Ezra Pound's Poetic Mirror and the "China Cantos": The Healing of the West (Critical Essay‪)‬

Of all non-Asian figures in twentieth-century American literature, Ezra Pound (1885-1972) had the most overt relation to China. Pound made Confucianism an integral part of his project of rethinking the future of the West and committed himself to updating Confucian values to correspond to social changes in the modern world. In this article, the author analyzes Pound's Canto XIII and Cantos LIII, LV, and LVI from the "China Cantos," arguing that Pound used poetry as his medium to mirror those Confucian values that he felt were indispensable for the healing of Western civilization and culture. Pound's use of Chinese characters and concepts in his "China Cantos" therefore acts as an intaglio, mirroring onto the reader the truth that Pound believed: Whenever Confucian ideas were put into action, the human experience was the better for it; and if the West could appropriate these ideals and values, its decay could be healed. Pound's Interest in China