1958, about ten days after his release from St Elizabeths Hospital: ''The sabotage, the blocking of my work remains . . . The inWnite vileness of the state of education under the rump of the present organisms for the suppression of mental life is not your fault'' (Letter 128). In a reply Fang again assured Pound that Harvard University Press would start working on the project after summer vacation. By then Pound had lost conWdence in Harvard. On 10 November 1958 he wrote to Wilson from Italy, requesting return of the manuscript and photographs of the complete edition of the Odes (Beinecke). With the termination of the contract regarding the scholar's edition of his Confucian Odes a decade-long correspondence with Achilles Fang also came to a close.
? Fig. 7. 1. Achilles Fang on his way to Washington, DC, 1953. (Ilse Fang)
? Fig. 7. 2. EP's sound key to Ode 167. (Beinecke)
? Fig. 7. 3. EP's seal text of Ode 167. (Beinecke)
? Fig. 7. 4. Cover of Classic Anthology. (Harvard University Press)
? Fig. 7. 5. Achilles and Ilse Fang, 1957. (Ilse Fang)
Dear FANG
I believe the ideogram [
a. fang and pound's classic anthology 115
75 Fang to EP (TLS-1; Beinecke)
[Cambridge, Mass. ]
July 25, 1952
Dear Mr Pound,
Thank you VERY much for A Visiting Card; and I like your Chinese script. Just now John Hawkes (The Beetle Leg, N. D. ), Harvard Press, Production
Deptment, with your Odes, asking to know the best way of printing the phonetic part. He is trying to estimate production cost. Advised him to tell Wilson of the Press to communicate to you directly. More anon from La Drie`re, who comes tonight for a Bierkneipe [get-together at the pub]; J. H. will be there to tell him the details. (I've already dined with L. D. ; a nice man. )
By the way do you want to have the sound-script printed as a separate volume?
Hope the price of the book will not be prohibitive--I am afraid it cannot be less than 10 at the least. Can every interested reader aVord it? ? ?
All this is between us. Until you are oYcially ''advised'' by the Press. Yours respectfully
[signed] Achilles Fang
A Visiting Card: EP's Carta da Visita (1942) translated into English by John Drummond (1952). Wilson: see Glossary on Wilson, Thomas James.
La Drie`re: Craig La Drie`re (1910-78), professor of English at the Catholic University of America,
hosted EP in his Washington home before EP left for Italy. He was a visiting professor at Harvard in 1952.
76 EP to Fang (TL-2; Beinecke)
Kung Tzu shi [Confucian Odes]
] is an ARROW/whether you follow it by Wve
[St Elizabeths Hospital] [Washington, DC] [31 July 1952]
? dashes or repeat 5 times, or whether its simple and primitive vigour expresses the plenum, I cannot say with authority.
UNLESS the phonetic symbols are visible (NOT as in that Princeton horror), VISIBLE simultaneously with the ideograms AND the translation/the phonetic transcript will NOT help the ignorant reader (like yr/friend here below un- signed) to SEE what sound belongs to what ideogram (seal or other)
therefore ten deaths, the execution with 34 cuts or some other ADEQUATE punishment shd/be held over the NECK of anyone who attempts to separate those
116 a. fang and pound's classic anthology
phonetic (approximate etc. ) expositions FROM the chinese text (which shd be on left hand page facing TRANSLATION into barbarian tongue, and highly imperfect but useful (it dont much matter if uniform) representation of the SOUND. )
AS was measured to a millimeter by the Kimball/<imperfect> sample page IF it with the ms/from Kimball's debacle or schivolation <enclosed>.
and god DAMN it the form of the chinese strophes is to be CLEAR to the eye/as it was in the case of Guido's Canzone Donna mi Prega.
The columns of the romanj shd/be spread as far from each other as the page permits. WHEN the space is crowded a black dash can indicate strophe ends. as inked in enclosed.
BUT this proof lacks 8 lines of Wnal strophe, so smaller font must be used.
It was perfectly possible to get two twelve line strophes on a page/NO broken strophes.
AS to price/Eliot's speciWcation IF Faber were to take sheets was that it must ''LOOK LIKE'' a two guinea book.
Obviously a cheap edition, even without chinese text can be issued in 30 years time. <After it is once done RIGHT. >
That FILTHY Princeton production was priced ten bucks.
I never heard of Tschumi, but certainly Geneva is NOT the place whence light has been accustomed to emerge/for at least six centuries, but with augmented vileness during the past 3 or 4 decades. However Calvin etc/etc/
AN INTERESTED reader can always aVord ten bucks/depends on for WHAT. An uninterested reader sent me the Princeton horror out of his heart's kindness, and so on.
I hear the <or an> imperial nephew is in the vicinage, and hope to return his grandfathers, that is his gt/gt/gt or whateverth ancestor's beneWt.
As to Li Ki/what is the etiquette governing intercourse between a confucian and the Dalai Lama?
after all one isn't a proselyting Xtian, but on the other hand one shd NOT put a pouch over the HSIEN3 [light]
and salute John chu ? 1 [Hawkes]
or does his plural rate conjugal happiness (acc Mat) ChuChiu.
Princeton horror: Princeton's Bollingen edition of Richard Wilhelm's I Ching retranslated by Cary Baynes (1950).
Kimball: see Glossary on Kimball, Dudley.
Guido's Canzone Donna mi Prega: see Letter 56 n.
it must ''LOOK LIKE'' a two guinea book: see Letter 89 n.
Tschumi: Raymond Tschumi of University of Geneva authored Thought in Twentieth-Century English
Poetry (1951).
Calvin: John (Jean) Calvin (1509-64), French theologian and reformer, founded University of
Geneva in 1559.
Li Ki . . . the Dalai Lama: in a reply of 5 August 1952 Fang wrote: ''There are any number of details
governing intercourse between a Confucian and the Dalai Lama in Li Ki and esp. in I-li. I don't
a. fang and pound's classic anthology 117
think that imperial nephew of yours will demand them'' (Lilly). Dalai Lama is the title of the
Tibetan Buddhist leader.
chu ? 1. . . ChuChiu:Mathews,1580? ? :AkindofWsh-hawk,''awaterfowl,emblematicalofconjugal
harmony. '' Ju jiu ? ? occurs in Ode 1, line 1. See Letter 91 n.
77 EP to Fang (TL-1)
accuse reception one essay by
Hnble FANG
re short-comings of Hu [Shi], Amy [Lowell] etc/
sd Hu? ? A Xrister? once in charge an university for importing the WRONG
occidental works into Celestial ex Empire? ? or wot?
whoZZZ eee mean by grammar?
Charm of classic chinese largely attributable to there being very little such? ? exact degree, or even approx diYcult fer barbarian to grasp. but wot ov it? In present rage to destroy considerable chink Kulch Hu or anyUVum likely to
be available to funnel in a little of occidental-NOT-rot?
Mild diversion of Hnbl/FANG might be found in Wyndham's Rotting Hill,
and in bits of Writer and Absolute, tho latter not partic[ularly] necess/if have not wasted time on lower frog and brit/babblers.
Gawd bless Wyndham, chief delouser of dying Britain AND so on.
Hu [Shi], Amy [Lowell] etc: Fang, ''Imagism & Chinese Renaissance. '' See Letter 86. EP and fellow American poet Amy Lowell (1874-1925) had not been on friendly terms ever since 1914, when, in his view, she reduced the Imagist movement he had started to ''Amygism. ''
Hu: see Glossary on Hu Shi.
Rotting Hill . . . Writer and Absolute: Wyndham Lewis (see Glossary), Rotting Hill (London: Methuen,
1951); The Writer and the Absolute (London: Methuen, 1952).
78 Fang to EP (TLS-1; Lilly)
Dear Mr Pound,
HU SHIH is now at Princeton. He appears in Boylston Hall now & then;
I have somehow managed to miss him.
Your [Guide to] Kulchur will be read in China--in thirty years. The crowd in
Formosa will never cast a glance at the book. (I have a pretty low opinion of
[St Elizabeths Hospital] [Washington, DC] [22 August 1952]
[Cambridge, Mass. ] September 1, 1952
118 a. fang and pound's classic anthology
them, not that I have any higher esteem of those on the mainland--at this moment. )
Someone gave me a book containing La Prima Decade dei Cantos di E. P. But who is Ennio Contini?
I am asked to write a review of PIVOT for New Mexico Quarterly. As it is not for me to mete out ? [pros] or ? [cons] I intend to write a compact essay on PIVOT's position in E. P. 's universe. I shall be grateful if you care to give me some hints--what points you would like to see emphasized, etc.
Hope to write that essay after my Colorado trip. The Sub-Committee on Chinese thought (subsidized by Ford Foundation) is holding a meeting at Aspen, Sept. 7-14. All expenses paid to the participants (about a dozen). Have sent them a paper on the diYculty of translating from the Chinese--some sixty pages, mainly about how one should become a good sinologist. I believe it is sheer waste. (Shall leave Cambridge on 4 and return on 17 Sept. )
Yours respectfully [signed] Achilles Fang
HU SHIH: see Glossary on Hu Shi.
La Prima Decade dei Cantos di E. P. . . . Ennio Contini: L'Alleluja (1952) with ten poems by Ennio
Contini and Mary de Rachewiltz's Italian versions of Cantos 1-9 and lines 1-55 of Canto 10
(Gallup D56).
on the diYculty of translating: Fang, ''Some ReXections on the DiYculty of Translation,'' in Studies in
Chinese Thought, ed. Arthur Wright (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953).
79 EP to Fang (TL-2; Beinecke)
[St Elizabeths Hospital] [Washington, DC] [5 September 1952]
THIRTY years, O Fang, my phoenix! ! !
what celerity, what almost indecent celerity/
it took Seymour 37 years to get Patria Mia into press.
it has taken 40 for Harriet's snot-rag to print a french poets, bilingual issue/ and now nacherly, as they tell me, it represents about the wust possbl
SElection to illustrate whatever mental life is left in froggery.
WHY shd/the heathen chinese git thaaar sooner than the goddam BARbarian? ? pien3 [? ]/given by mathews/
wot I spose means praise dont SEEM to be in Mr Mathews
PAO1 [? ]/I spose/rad[ical] 145 (yes, Mat has it)
KEEP on, you'll drive me into eggspandin my VOcabulary.
PIVOT position: CHUNG [? ], I spose, plumb in deh MIDDLE whaar it
ought to be.
a. fang and pound's classic anthology 119
Contini, young wop [Italian] with nerve enough to annoy the woptalian Bloomsbury by printing what his connazionali do NOT want printed.
Pivot? emphasis? perhaps that it is better to be a Confucian than a sinologist/ not that the two categories are necessarily in opposition. Many of yr/race must have (at any rate are said to have) come to understand that the ANSWERS are ALL in the four books/at 25 one sees this re/some of them/and Wnds the rest of them later. Just read McNair Wilson's ''Gipsy Queen. '' McN W/is a nice Xtian. Kung wd/have saved him several non sequiturs/
book worth Fang's attention. (1934 . . . I dont know why I hadn't seen it, as I cite McNW in Intro Tx Bk.
I take it F/g has already followed up lines Agassiz/Del Mar, Brooks Ad/ Blackstone/
Cant rember names of chineeee given in small wop/vol/generation after the ''ten remnants'' but most brilliant already dead in 1937.
Small trans/of Tuan Szetsun (very simple) Wu Yung/a couple of vols/in english seen in hell-hole/Catharine Karl//information re <contemporary> Celestial ex-Empire NOT very abundant.
IN FACT, (as printed), doubt if more than 80 people in Perikles' Athens. tsai chien (WHY did that bitch pronounce it: chen? )
Patria Mia: in 1950 Ralph Fletcher Seymour issued EP's Patria Mia (SP, 99-141), which Seymour, Daughaday, and Co. (Chicago) failed to publish in 1913.
Harriet's snot-rag. . . bilingual issue: the Poetry magazine (Chicago) founded by Harriet Monroe (1860-1936) in 1912 presents ten contemporary French poets in its September 1952 issue.
pien3 . . . PAO1: ? . . . ? . See Letter 78.
McNair Wilson's ''Gipsy Queen'': EP owned a copy of The Gipsy-Queen of Paris by Robert McNair
Wilson (1934).
Agassiz . . . Blackstone: see Glossary on Agassiz, Louis; Del Mar, Alexander; Adams, Brooks; and
Blackstone, William.
Tuan Szetsun . . . Wu Yung: EP owned copies of Exposition of Confucian Cosmopolitanism by Tuan
Szetsun (1936) and The Flight of an Empress by Wu Yung (1937). Catharine Karl: unidentiWed.
tsai chien: see Letter 84.
80 EP to Fang (TL-2; Beinecke)
[St Elizabeths Hospital] [Washington, DC] [13 October 1952]
Achilles
[Fang's notation: ''EP's reaction to my Aspen paper. '']
I HOPE that'll set 'em down on their WUMPZ and keep 'em down.
as to heresy/there wd/seem to be basic agreement at least to eVect that some
emphasis is placed on the idea POLitica of ''gittin it over''/
? ? 120 a. fang and pound's classic anthology
as to what Kung WD/have said had he had 2500 MORE years of human imbecility in consideration/gorNOZE
I suspect about FOUR of them ejaculatory arrow signs.
human imbecility (qui donne une idee de/l inWni'' etc. 2500 of LaoZe aestheticism/and horrible translations from ** into waleeze [Waley] ***
As doctrinaire propagandist/might hold that WHEN K/said it it wasn't a cliche ? /
and therefore shd NOT be represented by the drool that passes fer langqitch in the Slimes whether of Limeyburg or Jork/
**
now when yu git to grammar/there I retain curiosity/but having suggested something like agglutinative element in Aeschylus/re/whose lingo I know even less than that of the dark-haired children of the fatherland///
wotterELL do I kare/
and if/poisoned by low grade western inWltrations the WRTTEN symbols of Chink thought have become no better that [than] those of Sulzberger and Matthiessen **
what has that to do with WAN/with kulch/ellegunce or whatsodam/whatso JEN [humanity] or other occupations of the ChunTz' [Zhuangzi]
I wish I did know a bit more about how much a bunch of IDS/CAN interact/ backword forward/as do radicals when conjuncted in one ID/
as from mere hieroglyph in hwa [? ] the representation and ? hwa/with whole poesia of metamorphoses conjuncted/an IDEA-gram tho/or whole poem on paper phonetikly incomplete
nice guy in this P. M. who really likes his Li Po (as beWts his tender years) and does NOT swallow bloomsbury bugwash/
do yu do any teaching at haaaVud? or merely talk to half-masted profs/in hours of idleness/I mean where were yu to ram a li'l sense into Locke?
I can't tell these kids much till yr/abysmal employer prints out them INcor- rect, but possibly useful graphs of the SHIH [Odes] sound/not that they LOOK much like any grunts and wheezes any celestial, darkhaired etc/has ever made in my presence/
what did I hear the other day, when I said: Mei jin pu hao [Beautiful people not good]. something sounding like: Mei kuo rin pu hao [Americans not good]. Very hard for senile ignoramus to attain vocal Xuidity. what does Ni hao ma? [How are you? ] sound like in the North Kepertl [Beijing]? A rose of Shanghai
pronounces: ''manchu,'' in way almost impos/disting/fr/''damn yankee. '' ANYhow/without centuries of damXristers/no freud possible/doubt if even Lao
Tse is as obscene as the english alledged version by wa-lee ? or ? ? [Waley].
Sulzberger: Arthur Hays Sulzberger (1891-1968), publisher of New York Times (1935-61). Matthiessen: Francis Otto Matthiessen (1902-50), Harvard professor of literature and history. Li Po: see Glossary on Li Bo.
a. fang and pound's classic anthology 121
Locke: Fred Locke. See Letter 81.
A rose of Shanghai: Veronica Huilan Sun (see Glossary).
version by wa-lee: Arthur Waley (1889-1966), The Way and Its Power: A Study of the Tao Te Ching and
Its Place in Chinese Thought (1949; rpt. New York: Grove, 1958).
81 Fang to EP (TLS-1; Beinecke)
[Cambridge, Mass. ]
Oct. 27, 1952
Dear Mr Pound,
Completely knocked out for three full weeks--Xu. The heavy shoulders
wouldn't allow the Wngers touch the typewriter keys. Hence this delay in writing.
I am not teaching, nor do I care to play the slave who leads on idiot boys-- pedagogue.
Thank you for your excellent suggestion/have been thinking along that line
too/Dr Carsun Chang also likes the idea/he'll leave here for Seattle by bus Feb. 17/and then enplane for the Capital about Feb. 22/so he'll see you on Feb 25 or 26 or 27/and explain why he has to use the James Legge translation/because that's the available one here!
C. H. Kwock
? : xin meaning ''make it new,'' used as a salutation.
James Legge translation: in his lectures Chang cited Confucian ideas in Legge's translation. Kwock
had sent EP English translations of these lectures.
736 Grant, S. F. 12/18/54
pound and carsun chang 105
William McNaughton's Memoir:
''What Pound and Carsun Chang Talked About at St Elizabeths''
I met Dr Chang through mutual friends in the intellectual Chinese community in Washington, DC. Chang then had a private cubicle at the Library of Con- gress, where he was working on his book on neo-Confucian philosophy. When he heard that I was acquainted with Pound, he asked if it would be possible for me to introduce him to Pound. Having received Pound's permission to do so, I took Dr Chang with me the next time I went to St Elizabeths. It was almost certainly the second or third Tuesday in November 1953. Over the next eighteen months Dr Chang went to see Pound many times. I would judge that there were a total of about ten interviews between the two men, all taking place not later than May 1955.
During their Wrst meeting Pound told Chang--rather frankly, I thought, in view of Chang's absorption at that time in his work on neo-Confucianism--that he (Pound) wanted Confucianism as Confucius had it and that he ''found little of interest in later dilatations. '' Among ''late dilutations'' it was clear that Pound intended to include neo-Confucianism.
Pound and Dr Chang talked about Pound's work; about Leopoldine reforms; and about Thomas JeVerson. Chang knew a good deal about JeVerson. He told Pound how he had come to draft a constitution for China on JeVersonian principles. The draft later became the basis of the Constitution which was adopted and which is still supposed to be in eVect in Taiwan.
On one of my visits to St Elizabeths with Carsun Chang, Pound said to him, ''If there were only four Confucians in China who would get together and work with each other, they could save China. '' ''Four? '' Dr Chang laughed. ''One is enough. '' In the exchange Chang showed himself, perhaps, to be the more orthodox Confucian. But into the Rock-Drill cantos, Pound did write from the Canonic Book of History the idea that ''? / ? / ? / ? / it may depend on one man'' (86/583). Before Dr Chang and I left that day, Pound said to me, ''Bring him out again. He is somebody you can talk to. He is interested in the deWnition of words. '' Mrs Pound also asked me to bring Chang out again. ''Eppy,'' she said, ''is very hungry for adult company out here. ''
Later on Chang asked Pound to write an introduction for his book on Chinese philosophy. Pound wrote one page in which he said he thought that the reader would be delighted with a book about a thinker who once clapped his hands with joy at the sight of a leaf. Chang decided not to use the introduction. He had wanted something more scholarly, and Pound had written the introduction ''like a poet. '' (In addition to his formal Chinese education, Dr Chang had been a post- graduate student in Germany, and his attitude perhaps had been colored by Germanic ideas of scholarship. ) From Chang's manuscript Pound got the ''rules for a man in government'' which appear at the beginning of Canto 89:
106 pound and carsun chang
To know the histories ?
? to know good from evil
And know whom to trust.
Sometime during one afternoon Chang made the usual objections to Fenol- losa's treatment of the Chinese written character. The talk then turned to James Legge and Arthur Waley, Pound remarked: ''The trouble with Legge's versions is, whenever Confucius disagrees with St Paul, Legge puts in a footnote to say that Confucius must be wrong. ''
Chang quoted the Analects occasionally in Chinese (in his Jiangsu dialect), and then he would translate the passage into very good English. When Pound and Dr Chang took their leave of each other, Pound bowed to Dr Chang over his hands, Chinese-style, and Dr Chang reciprocated.
Chang admired the ''remarkable genius'' of Pound's translations of many paragraphs in the Analects, but he felt that sometimes Pound ''went too far. '' As a speciWc example of Pound's ''going too far,'' Dr Chang cited Pound's version of Analects 8. 2. 2: ''Gentlemen 'bamboo-horse' to their relatives [The bamboo is both hard on the surface and pliant] and the people will rise to manhood. '' (Legge has: ''When those who are in high stations perform well all their duties to their relations, the people are aroused to virtue. '') Chang could not accept the ''bamboo-horse'' translation for tu3 ? , ''ideogrammic'' as it was. Smiling, Pound said he understood the criticism but did not accept it.
I have a note from Pound, dated ''23 Maggio,'' but not postmarked because it was delivered by hand. I believe that it was written 23 May 1954. The note says: ''About time to see Chang again/ get him onto some real occidental writers/ Ric/S/V, as just a bit later than that his neo-Kungists. ETC. '' ''Ric/S/V'' is, of course, Richard St Victor; and the ''neo-Kungists'' are the neo-Confucian philosophers on whom Chang was writing at the time. Pound never did get Chang back to ''essential Confucianism'' and oV the ''neo-Kungists. ''
As important as the ''subjects of conversation'' between two men are the emotional tone and the intellectual spark that plays between the conversants. Between Dr Chang and Pound, for what I could see, there was a genuine aVection; and if during their talks it was clear that Chang excited Pound intellectually, it was apparent afterward, as we rode in our taxi back to Capitol Hill, that Pound excited Dr Chang as well. For Pound, working as he was to get some of the ''wisdom of China'' into his Paradise, the friendship perhaps matched his ideas about ''the laying on of hands,'' as one astute scholar has called it.
7
Achilles Fang and Pound's Classic Anthology ''The barbarians need the ODES''
Much of the Pound-Achilles Fang correspondence during 1953-8 deals with the Confucian Odes project. For Pound the 305 odes handed down from Confucius were both songs to be sung and characters to be deciphered. Accordingly, his edition of the Odes would have to include a singing key and a Chinese character text facing his English translation. In October 1948 Pound consulted Willis Hawley about typeset- ting the characters of the odes. Hawley sent Pound the photocopies of three Chinese texts, suggesting that it would be ''practical to reproduce [one of these texts] instead of setting type'' (Lilly). Of the three texts, the Tang script was ninth century, Song script was eleventh century, and the seal script alone was from Confucius' era. Naturally Pound chose the seal script text for his edition of the Odes.
In 1949-50 the Odes seal text supplied by Hawley passed from James Laughlin of New Directions to Laughlin's printer Dudley Kimball. Numerous letters concerning the layouts of the three-way Odes project were exchanged between Pound, Hawley, Laughlin, and Kimball. Laughlin working on the Stone-Classics edition of The Great Digest & The Unwobbling Pivot became increasingly reluctant to take on another complex project. By late 1951 Pound was losing patience. It was at that point that Achilles Fang came to his rescue (see Fig. 7. 1). He approached the director of Harvard University Press, Thomas Wilson, and succeeded in stirring an interest.
The letters collected here provide a detailed record of Pound's and Harvard's conXicting desires, and of Fang's role as a mediator. Harvard's enthusiasm was for Pound's translation of the Odes. Pound, however, absolutely would not pull out from his manuscript the singing syllables and the characters (see Figs. 7. 2 and 7. 3). The negotiation of a contract broke down in late November 1952 after a letter from Wilson gave Pound the impression that Harvard did not value the sound key and the seal text. Pound began to think of other publishers. In January 1953 John Kasper, co-editor (with David Horton) of the Square Dollar series, reported to Pound Macmillan's and Twayne's interest in this project (Lilly). Meanwhile, Achilles Fang assured Pound that Harvard University Press would carry out his wishes. Right
108 a. fang and pound's classic anthology
before Kasper was going to get the Odes manuscript from Fang, Pound changed his mind. With his energy almost exhausted he would have to rely on Fang to see the project through, and the logical place for the Harvard scholar to do his part of the job was Cambridge. By June 1953 Harvard Press oVered Pound two contracts, Wrst to publish a ''trade edition'' and then to bring out a three-way, ''scholar's edition. '' In August Pound signed both contracts.
Pound experienced little excitement when the ''trade edition'' of the Odes, The Classic Anthology DeWned by Confucius, came out in 1954. ''WHEN the real edition is done,'' he grumbled, ''there shd/alzo be a[n] index, or table of contents, or both'' (Letter 112). He was pleased, though, with Fang's introduc- tion, which includes a syllable-for-syllable transcription of Ode 1 and a footnote announcing a ''forthcoming,'' three-way edition of the Odes. Fang's eVort to aYx a seal script ? (Odes) on the cover also won Pound's approval (see Fig. 7. 4). Several other details of the production, nonetheless, made him paranoid. The typography of his name larger than that of Confucius on the cover especially irritated his eye. ''It is the most BEEyewteeful anthology in the world,'' he told Fang, ''and CONFUCIO had more to do with making it than had yr/anon/ crspdt'' (Letter 112). ''Remember I want <to see> front matter of real EDI- TION when and/or/if'' (Letter 115). However, the ''real EDITION'' never appeared.
Pound's correspondence with Fang of 1956-8 is characterized by impatience. Fang kept assuring Pound that Wilson had no intention to back out. Pound began to suspect whether the delay could have been caused by Fang's wasting time on the accuracy of his sound key. He wrote wryly to him on 4 February 1956: ''if you are waiting to satisfy your letch for precision Gaw Damn it/there is NO alphabetic representation of chinese sound, let alone any fad of spelling it in amurkn alPHAbet'' (Letter 123). By mid-June 1956, when there was still no movement, he wrote to Wilson, stating: ''IF this means that Fang is bored with matter I wish you would return me the ms/and I myself prepare it for the press'' (Beinecke).
In 1955-8 Achilles Fang busily corresponded with Pound's family (wife Doro- thy, son Omar, and daughter Mary Rudge) and friends in eVorts to get Pound released from St Elizabeths Hospital (see Fig. 7. 5). In a letter of 10 August 1955 to Archibald MacLeish, for instance, he wrote: ''I told [Mary] everything you told last winter--that the psychiatrists are willing to release him, that Dr Milton E[isenhower]. could be of some use, and that EP is the only obstacle'' (Beinecke). Meanwhile, he was preparing his dissertation. In late 1956, perhaps as a result of Pound's chiding, he put aside all other projects to work on the sound key and the seal text. For nearly a year from January to October 1957, however, Fang neglected to inform Pound of the progress of the project. Pound grew restless and annoyed. He questioned Wilson on 14 October 1957 as to what was holding up the ''proper edition of the Confucian Anthology. '' Wilson's reply was that the press did not yet have the complete manuscript: ''To be just as frank
a. fang and pound's classic anthology 109
as you are, we have no real desire to publish the complete text, but we are ready to do so when the complete manuscript is in our hands . . . We agreed, as the correspondence shows it very clearly, to publish the scholars' edition when Dr. Fang had completed his editorial work and the necessary introduction; not all of the material is yet in our hands; when it is, we will go ahead, unless you wish to withdraw the manuscript. If the latter is your wish, we should be very glad to fall in with it'' (Beinecke).
Bewildered and furious, Pound turned to Fang for an explanation: ''this puts ALL the blame on you for the delay in publication of the Odes in the ONLY form that interested me in the least'' (Letter 126). Since January, according to Fang, everything essential had been held in the oYce of the Harvard Press editorial department. The only thing that he had not turned in was an introduction. To him it was unnecessary. Should Harvard Press insist on having it, he said, he would write it in a short while. Harvard's demand for an introduction was legitimate. For Pound, however, this was an excuse, betraying the US system of education's ''hatred of the Chinese Classics'' (Letter 126). His bitterness was not assuaged by Fang, who tried to take all the blame: ''Let me take all the blame from each side if need be. Let's have the book at all costs. Barring accidents, we may see the book out next year'' (Letter 127). This did not at all help close the rift between them. ''Fang after years of patient Wdelity,'' Pound warned, ''in danger of losing the respect and friendship of illustrious translator because a cheap, super- market dirtShirt, fumbles and fusses, and IMPEDES'' (Beinecke).
Pound's last letter to Achilles Fang is dated 18 May 1958, about ten days after his release from St Elizabeths Hospital: ''The sabotage, the blocking of my work remains . . . The inWnite vileness of the state of education under the rump of the present organisms for the suppression of mental life is not your fault'' (Letter 128). In a reply Fang again assured Pound that Harvard University Press would start working on the project after summer vacation. By then Pound had lost conWdence in Harvard. On 10 November 1958 he wrote to Wilson from Italy, requesting return of the manuscript and photographs of the complete edition of the Odes (Beinecke). With the termination of the contract regarding the scholar's edition of his Confucian Odes a decade-long correspondence with Achilles Fang also came to a close.
? Fig. 7. 1. Achilles Fang on his way to Washington, DC, 1953. (Ilse Fang)
? Fig. 7. 2. EP's sound key to Ode 167. (Beinecke)
? Fig. 7. 3. EP's seal text of Ode 167. (Beinecke)
? Fig. 7. 4. Cover of Classic Anthology. (Harvard University Press)
? Fig. 7. 5. Achilles and Ilse Fang, 1957. (Ilse Fang)
Dear FANG
I believe the ideogram [
a. fang and pound's classic anthology 115
75 Fang to EP (TLS-1; Beinecke)
[Cambridge, Mass. ]
July 25, 1952
Dear Mr Pound,
Thank you VERY much for A Visiting Card; and I like your Chinese script. Just now John Hawkes (The Beetle Leg, N. D. ), Harvard Press, Production
Deptment, with your Odes, asking to know the best way of printing the phonetic part. He is trying to estimate production cost. Advised him to tell Wilson of the Press to communicate to you directly. More anon from La Drie`re, who comes tonight for a Bierkneipe [get-together at the pub]; J. H. will be there to tell him the details. (I've already dined with L. D. ; a nice man. )
By the way do you want to have the sound-script printed as a separate volume?
Hope the price of the book will not be prohibitive--I am afraid it cannot be less than 10 at the least. Can every interested reader aVord it? ? ?
All this is between us. Until you are oYcially ''advised'' by the Press. Yours respectfully
[signed] Achilles Fang
A Visiting Card: EP's Carta da Visita (1942) translated into English by John Drummond (1952). Wilson: see Glossary on Wilson, Thomas James.
La Drie`re: Craig La Drie`re (1910-78), professor of English at the Catholic University of America,
hosted EP in his Washington home before EP left for Italy. He was a visiting professor at Harvard in 1952.
76 EP to Fang (TL-2; Beinecke)
Kung Tzu shi [Confucian Odes]
] is an ARROW/whether you follow it by Wve
[St Elizabeths Hospital] [Washington, DC] [31 July 1952]
? dashes or repeat 5 times, or whether its simple and primitive vigour expresses the plenum, I cannot say with authority.
UNLESS the phonetic symbols are visible (NOT as in that Princeton horror), VISIBLE simultaneously with the ideograms AND the translation/the phonetic transcript will NOT help the ignorant reader (like yr/friend here below un- signed) to SEE what sound belongs to what ideogram (seal or other)
therefore ten deaths, the execution with 34 cuts or some other ADEQUATE punishment shd/be held over the NECK of anyone who attempts to separate those
116 a. fang and pound's classic anthology
phonetic (approximate etc. ) expositions FROM the chinese text (which shd be on left hand page facing TRANSLATION into barbarian tongue, and highly imperfect but useful (it dont much matter if uniform) representation of the SOUND. )
AS was measured to a millimeter by the Kimball/<imperfect> sample page IF it with the ms/from Kimball's debacle or schivolation <enclosed>.
and god DAMN it the form of the chinese strophes is to be CLEAR to the eye/as it was in the case of Guido's Canzone Donna mi Prega.
The columns of the romanj shd/be spread as far from each other as the page permits. WHEN the space is crowded a black dash can indicate strophe ends. as inked in enclosed.
BUT this proof lacks 8 lines of Wnal strophe, so smaller font must be used.
It was perfectly possible to get two twelve line strophes on a page/NO broken strophes.
AS to price/Eliot's speciWcation IF Faber were to take sheets was that it must ''LOOK LIKE'' a two guinea book.
Obviously a cheap edition, even without chinese text can be issued in 30 years time. <After it is once done RIGHT. >
That FILTHY Princeton production was priced ten bucks.
I never heard of Tschumi, but certainly Geneva is NOT the place whence light has been accustomed to emerge/for at least six centuries, but with augmented vileness during the past 3 or 4 decades. However Calvin etc/etc/
AN INTERESTED reader can always aVord ten bucks/depends on for WHAT. An uninterested reader sent me the Princeton horror out of his heart's kindness, and so on.
I hear the <or an> imperial nephew is in the vicinage, and hope to return his grandfathers, that is his gt/gt/gt or whateverth ancestor's beneWt.
As to Li Ki/what is the etiquette governing intercourse between a confucian and the Dalai Lama?
after all one isn't a proselyting Xtian, but on the other hand one shd NOT put a pouch over the HSIEN3 [light]
and salute John chu ? 1 [Hawkes]
or does his plural rate conjugal happiness (acc Mat) ChuChiu.
Princeton horror: Princeton's Bollingen edition of Richard Wilhelm's I Ching retranslated by Cary Baynes (1950).
Kimball: see Glossary on Kimball, Dudley.
Guido's Canzone Donna mi Prega: see Letter 56 n.
it must ''LOOK LIKE'' a two guinea book: see Letter 89 n.
Tschumi: Raymond Tschumi of University of Geneva authored Thought in Twentieth-Century English
Poetry (1951).
Calvin: John (Jean) Calvin (1509-64), French theologian and reformer, founded University of
Geneva in 1559.
Li Ki . . . the Dalai Lama: in a reply of 5 August 1952 Fang wrote: ''There are any number of details
governing intercourse between a Confucian and the Dalai Lama in Li Ki and esp. in I-li. I don't
a. fang and pound's classic anthology 117
think that imperial nephew of yours will demand them'' (Lilly). Dalai Lama is the title of the
Tibetan Buddhist leader.
chu ? 1. . . ChuChiu:Mathews,1580? ? :AkindofWsh-hawk,''awaterfowl,emblematicalofconjugal
harmony. '' Ju jiu ? ? occurs in Ode 1, line 1. See Letter 91 n.
77 EP to Fang (TL-1)
accuse reception one essay by
Hnble FANG
re short-comings of Hu [Shi], Amy [Lowell] etc/
sd Hu? ? A Xrister? once in charge an university for importing the WRONG
occidental works into Celestial ex Empire? ? or wot?
whoZZZ eee mean by grammar?
Charm of classic chinese largely attributable to there being very little such? ? exact degree, or even approx diYcult fer barbarian to grasp. but wot ov it? In present rage to destroy considerable chink Kulch Hu or anyUVum likely to
be available to funnel in a little of occidental-NOT-rot?
Mild diversion of Hnbl/FANG might be found in Wyndham's Rotting Hill,
and in bits of Writer and Absolute, tho latter not partic[ularly] necess/if have not wasted time on lower frog and brit/babblers.
Gawd bless Wyndham, chief delouser of dying Britain AND so on.
Hu [Shi], Amy [Lowell] etc: Fang, ''Imagism & Chinese Renaissance. '' See Letter 86. EP and fellow American poet Amy Lowell (1874-1925) had not been on friendly terms ever since 1914, when, in his view, she reduced the Imagist movement he had started to ''Amygism. ''
Hu: see Glossary on Hu Shi.
Rotting Hill . . . Writer and Absolute: Wyndham Lewis (see Glossary), Rotting Hill (London: Methuen,
1951); The Writer and the Absolute (London: Methuen, 1952).
78 Fang to EP (TLS-1; Lilly)
Dear Mr Pound,
HU SHIH is now at Princeton. He appears in Boylston Hall now & then;
I have somehow managed to miss him.
Your [Guide to] Kulchur will be read in China--in thirty years. The crowd in
Formosa will never cast a glance at the book. (I have a pretty low opinion of
[St Elizabeths Hospital] [Washington, DC] [22 August 1952]
[Cambridge, Mass. ] September 1, 1952
118 a. fang and pound's classic anthology
them, not that I have any higher esteem of those on the mainland--at this moment. )
Someone gave me a book containing La Prima Decade dei Cantos di E. P. But who is Ennio Contini?
I am asked to write a review of PIVOT for New Mexico Quarterly. As it is not for me to mete out ? [pros] or ? [cons] I intend to write a compact essay on PIVOT's position in E. P. 's universe. I shall be grateful if you care to give me some hints--what points you would like to see emphasized, etc.
Hope to write that essay after my Colorado trip. The Sub-Committee on Chinese thought (subsidized by Ford Foundation) is holding a meeting at Aspen, Sept. 7-14. All expenses paid to the participants (about a dozen). Have sent them a paper on the diYculty of translating from the Chinese--some sixty pages, mainly about how one should become a good sinologist. I believe it is sheer waste. (Shall leave Cambridge on 4 and return on 17 Sept. )
Yours respectfully [signed] Achilles Fang
HU SHIH: see Glossary on Hu Shi.
La Prima Decade dei Cantos di E. P. . . . Ennio Contini: L'Alleluja (1952) with ten poems by Ennio
Contini and Mary de Rachewiltz's Italian versions of Cantos 1-9 and lines 1-55 of Canto 10
(Gallup D56).
on the diYculty of translating: Fang, ''Some ReXections on the DiYculty of Translation,'' in Studies in
Chinese Thought, ed. Arthur Wright (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953).
79 EP to Fang (TL-2; Beinecke)
[St Elizabeths Hospital] [Washington, DC] [5 September 1952]
THIRTY years, O Fang, my phoenix! ! !
what celerity, what almost indecent celerity/
it took Seymour 37 years to get Patria Mia into press.
it has taken 40 for Harriet's snot-rag to print a french poets, bilingual issue/ and now nacherly, as they tell me, it represents about the wust possbl
SElection to illustrate whatever mental life is left in froggery.
WHY shd/the heathen chinese git thaaar sooner than the goddam BARbarian? ? pien3 [? ]/given by mathews/
wot I spose means praise dont SEEM to be in Mr Mathews
PAO1 [? ]/I spose/rad[ical] 145 (yes, Mat has it)
KEEP on, you'll drive me into eggspandin my VOcabulary.
PIVOT position: CHUNG [? ], I spose, plumb in deh MIDDLE whaar it
ought to be.
a. fang and pound's classic anthology 119
Contini, young wop [Italian] with nerve enough to annoy the woptalian Bloomsbury by printing what his connazionali do NOT want printed.
Pivot? emphasis? perhaps that it is better to be a Confucian than a sinologist/ not that the two categories are necessarily in opposition. Many of yr/race must have (at any rate are said to have) come to understand that the ANSWERS are ALL in the four books/at 25 one sees this re/some of them/and Wnds the rest of them later. Just read McNair Wilson's ''Gipsy Queen. '' McN W/is a nice Xtian. Kung wd/have saved him several non sequiturs/
book worth Fang's attention. (1934 . . . I dont know why I hadn't seen it, as I cite McNW in Intro Tx Bk.
I take it F/g has already followed up lines Agassiz/Del Mar, Brooks Ad/ Blackstone/
Cant rember names of chineeee given in small wop/vol/generation after the ''ten remnants'' but most brilliant already dead in 1937.
Small trans/of Tuan Szetsun (very simple) Wu Yung/a couple of vols/in english seen in hell-hole/Catharine Karl//information re <contemporary> Celestial ex-Empire NOT very abundant.
IN FACT, (as printed), doubt if more than 80 people in Perikles' Athens. tsai chien (WHY did that bitch pronounce it: chen? )
Patria Mia: in 1950 Ralph Fletcher Seymour issued EP's Patria Mia (SP, 99-141), which Seymour, Daughaday, and Co. (Chicago) failed to publish in 1913.
Harriet's snot-rag. . . bilingual issue: the Poetry magazine (Chicago) founded by Harriet Monroe (1860-1936) in 1912 presents ten contemporary French poets in its September 1952 issue.
pien3 . . . PAO1: ? . . . ? . See Letter 78.
McNair Wilson's ''Gipsy Queen'': EP owned a copy of The Gipsy-Queen of Paris by Robert McNair
Wilson (1934).
Agassiz . . . Blackstone: see Glossary on Agassiz, Louis; Del Mar, Alexander; Adams, Brooks; and
Blackstone, William.
Tuan Szetsun . . . Wu Yung: EP owned copies of Exposition of Confucian Cosmopolitanism by Tuan
Szetsun (1936) and The Flight of an Empress by Wu Yung (1937). Catharine Karl: unidentiWed.
tsai chien: see Letter 84.
80 EP to Fang (TL-2; Beinecke)
[St Elizabeths Hospital] [Washington, DC] [13 October 1952]
Achilles
[Fang's notation: ''EP's reaction to my Aspen paper. '']
I HOPE that'll set 'em down on their WUMPZ and keep 'em down.
as to heresy/there wd/seem to be basic agreement at least to eVect that some
emphasis is placed on the idea POLitica of ''gittin it over''/
? ? 120 a. fang and pound's classic anthology
as to what Kung WD/have said had he had 2500 MORE years of human imbecility in consideration/gorNOZE
I suspect about FOUR of them ejaculatory arrow signs.
human imbecility (qui donne une idee de/l inWni'' etc. 2500 of LaoZe aestheticism/and horrible translations from ** into waleeze [Waley] ***
As doctrinaire propagandist/might hold that WHEN K/said it it wasn't a cliche ? /
and therefore shd NOT be represented by the drool that passes fer langqitch in the Slimes whether of Limeyburg or Jork/
**
now when yu git to grammar/there I retain curiosity/but having suggested something like agglutinative element in Aeschylus/re/whose lingo I know even less than that of the dark-haired children of the fatherland///
wotterELL do I kare/
and if/poisoned by low grade western inWltrations the WRTTEN symbols of Chink thought have become no better that [than] those of Sulzberger and Matthiessen **
what has that to do with WAN/with kulch/ellegunce or whatsodam/whatso JEN [humanity] or other occupations of the ChunTz' [Zhuangzi]
I wish I did know a bit more about how much a bunch of IDS/CAN interact/ backword forward/as do radicals when conjuncted in one ID/
as from mere hieroglyph in hwa [? ] the representation and ? hwa/with whole poesia of metamorphoses conjuncted/an IDEA-gram tho/or whole poem on paper phonetikly incomplete
nice guy in this P. M. who really likes his Li Po (as beWts his tender years) and does NOT swallow bloomsbury bugwash/
do yu do any teaching at haaaVud? or merely talk to half-masted profs/in hours of idleness/I mean where were yu to ram a li'l sense into Locke?
I can't tell these kids much till yr/abysmal employer prints out them INcor- rect, but possibly useful graphs of the SHIH [Odes] sound/not that they LOOK much like any grunts and wheezes any celestial, darkhaired etc/has ever made in my presence/
what did I hear the other day, when I said: Mei jin pu hao [Beautiful people not good]. something sounding like: Mei kuo rin pu hao [Americans not good]. Very hard for senile ignoramus to attain vocal Xuidity. what does Ni hao ma? [How are you? ] sound like in the North Kepertl [Beijing]? A rose of Shanghai
pronounces: ''manchu,'' in way almost impos/disting/fr/''damn yankee. '' ANYhow/without centuries of damXristers/no freud possible/doubt if even Lao
Tse is as obscene as the english alledged version by wa-lee ? or ? ? [Waley].
Sulzberger: Arthur Hays Sulzberger (1891-1968), publisher of New York Times (1935-61). Matthiessen: Francis Otto Matthiessen (1902-50), Harvard professor of literature and history. Li Po: see Glossary on Li Bo.
a. fang and pound's classic anthology 121
Locke: Fred Locke. See Letter 81.
A rose of Shanghai: Veronica Huilan Sun (see Glossary).
version by wa-lee: Arthur Waley (1889-1966), The Way and Its Power: A Study of the Tao Te Ching and
Its Place in Chinese Thought (1949; rpt. New York: Grove, 1958).
81 Fang to EP (TLS-1; Beinecke)
[Cambridge, Mass. ]
Oct. 27, 1952
Dear Mr Pound,
Completely knocked out for three full weeks--Xu. The heavy shoulders
wouldn't allow the Wngers touch the typewriter keys. Hence this delay in writing.
I am not teaching, nor do I care to play the slave who leads on idiot boys-- pedagogue.
