Foreign Language Teaching and Research ›› 2021, Vol. 53 ›› Issue (3): 444-455.

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Pound regards Chinese as an ideal language: Foundations and signifcance of his arguments

PENG Shuixiang & LIU Lihui   

  1. School of Foreign Languages, Southwest University, Chongqing 400715, China
  • Online:2021-05-20 Published:2021-06-18

Abstract: With the Aryan languages as his reference, Pound mainly compared the similarities and differences between English and Chinese. From the perspective of poetics, he derived ideas and inspirations from Chinese written characters, formed and proposed the ideogrammic method to push forward the modernist poetry movement and the reform of English poetry. His efforts not only changed the path of English literature to some extent, but also promoted the spread of Chinese ideogrammic civilization in the West. Pound considered the visual presentation of Chinese characters universally relevant and explored the significance of Chinese as a poetic language for building up an intellectual fabric in defense of ideogrammic civilization. He applied ideogrammic method to writing poetry so as to show the responsibility of language for the world. Pound’s view on Chinese language has certain theoretical foundations and factual evidence (although it also contains some elements of imagination and farfetched analogies), which is enlightening for revitalizing western poetics and ruminating over western civilization.

CLC Number: 

  • H1-0