The Modernist Response to Chinese Art: Pound, Moore, Stevens (review)

For decades, scholars have posited the notion that American modernism has been influenced by Chinese thought and culture, yet this claim could be no more than speculation when it became clear that most if not all American modernists could not read or speak Chinese. Pound was, of course, the problematic case, because he was not totally ignorant of Chinese, having learned from Fenollosa's edition of the Japanese glosses of Mori Kainan and Ariga Nagao for his Cathay (1915), and having the instruction and guidance of the Korean sinologue, Achilles Fang, for his Confucian Odes (1959; copyright 1954). Doubts about this speculation can now be put to rest, with Qian Zhaoming's meticulous and absorbing analysis in The Modernist Response to Chinese Art: Pound, Moore, and Stevens. Qian's work is an impressive achievement in both old-fashioned biographical criticism, and in new-fangled ekphrastic inter-arts analysis: he presents detailed biographical details in a deft and canny comparative exegesis. The result is fascinating, provocative, and cogent. His thesis is that, while Ezra Pound, Marianne Moore, and Wallace Stevens may have been effectively ignorant of Chinese, they nevertheless absorbed a Chinese aesthetic by viewing and studying carefully the Chinese art that was on exhibit in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia in the early decades of the twentieth century. They supplemented these viewings with deeply responsive readings of such works as Samuel Beal's Buddhism in China (Stevens), Mai-mai Sze's The Tao of Painting (Moore), and James Legge's English and Séraphin Couvreur's French translations of the Shijing (Pound).

Qian's research strategy is to determine specifically the whereabouts of each of his subjects in relation to documented exhibitions of Chinese art, and to ascertain the probability of their having visited these exhibitions; then, by culling diaries and letters, to verify their actual attendance at these exhibitions; and finally, by carefully scanning biographical memorabilia (including, in Pound and Stevens's case, their personal collections of Asian art) to relate specific paintings to specific poems. The result is a study that provides documented evidence of contacts and witnesses, an analysis of specific poems in their relation to specific paintings, and an exegesis on probable connections between the Chinese artifacts and the Americans' poetic creations. It is no exaggeration to say that this book firmly establishes the basis for the Chinese influence on American modernism.

Qian's thesis is that the modernists often derived their inspiration from and were influenced more by Chinese art than by Chinese texts. The case of Pound is both unique and representative. It is unique, because Pound alone invested a great deal of time trying to learn how to read classical Chinese (although there is no evidence that he was ever interested in mastering colloquial Chinese). In this, he was no different from many translators of that era, who could translate texts they could read (only partially, in Pound's case), in a language they could not speak. Pound was representative in that he was exposed to Chinese art, which he experienced in the exhibitions that he visited, and in the prints that he pored over (and in some cases, owned): "In questions of past Chinese life and sensitivity a learned scholar is not necessarily a better guide than past Chinese artwork. Pound has proved himself astute by following in several instances his common sense, enlightened by past Chinese pictures, rather than relying upon the scholarship of Fenollosa's instructors" (55). Qian's analysis of Pound's translation of a Li Bo poem, "Taking Leave of a Friend," is particularly telling: Mori and Ariga glossed the phrase "hui shou" as "shaking hands" or "brandishing hands"; in modern Chinese, the expression would mean "wave hands." "What makes [Pound] think that 'bow[ing] over their clasped hands' . . . should represent the proper farewell etiquette in Tang China?" Qian asks. "A plausible explanation," he surmises, "is that he has been in the presence...