On the Influence of Chinese Culture on Ezra Pound

Abstract

As a well-known modern poet and outstanding critic and translator, Pound is praised as the leading authority in American contemporary poetic circles, and he is also an acknowledged leader for the Imagistic Verse of American Literature. It is believed that Pound is a poet with love for Chinese culture. He translated and published an enormous variety of Chinese classical poems, bringing the Chinese traditional poetry into the western modern culture, hence stimulating the development of American New Verse Movement. Many of his poems are the recreation of some Chinese classical verses based on translation. Thus, this paper explains in detail that Pound had adopted a lot from ancient Chinese culture in many aspects, including the Chinese painting techniques, Chinese ancient poetry, Chinese characters, and especially the philosophy of Confucius. In addition, this paper analyses the reasons that Chinese culture has great influence on Ezra Pound.