The Travelling Muse—Cathay and the Influence of Chinese Classical Poems on Ezra Pound’s Poetics

Abstract

This paper intends to study Ezra Pound’s early poetics and his modernist poetry through a close research of the Eastern elements in the shaping process of his poetics and the significance and influence of his poetic thoughts on the American New Poetry Movement. In order to clarify the essence of Pound’s early poetics under the influence of Chinese classical poems, the paper starts from the discussion of the influence of Cathay (1915) and his translation of Cathay; then it provides a detailed analysis of the relationship between Chinese classical poems and Pound’s creation; and finally it has given an analysis of “In a Station of the Metro”. Pound absorbed different poetic concepts from all of them and transformed his poetry from the conventional Romanticism to the innovative Modernism. What Pound innovated in the poetry composition is of great importance if the new era wishes to shake off the banality and out-of-date tradition in literature. Pound changed a whole generation of poets and set a good example for those who desire to write in a new way.