The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry: A Critical Edition

[Retrospect on the Fenollosa Papers]

174 [Retrospect on the Fenollosa Papers] E z r a P o u n d (1958) After meeting Mrs Fenollosa1 at Sarojini Naidu’s2 in in or about 19 she read some of my verse and decided that I was “the only person who could deal with her late husband’s note books as he would wished.” I was then totally ignorant of ideogram but published three attempts to follow her wishes, the contents of “Cathay” being what most interested me. From his lecture on the Chinese Character I took what seemed to me most needed, omitting the passages re/ sound. Prof. Carus delayed publication with the true spirit of American professoriality.3 He did not ultimately lose the ms. And there being nothing lower than the state of professoriality in the U. S. non raggiam di lor.4 The notes on the Noh Plays had been carried to a point where I felt it wd/be unfair to the benevolent to wait for further knowledge about them. During Mr Rooselelt’s war I had time in semi-isolation to learn a bit about the written character. I was then separated from the Fenollosa inheritance for a number of years, and return to them only today, 17 Nov. 1958, after handing over the ms/ of 96–109 de los Cantares, to the remarkable Scheiwiller (V.)5 [Retrospect on the Fenollosa Papers] 175 amiable local half-century of century celebration of my first publication (A Lume Spento6 ), and having last evening handed over the ms/ of 96-109 de los Cantares to the remarkable Scheiwiller (V.) I now tackle Fenollosa’s penciled record of Mori’s lectures on the History of Chinese Poetry, with the intention of transmitting them as his view of the subject , i.e. as just that, his view, which I am in no way competent to affirm is the last word on the matter, but which I shall, when I have typed out the gist of it, submit the Mr Beauson Tseng7 for confirmation or demur. Expecting fully that whatever Mori thought will be in direct conflict with every effort now made in the U.S. particularly at Yale and Harvard to obscure the merit of the chinese classics, and impose the filth of brain wash, the hatred of the basic quality, and of the finer nuances of expression, and to of its ethic ikpose the grossness of journalistic “standards” on all serious thought, including that of the orient. {Handwritten}8 Exh. The Italian editions of Testamento di Confucius A 54 06 Ta Hio A.28 Chiung Iung . . . A 57 Confucius—A.44 Confucius A:58 (& Indian edition) Confucian Analects A65 {Another sheet} It being remembered that E.F’s pencil scribble is not always legible and that I am a total dudd when it comes to deciphering any calligraphy later that 1487. The proper names are given provisionally, and the sinologues can enjoy themselves over ever japanese version of their illustrious forebears. My comments should stand in margin in small italics. ...