CANTO LIX

Ezra Pound The Cantos New York: New Directions, 1998. 255

The first line of canto 59 is in Latin, ‘De libro CHI-KING sic censeo’, that is, ‘concerning the Book of Odes I think as follows’. The Latin is from a Jesuit’s version of the preface by the third Manchu emperor to a translation of the Confucian Odes into Manchu in 1655. The emperor was affirming the fundamental importance of the Odes for good government. […] Thus the Manchu re-established the Confucian basis of Chinese civilization; and Lacharme, the Jesuit translator, conveyed the Odes, and that idea of their function, into Europe’s language of the learned.

Now the threat to China’s Confucian culture came from Europe, in the form of Jesuit missionaries seeking converts, and from Portuguese and Dutch merchants. This canto and the next are much concerned with the interactions of the Europeans and the Chinese, more especially with the Jesuit-Chinese relations. At issue is how great a presence and how much influence the Europeans are to be allowed.

David Moody, Ezra Pound: Poet II: 281-2.

LIX – BIBLIOGRAPHY

BOOK CHAPTERS AND SECTIONS

1. Cookson, William. “Books into Manchu – Russian Treaty.” A Guide to The Cantos of Ezra Pound. London: Anvil, 2009. 90.
2. De Rachewiltz, Mary and Maria Ardizzone. “Commento: LIX.” Ezra Pound. I Cantos. A cura di Mary de Rachewiltz. [Bilingual English-Italian edition]. Milano: Mondadori, 1985. 1548.
3. Fang, Achilles. “Materials for the Study of Pound’s Cantos.” 4 vols. Diss. Harvard U, 1958. Vol I: 157-9.
4. Ickstadt, Heinz and Eva Hesse. “Anmerkungen und Kommentar: Canto LIX.” Ezra Pound. Die Cantos. Tr. by Eva Hesse and Manfred Pfister. 1286-7. 
5. Marsh, Alec. Money and Modernity. Pound, Williams and the Spirit of Jefferson. Tuscaloosa and London: U of Alabama P, 1999. 52-4.
6. Moody, David A. Ezra Pound: Poet. A Portrait of the Man and His Work. II: The Epic Years 1921-1939. Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 2014. 281-2.
7. Nolde, John. Blossoms from the East. The China Cantos of Ezra Pound. Orono: National Poetry Foundation 1983. 355-72.
8. Terrell, Carroll F. “Canto LIX.” In Companion to The Cantos of Ezra Pound.” Berkeley: U of California P., 1980. I: 251-2.

DIGITAL RESOURCES

1. Sellar, Gordon. “Canto LIX.” Part 45 of 56 in the series Blogging Ezra Pound’s The Cantos.  gordsellar.com, 17 January 2017. Free online.