CANTO XLIX

 

 

What interests me about XLIX is not the ivory fishpond, but the fact that you have used words and sounds, cadence & beat (& pause) like strokes of the chinese characters, that it is a development of technique 20 years after Cathay, the outgrowth but not at all like Cathay (whatever its beauties).

Louis Zukofsky. Letter to Pound, 7 December 1937. P/Z 193.

 

Canto XLIX functions effectively as an expression of Pound’s endorsement of the Confucian worldview in the immediate historical context of 1930s politics. Balance within the self, on one hand, and balance with the family, social relations, and the entire political and metaphysical order up to the Emperor and the cosmos, on the other, comprise twinned virtues just as usury and Geryon are twinned vices.

Mark Byron. “Ezra Pound’s ‘Seven Lakes’ Canto” 138.

 

One is reminded of the idea in the first half of Canto 49 that there is something beyond the natural world which gives the scenes in nature mysterious calmness and profundity. Now in the second half of the Canto is the idea that there is the imperial power working behind the scenes of social life, invisible, omnipresent in, and influencing the world of daily life. In both, Pound is suggesting that some pivotal power in the non-physical world keeps our world in harmony and order.

The meaning of the last two enigmatic lines of the Canto seems now to be clearer. “The fourth; the dimension of stillness” is the pivotal center in the world beyond this world, where a power for order and love comes from, without which the three-dimensional world is in chaos like that of the “wild beasts.” Canto 49 is not a mere nature poem. It is not only a social and political poem, but it is in a sense a religious poem, for it points to a vision of Paradise as well as of Hell. And it is the theme Pound is to develop in his later Cantos.

Sanehide Kodama. “The Eight Scenes of Sho-Sho” 144-5.

 

In the canto as a whole, it seems clear, Pound is ideogrammatically constructing what he names at its conclusion, “the dimension of stillness.” This concept, that is to say, is evoked or generated by the mingling of the several serene landscapes that make up the poem. And “stillness” is not simply an antiquated style of civilization — in contrast with the Western action that has displaced it — but an alternative and an antidote to Western disorder, which the poem up to this point has been documenting. Pound, in other words, is using oriental stillness as part of The Cantos’ anti-usury ideology — using stillness, that is, in an active way, incorporating it into his argument against certain aspects of Western culture.

Stephen Kern. Orientalism, Modernism and the American Poem 208-9.

 

RELATED CANTOS

CANTO I [the mask of Odysseus: no-man; a voyage; foundational languages of the West (Greek and Latin) vs Chinese/Japanese as mediators and embodiment of culture in the East]

CANTO II [the opposite of stillness: nature in flux and metamorphosis]

CANTO IV [Wang Wei, Song of the Peach Blossom Fountain: the aesthetic of a human paradise hidden from the historical world]

CANTO XIII [Confucius and the Da Xue: the idea of order]

CANTO XLVII [the fourth dimension in the classical pastoral of the West]

CANTO LII [Confucian vision of government: natural, imperceptible]

CANTO LIV [the “old king” who built the canal - Emperor Yang of Sui]

 

CANTO XLIX – READINGS

 

 

 

 

Ezra Pound reading canto XLIX. 

The canto was included into the three-part series of “Readings and Recollections,” recorded by D. G. Bridson at Brunnenburg in April 1959, and broadcast on the BBC’s Radio 3 in July 1959. (Information courtesy of Richard Sieburth, 19 June 2020.)

Poetry Archive. PennSound.

 

 

 

 

 

Ezra Pound reading canto XLIX, recorded in Spoleto, Italy, summer 1967.

PennSound.

 

 

 

 

Peter Liebregts. Introduction to Canto XLIX. Paul Cunningham reading the canto. Videoclip on ucreate. Readings in The Cantos of Ezra Pound. IV. Cantos of the 1930s. Edinburgh Scottish Poetry Library, 23 January 2020. Photo and camera courtesy of John Glendinning, 9 May 2019. Copyright © 1934, 1968 by Ezra Pound. Used by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.

 

 

CANTO XLIX

CALENDAR OF COMPOSITION

 

 

 

Pound received a Japanese scroll book with the “Eight Views of Xiao Xiang” from his parents some time before 1 March 1928. The book was produced in Japan, yet followed a tradition initiated by the Chinese nobleman Song Di in the 11th century who painted eight landscapes of the Xiao river and Dongting Lake in the Hunan province of China. The paintings were most likely inspired by the poetry of Du Fu (712-770), who had also spent time in the region. The book that Pound had as his family heirloom consisted in a series of triptychs with an ink painting framed by a poem in Chinese and one in Japanese. Pao Swen Tseng [曾寶蓀; pinyin: Zeng Baosun], a Chinese missionary and teacher from Hunan (1893 –1978), visited Pound in Rapallo before 17 May 1928 and translated the poems (Qian Chinese Friends 9-17). Pound copied out an English paraphrase on 30 July for his father but did not mail the letter (Palandri 53; Malm 277). Though Pound had this paraphrase of the source poems since 1928, he only drafted the canto in 1936: a letter to James Laughlin from 17 September shows that it was not yet finalized by that date. It would be finished before 30 October 1936, when Pound wrote to Olga that he had typed a clean version of the whole Fifth Decad.

The crib texts below follow David Moody’s edition: Ezra Pound to His Parents: Letters 1895-1929, pp.662-4.

 

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

Correspondence by Ezra Pound: (c) Mary de Rachewiltz and the Estate of Omar S. Pound. Reproduced by permission.

 

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

FDL	Ferrero De Luca, Maria Costanza. Ezra Pound e il Canto dei Sette Laghi. Reggio Emilia: Diabasis, 2004.
L/HP	Pound, Ezra. Ezra Pound to His Parents: Letters 1895-1929. Eds. Mary de Rachewiltz, A David Moody and Joanna Moody. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2010.
L/JDI	Pound, Ezra. Letters To Ibbotson, 1935-1952. Eds. Vittoria I. Mondolfo and Margaret Hurley. Orono: National Poetry Foundation, 1979.
L/JL	Pound/Laughlin. Selected Letters. Ed. David M. Gordon. New York: Norton, 1994.
P/Z	Pound/Zukofsky. Selected Letters of Ezra Pound and Louis Zukofsky. Ed. Barry Ahearn. New York: New Directions, 1987.
PC	Pound, Ezra. Posthumous Cantos. Ed. Massimo Bacigalupo. Manchester: Carcanet, 2015.
Qian	Qian, Zhaoming, ed. Ezra Pound’s Chinese Friends. Stories in Letters. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2008.
SL	Pound, Ezra. The Selected Letters of Ezra Pound 1907-1941. Ed. D. D. Paige. New York: New Directions, 1971.
Taylor	Taylor, Richard Dean. “Canto XLIX, Futurism, and the Fourth Dimension.” Neohelicon, XX.1 (1993): [333] - 352. 337-356. Free online.
Var	Taylor, Richard. “Editing the Variorum Cantos: Process and Policy.” Paideuma: A Journal Devoted to Ezra Pound Scholarship 31.1-3 (2002): 311-34. [References in square brackets by Taylor in text.]
YCAL	Beinecke Library, Yale University New Haven. Olga Rudge Papers, YCAL 54 Box no/Folder no.

 

1909-1928

1908 – Laurence Binyon, Keeper of Oriental Prints and Drawings at the British Museum publishes Painting in the Far East (Wilhelm 7).

February 1909 – Through his publisher Elkin Matthews, Pound makes the acquaintance of Laurence Binyon and the two initiate a lifelong friendship. Pound visits the British Museum  to consult its collection of Chinese and Japanese art on 1 March, 4 May and 16 June (Arrowsmith 41 n.12, 42).

March 1909 – Pound attends a series of lectures by Laurence Binyon on Chinese and Japanese art at the Royal Albert Hall. He writes to his mother about the first lecture on 15 March and about the second to his father on 17 March (Arrowsmith 30, 41n.13; L/HP 164).

June 1910-April 1912 – Binyon organizes a major exhibition of Chinese and Japanese painting (237 works) in the Prints and Drawings Public Gallery at the British Museum and wrote a Guide to an Exhibition of Chinese and Japanese Paintings (Fourth to Nineteenth Century A.D.) in the Print and Drawing Gallery (1910) (Huang 48).

1911 – Laurence Binyon publishes The Flight of the Dragon: An Essay on the Theory and Practice of Art in China and Japan Based on Original Sources. 

1912 – Ernest Fenollosa’s book, Epochs of Chinese and Japanese Art is published. It was finished by his widow with Laurence Binyon’s help.

1913 – after befriending Allen Upward, Pound reads Herbert A. Giles’s A History of Chinese Literature (1901).

September-October 1913 – Pound meets Ernest Fenollosa’s widow in London. He receives Ernest Fenollosa’s papers from her by the end of the year.

1915 – Pound publishes a volume of poems based on the Fenollosa notes called Cathay.

1915 – Pound reviews Binyon’s Flight of the Dragon for Blast vol. 2: 86.

1916 – Pound publishes a set of Noh plays called ‘Noh’, Or Accomplishment A Study Of The Classical Stage Of Japan.

1920 – Pound publishes Ernest Fenollosa’s essay “The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry” in Instigations.

1924 – Canto XIII, based on three of the Four Classics [The Analects, The Great Learning and the Doctrine of the Mean]. The canto is published in the transatlantic review.

“Pound had learned about the eight views much earlier [than 1928]. In the ‘British Museum Era’ he lunched with Binyon, attended his slide lectures, went to his exhibition of Chinese and Japanese paintings, and reviewed his Flight of the Dragon. The series was Binyon’s favourite subject. If the slide images Binyon threw on the screen did not impress Pound, those in the exhibition–Yunqiao Zhuren’s scenes and Sesson’s set–surely did. The catalogue to the exhibition described the eight views as ‘a traditional series of landscape subjects originally associated with the scenery of Lake Tung-Ting [Dongting] in China’ (Binyon Guide 37). A note to that effect should be enough to rouse Pound’s interest, and in The Flight of the Dragon he was to take more information. The topic is covered in chapter 10” (Qian Modernist Response 126). 

 

1928

To Isabel Pound, 1 March 1928

Qian 15; L/HP 651; Taylor 337-8; Palandri 52

Dear Mother:

[ . . . ]

D[orothy] is up a mountain with a returned missionary. Yes Chinese book arrived, verry interestin’, returned missionary promises us a descendant of Confucius in a month or so, who will prob. be able to decipher it.

 

10 April 1928 – Pound publishes his translation Ta Hio. The Great Learning,

Newly Rendered into the American Language by Ezra Pound.

Seattle: University of Washington Book Store.

The Series “University of Washington Chapbooks” is edited by Glenn Hughes.

 

To Glenn Hughes, 17 May 1928

Qian 10; Taylor 338; Palandri 52

Conferred with descendant of Kung and Thseng-Tsu just before leaving Rapallo and have sent my salutations to the Ten Remnants.

 

To Homer Pound, 30 May 1928

Qian 15; L/HP 658; Taylor 338

Dear Dad:

[ . . . ]

Translation of chinese poems in picture book is at Rapallo.

They are poems on a set of scenes in Miss Thseng’s part of the country. Sort of habit of people to make pictures & poems on that set of scenes.

 

To Homer Pound, 30 July 1928

Qian 15-17; L/HP 662-664

Dear Dad:

[ . . . ]

RAIN

Chinese book reads as follows, rough trans.

Rain, empty river,

Place for soul to travel

   (or room to travel)

Frozen cloud, fire, rain damp twilight.

One lantern inside boat cover (i.e. sort of

   shelter, not awning on small boat)

Throws reflection on bamboo branch,

   causes tears.

 

///////

 

AUTUMN MOON ON TON-Ting Lake

 

West side hills

screen off evening clouds

 

Ten thousand ripples send mist over cinnamon flowers.

 

Fisherman’s flute disregards nostalgia

Blows cold music over cottony bullrush.

 

Monastery evening bell

 

/////

 

Cloud shuts off the hill, hiding the temple

Bell audible only when wind moves toward one,

One can see nothing higher in the hills

   not tell whether the summit, is near or far,

Sure only that one is in hollow of mountains.

 

//////////////

 

Autumn tide,

AUTUMN TIDE, RETURNING SAILS

 

Touching <green> sky at horizon, mists in suggestion of autumn

Sheet of silver reflecting the all that one sees

Boats gradually fade, or are lost in turn of the hills,

Only evening sun, and its glory on the water remain.

////////////

Spring in hill valley

 

Small wine flag waves in the evening sun

Few clustered houses sending up smoke

A few country people enjoying their evening drink

In time of peace, every day is like spring.

 

SNOW ON RIVER

 

Cloud light, world covered with <milky> jade

Small boat floats like a leaf

 

Tranquil water congeals it to stillness

In Sai Yin there dwell people of leisure.

The people of Sai Yin are unhurried.

 

//////

 

Wild geese stopping on sand

 

Just outside window, light against clouds

Light clouds show in sky just beyond window ledge

A few lines of autumn geese on the marsh

Bullrushes have burst into snow-tops / at their tops

The birds stop to preen their feathers.

 

EVENING IN SMALL FISHING VILLAGE

 

Fisherman’s light blinks

Dawn begins, with light to the south and north

Noise of children hawking their fish and crawfish

Fisherman calls his boy, and takes up his wine bottle,

They drink, they lie on the sand

   and point to marsh-grass, talking.

 

To Homer Pound, 1 August 1928

L/HP 664; Taylor 338; Palandri 52-3

Dear dad

I copied out the Chinese poem two days ago but don’t know whether I can trust you to return copy, you have horrible habit of taking copies etc.

IF I fix up a printable version later I DON’T want rough draft left lying about.

When enlightened on this pt. will consider remitting the draft. copy.

 

To Homer Pound, 1 September 1928

Qian 17; L/HP 667; Taylor 338-9; Palandri 53

Dear Dad:

Given infinite time I MIGHT be able to read a Chinese poem: thass to say I know how the ideograph works, and can find ’em in the dictionary or vocabulary,

BUT I shd. scarcely attempt it unless there were some urgent reason. Also some of the script in that book was fairly fancy.

For Cathay I had a crib made by Mori and Ariga, not translation or anything shaped into sentences, but word for sign, and explanation with each character.

For your book Miss Thseng, descendant of Kung read out the stuff to me.

Am perfectly able to look up an ideograph and see what shade it can be given, etc.

BUT it za matr of time. wd be no point in it.

No I am not a sinologue. Dont spread the idea that I read it azeasy as a yourapean langwidg.

 

1934

To Laurence Binyon, 6 March 1934

SL 255

My dear Laurence Binyon

[...]

All your work on Oriental art is bound to profit you when you get to the lighting of the Paradiso. Not one hour of it but can go into the rendering. One’s preparation for a real job is possibly never what one does when one thinks one is preparing.

P.S. I wonder if you are using (in lectures) a statement I remember your making in talk, but not so far as I recall, in print. “Slowness is beauty,” which struck me as very odd in 1908 (when I certainly did not believe it) and has stayed with me ever since–shall we say as proof that you violated British habit; and thought of it.

 

1935

In preparation for his planned republication of E. Fenollosa’s article “The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry,” Pound revisited Fenollosa’s manuscripts, particularly the notes from the course of lectures on the history of Chinese poetry that Prof. Mori delivered from May to September 1901. Among Fenollosa’s notes of the course, Pound found two ancient poems that he introduced into canto 49: the “Auspicious Clouds” and the “Clod Beating” songs (Qian, 2002; Kenner 45-6).

 

1936

March 1936 – E. Fenollosa’s essay “The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry”
is published by Stanley Nott in London  in his “Ideogrammic Series.”

May 1936 – The British edition of Pound’s translation of the Ta Hio
is published by Stanley Nott in London

 

To Katue Kitasono, 24 May 1936

SL 281-2; Kodama 27-8

Dear Mr. Katue

[...]

You must not run away with the idea that I really know enough to read Japanese or that I can do more than spell our ideograms very slowly with a dictionary. [282]

I had all Fenollosa’s notes and the results of what he had learned from Umewaka Minoro, Dr. Mori, Dr. Ariga. But since Tami Koumé was killed in that earthquake I have had no one to explain the obscure passages or fill up the enormous gaps of my ignorance. Had Tami lived I might have come to Tokio. It is one thing to live on the sea-coast and another to have travelling expenses. 

 

To James Laughlin, 17 September 1936

L/JL 65; Var 316; Malm 279

DEAR J A S

[…]

my mind is on concrete things. Have shipped the three Sienese Cantos, and have a fourth pretty well set. but a few hunks of Orient and Adonis cult already drafted must intervene. 

 

To Olga Rudge, 30 October 1936. Anno XIV, Rapallo

YCAL 54, 17/447

Ziao Amure

He has typed out some sort of a draft fer the rest of 42/51. That is he has typed new all except the four he did in Venez [cantos 42-44, 50] and the one printed in Nude Emocracy [46].

only he haint got the forza to read it thru YET; but if/when he gits it; he may send on a carbong. an thazatt. 

He izza sumin that with 42/44 and 46 and 50; the rest fit in and FLOW. only he don’t KNOW it yet.

[…]

waal he thinks hiz attempt at elucidatin the 42/51 iz about all than can be xxpected of him fer the momeng.

Notes:

printed in Nude Emocracy – Pound published canto 46 in the American Social Credit journal New Democracy on March 1936.

Pound did send Olga all the carbons of the Fifth Decad, apart from canto 50, which he said she had already. They are preserved at the Beinecke Library in the same folder as the letter.

 

1937

From Dorothy Pound to Joseph Ibbotson

L/JDI 73-4; Taylor 348

I am sorry you missed our Nuovo Quartetto Ungarese – as they are the most extraordinary performance. General [Henry King?] MacGeorge came out from the concert talking quite wildly of the 4th dimensional something or other –. He had caught the precision, & the very strange unfamiliar quality that it produced in the air. The Bartok V Quartet took me to Gengis Khan and the Golden Horde! And a whole series of fantastic Paolo Uchello’s moving – very rapidly too.

 

2 March 1937 – Pound writes to his Japanese friend Katue Kitasono to ask for a cheap edition of the Shi Jing [Book of Odes]. He receives a four-volume edition on 21 October 1937 (S. Kodama, ed. Ezra Pound and Japan 39; 45).

June 1937 – canto 49 is published in the Fifth Decad of Cantos at Faber. 

June 1937 – Confucius. Digest of the Analects. Abridged and translated by Ezra Pound. Milan: All’ Insegna del Pesce d’Oro.

1937 – “Immediate Need of Confucius” [Aryan Path, August 1937; Impact. Regnery 1960]. SP 75-80.

1937 – “Mang- Tze (The Ethics of Mencius).” [The Criterion, July 1938; Impact. Regnery 1960]. SP 81-97.

18 November 1937 – Pound acquires J. A-M Moyrac De Mailla’s Histoire Générale de la Chine (12 vols. Paris: 1777-83) from a bookseller in Trieste (Nolde Blossoms 27). The volumes arrive by mid December.

 

From Louis Zukofsy to Ezra Pound, 7 December 1937

P/Z 193

Dear E:

The “POINT of the Fufth” Decad, Usura etc nacherally one can’t escape your intention, but Ef I thought XLV were as inevitable as XXX on which in your blood it is founded– 

What interests me about XLIX is not the ivory fishpond, but the fact that you have used words and sounds, cadence & beat (& pause) like strokes of the chinese characters, that it is a development of technique 20 years after Cathay, the outgrowth but not at all like Cathay (whatever its beauties)—and I told you since prob. no more than 3 people in Europe will verify you, & no one here but yr. erst son, since I’ve already tried on all the smart people & they just have to be told.

 

1938 – Guide to Kulchur. London: Peter Owen, 1978.

1939 – Reprint of Ta Hio. The Great Learning. Norfolk Conn.: New Directions.

1940 – Cantos LII-LXI. [The Chinese History Cantos, written 1938-39]. London: Faber and Faber, 1940; New Directions, 1940.

 

1949

To Mary de Rachewiltz, 5 April 1949

De Rachewiltz, 1536; Qian 9; FDL 9; PC 145

and my gt aunt’s third husband / received in ms/ from a friend/ the 49th canto– / you do not HSIN JI dip twice in one stream/ sd Ocellus.

 

1950

From Achilles Fang to James Laughlin, 31 May 1950

Gordon, 203-4; J/JL 205; Taylor 345

P.S. I am sending you photostatic copy of Auspicious Clouds song. Here’s why:

From Robert Payne’s article in World Review (1949) I gather that Mr. Pound is given to declaiming Chinese Odes. I wonder if he would like to sing the national anthem of China under the First Republic, if only to break the intolerable monotony of St. Elizabeth’s. The text of the anthem is the Auspicious Clouds song (k’ing yu ko) of the emperor Shun: 

k’ing (auspicious)     yun (clouds)        lan (bright)               hi (expletive)

kiu (gathered)           man (in mass)     man (in mass)          hi

jih (sun)                     yueh (moon)        kuang (luminous)    hua (brilliant)

tan (dawn)                fu (again)              tan (dawn)                 hi

(in James Legge’s free version: Splendid are the clouds and bright/ All aglow with various light! grand the sun and moon move on;/ Daily dawn succeeds to dawn.)

This song is as much Mr. Pound’s as anybody else’s, for he has incorporated it into Canto 49. The outlandish quatrain there is Japanese transcription (from Fenollosa Mss.?) of this song. (Unfortunately misprinted: MEN should read WUN or UN and KAI should have been printed KEI.) I doubt if any Chinese scholar will recognize the quatrain, for he is usually unfamiliar with Japanese pronunciation of Chinese characters; for that matter, few Japanese scholars will recognize it either, for the song is quite alien to them.

If you think Mr. Pound’s present state of mind can stand ‘shock of recognition’, would you please forward the enclosed song with or without the attached sheet.

Note

Sanehide Kodama’s translation of the song runs like this: “The auspicious clouds, bright and colourful/ Twist and spread/ The sun and the moon shed their rays/ Morning after morning” quoted in Gordon 243.

Pound’s own version: “Gate, gate of gleaming / knotting, dispersing / flower of sun, flower of moon / day’s dawn after day’s dawn new fire/ [1958, quoted in L/JL 206]. The word “gate” derives from the error in line 1, as Fenollosa translated the syllable “men” (gate) instead of “(w)un” (cloud). (Vantaggi 75).

 

From James Laughlin, 31 June 1950

L/JL 206

YOUR REVERENCE

[...]

The enclosed music is a gift to you from Mr. Fang. I dare say you will recognize it. It is that song in Canto 49. 

 

 

 

XLIX – BIBLIOGRAPHY

 

 

 

  

BOOKS

1. Ferrero De Luca, Maria Costanza, ed. Ezra Pound e il Canto dei Sette Laghi. Preface by Massimo Bacigalupo. “Appendice” by Adriano Vantaggi. Reggio Emilia: Diabasis, 2004. 

2. Yip, Wai-Lim. 龐德與瀟湘八景 [Pangde yu Xiaoxiang ba jing] [Pound and the Eight Views of Xiao Xiang]. 國立臺灣大學出版中心 [National Taiwan UP], 2008.  Bilingual edition.

   Foreword

   I. Pound and the Eight Views of Xiao Xiang

   (1) Pound’s Aesthetic Morphology before Cathay

   (2) Daoist Aesthetics and the Flexibility of Syntax

   (3) The Formation of “Chinese” Syntax in Pound

   (4) “Canto 49”: The Legendary Travel and Change of the Eight Views of Xiao Xiang 

   II. Yunshan Yanshui Paintings and the Travel of Eight Views of Xiao Xiang in Japan

   (1) Su Dongpo (1036-1101 蘇東坡) and Yunshan Yanshui Paintings

   (2) Cultural Memories of Xiao Xiang and Allegorical Uses of Landscape

   (3) Yunshan Yanshui and the Edge-dissolving Great Wu 

   (4) The Meaning of Pound’s “Canto 49” in His Cantos

 

ARTICLES IN JOURNALS AND COLLECTIONS

1. Bacigalupo, Massimo. “La scrittura dei Cantos.” Lingua e letteratura VIII.16 (spring 1991): 56-77. Free online.
2. Bacigalupo, Massimo. “Pound Studies in Italy.” Paideuma 22. 1-2 (Spring & Fall 1993): 11-34.
3. Bell, Ian F. A. “Ezra Pound and the Materiality of the Fourth Dimension.” Science in Modern Poetry: New Directions. Ed. John Holmes. Liverpool: Liverpool UP, 2012. 130-48. 
4. Byron, Mark. “Chinese Poetical Histories in Ezra Pound and Gary Snyder.” Critical Quarterly 61.1 (April 2019): 99-114. 
5. Byron, Mark. “Ezra Pound’s ‘Seven Lakes’ Canto: Poetry and Painting, From East to West.” The Rikkyo Review: Arts & Letters 73 (2013): 121-142. Free online here.
6. Byron, Mark. “In a Station of the Cantos: Ezra Pound’s ‘Seven Lakes’ Canto and the Shō-Shō Hakkei Tekagami.” Literature & Aesthetics 22.2 (2012): 138-152. Print. Free online here and here.
7. Fang, Achilles. “Fenollosa and Pound.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 20.1/2 (June 1957): 213-238.
8. Gordon, David. “LXIX’s [i.e., Canto XLIX's] ‘Kei … Kai’ and Fang’s P.S.” Paideuma 18.1-2 (Spring-Fall 1989): 203-204.
9. Houwen, Andrew. “‘A Treasure Like Nothing We Have in the Occident’. Ezra Pound and Japanese Literature.” The New Ezra Pound Studies. Ed. Mark Byron. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2019. 147-8.
10. Jiang, Hongxin, “Ezra Pound’s ‘The Seven Lakes Canto’ and Song Di’s Paintings of the Xiaoxiang Scenery,” in Foreign Literature Review 3 (2006): 31-37. 
11. 蒋洪新 [Jiang Hongxin], 庞德的《七湖诗章》与潇湘八景 [Pound's "Seven Lakes Poems" and the Eight Views of Xiaoxiang]. 外国文学评论 [Foreign Literature Review] 3 (2006): 31-37. Free online.
12. Jiang Hongxin. “Painting and Poetry: Ezra Pound’s ‘Seven Lakes Canto’ and Eight Views of Xiao Xiang.” Revista Brasileira de Literatura Comparada 22.41 (set. /dez. 2020): 84-94. Free online and here and here and here.
13. Kearns, George. Pound. The Cantos. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1989. 42.
14. Kenner, Hugh. “More on the Seven Lakes Canto.” Paideuma: A Journal Devoted to Ezra Pound Scholarship 2.1 (1973): 43-6. 
15. Kodama, Sanehide. “The Eight Scenes of Sho-Sho.” Paideuma: A Journal Devoted to Ezra Pound Scholarship 6.2 (1977): 131-45.
16. 児玉実英 [Sanehide Kodama], アメリカ文学における日本との接点: エズラ [Japanese Culture in American Literature: The Case of Ezra Pound’s Cantos]. 同志社アメリカ研究 [Doshisha American Studies] (同志社大学アメリカ研究所 [Center for American Studies, Doshisha University]) 12 (25 Mar. 1976) 51-64. Free online and here.
17. Palandri, Angela J. “The ‘Seven Lakes Canto’ Revisited.” Paideuma: A Journal Devoted to Ezra Pound Scholarship 3.1 (1974): 51-4. Print. 
18. Qian, Zhaoming, “A ‘Special and Local’ Expert behind Ezra Pound’s Canto 49,” in Foreign Literature Review 1 (2017): 91-102.
19. Qian, Zhaoming. “An Afterword Concerning Pound’s 1935 Revisit to the Fenollosa Papers for an Edition of ‘Mori’s Lectures’ on the History of Chinese Poetry.” Paideuma: A Journal Devoted to Ezra Pound Scholarship 31.1-3 (2002): 307-9.
20. Qian, Zhaoming. “Painting into Poetry: Pound’s Seven Lakes Canto.” Ezra Pound and China. Ed. Zhaoming Qian. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan Press, 2003. 72-95. 
21. Qian, Zhaoming. “Pound and Chinese Art in the ‘British Museum Era’.” Ezra Pound and Poetic Influence. Ed. Helen Dennis. Amsterdam and Atlanta: Rodopi, 2000. 100-112.
22. Qian, Zhaoming. “Pound’s China. Teaching ‘A River Merchant’s Wife: A Letter’ and Canto 49.” In Approaches to Teaching Pound’s Poetry and Prose. Eds. Demetres Tryphonopoulos and Ira B. Nadel. New York: The Modern Language Association of America, 2021. 133-44.
23. Qian, Zhaoming and Ou Rong. “Seven Lakes Canto: The Cooperation Wonder of Ezra Pound and Zeng Baosun.” Comparative Literature in China, no. 1, 2012, pp. 90-101.
24. Qian, Zhaoming. “Why is Canto 49 called the ‘Seven Lakes Canto’?” Paideuma: Modern and Contemporary Poetry and Poetics 43 (2016): 191-198. Free online. 
25. Qian, Zhaoming. “Canto 49.” Readings in the Cantos. Ed. Richard Parker. Vol.2. Clemson: Clemson UP, 2022. 45-54.
26. Ricciardi, Caterina. “Pound traduce Pound: frammenti del Canto XLIX in versione toscana.” Letterature d’America I. 2 (1980): 67-106.
27. Su, Kent. “Landscapes and Taoism in Ezra Pound’s Cantos.” Neohelicon, 6 January 2021. Free online and here.
28. Taylor, Richard Dean. “Canto XLIX, Futurism, and the Fourth Dimension.” Neohelicon, XX.1 (1993): [333] - 352. 337-356. 
    
29. Tryphonopoulos, Demetres P. “‘The Fourth; the Dimension of Stillness’: P. D. Ouspensky and Fourth Dimensionalism in Canto 49.” Paideuma: A Journal Devoted to Ezra Pound Scholarship 19.3 (1990): 117-22. 
30. Twitchell-Waas, Jeffrey. “Ezra Pound and Chinese Poetry.” The New Ezra Pound Studies. Ed. Mark Byron. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2019. 160.
31. Zheng, Jianqing. “An Approach to Lines 2-6 of Ezra Pound’s Canto 49.” ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes, and Reviews 14 (2001): 35-6. 35-36. First page.
32. Zheng, Jianqing. “An Approach to Lines 7-14 of Ezra Pound’s Canto 49.” Notes on Contemporary Literature 35.1 (2005): 6-8. Print.
33. Zheng, Jianqing. “Ezra Pound’s Employment of Chinese Images.” Paideuma: Studies in American and British Modernist Poetry 33.1 (2004): 119-25. 

 

BOOK SECTIONS AND CHAPTERS

1. Arrowsmith, Richard Rupert. “‘Kuanon of all Delights’ Seven Lakes, Eight Views, and the Korean Goddess of The Cantos.” In Modernism and the Museum: Asian, African, and Pacific Art and the London Avant-Garde.Oxford: Oxford UP, 2011. 200-215. Abstract. 
2. Bacigalupo, Massimo. “America vs Italy in the Posthumous Cantos.” In Massimo Bacigalupo. Ezra Pound, Italy and The Cantos. Clemson: Clemson UP, 2020. 269-81. [272-5]
3. Bacigalupo, Massimo. The Forméd Trace. The Later Poetry of Ezra Pound. New York: Columbia UP, 1980. 74-79.
4. Bacigalupo, Massimo. “Prefazione.” In: Maria Costanza Ferrero De Luca, ed. Ezra Pound e il Canto dei Sette Laghi. Reggio Emilia: Diabasis, 2004. vii-xi.
5. Baker, Jack. “The Impersonal Modes of Ezra Pound and Wallace Stevens.” Diss. Durham U., 2014. 30-2. Free online.
6. Cookson, William. “‘By no man these verses.” A Guide to The Cantos of Ezra Pound. London: Anvil, 2009. 69-70. 
7. De Rachewiltz, Mary and Maria Ardizzone. “Commento: XLIX.” Ezra Pound. I Cantos. A cura di Mary de Rachewiltz. [Bilingual English-Italian edition]. Milano: Mondadori, 1985. 1536-7. 
8. Dekker, George. Sailing after Knowledge: the Cantos of Ezra Pound. London: Routledge, 1963. 179-81.
9. Fang, Achilles [Zh. 方志浵 Fang Zhitong]. “Materials for the Study of Ezra Pound’s Cantos.” Diss., Harvard U, 1958. 4 vols. I: 77-9. 
10. Froula, Christine. “Canto XLVII.” A Guide to Ezra Pound’s Selected Poems. New York: New Directions, 1983. 182-5.
11. Ickstadt, Heinz and Eva Hesse. “Anmerkungen und Kommentar: Canto XLIX.” Ezra Pound. Die Cantos. Tr. by Eva Hesse and Manfred Pfister. 1265.
12. Gelpi, A.  A Coherent Splendor: The American Poetic Renaissance, 1910–1950. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1990. 219-221.
13. Kern, Robert. “Modernizing Orientalism/Orientalizing Modernism: Ezra Pound, Chinese Translation, and English-as-Chinese.” Orientalism, Modernism, and the American Poem. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1996. 155-220. [206-11]
14. Makin, Peter. “Canto XLIX.” Pound’s Cantos. London: Allen & Unwin, 1985. 206-11.
15. Malm, Mike W. “China.” In Editing Economic History. Ezra Pound’s The Fifth Decad of Cantos. New York: Peter Lang, 2005. 61-7; 217-8.
16. Pearlman, Daniel. “The Dimension of Stillness.” In The Barb of Time. On the Unity of Ezra Pound’s Cantos. New York: Oxford UP, 1969. 193-210.
17. Pound, Ezra. Ezra Pound to His Parents: Letters 1895-1929. Eds. Mary de Rachewiltz, A David Moody and Joanna Moody. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2010. 662-4.
18. Pound, Ezra. Posthumous Cantos. Ed. Massimo Bacigalupo. Manchester: Carcanet, 2015. 42-5.
19. Pryor, Sean. W. B. Yeats, Ezra Pound and the Poetry of Paradise. London: Routledge, 2011. 130-4.
20. Qian, Zhaoming, ed. “Miss Tseng and the Seven Lakes Canto.” In Ezra Pound’s Chinese Friends. Stories in Letters. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2008. 9-17.
21. Qian, Zhaoming. “Pound’s Seven Lakes Canto.” The Modernist Response to Chinese Art. Pound, Moore, Stevens. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2003. 123-140.
22. Sicari, Stephen. “The Cantos. The Fifth Decad of Cantos XLII-LI.” The Ezra Pound Encyclopedia. Eds. D. Tryphonopoulos and Stephen J. Adams. Westport, CT.: Greenwood Press, 2005. 36.
23. Sicari, Stephen. “Reading Pound’s Politics: Ulysses As Fascist Hero.” Paideuma: A Journal Devoted to Ezra Pound Scholarship 17.2/3 (Fall & Winter 1988): 145-168. 163-4.
24. Sieburth, Richard. “Notes: Canto XLIX.” Ezra Pound New Selected Poems and Translations. Ed. Richard Sieburth. New York: New Directions, 2010. 323-4.
25. Stanford, D. Revolution and Convention in Modern Poetry. Newark: U. of Delaware Press, 1983. Print. (XLIX 35-37)
26. Su, Kent (Yi-Kuan).  “Chinese landscapes in Ezra Pound’s Cantos.”  Diss. University College London, 2019. Abstract. 
27. Terrell, Carroll F. “Canto XLIX.” In Companion to The Cantos of Ezra Pound.” Berkeley: U of California P., 1980. I: 190-2.
28. Vantaggi, Adriano. “Appendice. Le nuvole e il sole. Gli ultimi versi del Canto XLIX.” In Ferrero De Luca, Maria Costanza, ed. Ezra Pound e il Canto dei Sette Laghi. Reggio Emilia: Diabasis, 2004. 71-82.
29. Wilhelm, J. J. Ezra Pound: The Tragic Years, 1925-1972. University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State UP, 1994. 120-21.

 

DIGITAL RESOURCES

1. Dew, Bernard, dir. Canto 49: The Seven Lakes Canto A Poem by Ezra Pound. [A Venetian tale containing all known drafts, letter and journal fragments of the title poem.]. Off Call Productions, 2008. DVD. 
2. Ewick, David. “‘Canto XLIX’. In The Fifth Decad of Cantos. London: Faber & Faber, 1937.” Japonisme, Orientalism, Modernism: A Bibliography of Japan in English Language Verse of the Early 20^th century. themargins.net.
3. Guidi, Paolo. “Canto XLIX.” Diamond Point, selective hard ground, lift, etch, aquatint, copperplate. The Cantos of Ezra Pound, 7 February 2014.  paulusvidius.tumblr.com.
4. Hegaard, Lars. “The Dimension of Stillness.” Musical score for soprano and 8 instruments, 21pp. 1991. Edition S.  
5. Keyton, Jennifer. “The Development of Stillness in Ezra Pound’s Cantos.” This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Special Ezra Pound issue. 4.1 (spring 2008). writing.colostate.edu.
6. Novellini, Donato. “Artefatti. Specchiarsi nelle acque cristalline (eppure oscure) dei Sette Laghi di Ezra Pound.” Barbadillo, 26 Settembre 2018. barbadillo.it. [Italian review of Ferrero de Luca’s book, Ezra Pound e il Cantos dei Sette Laghi.]
7. Pound, Ezra. “Canto 49.” Text and audio recording, BBC 1958. poetryarchive.org.
8. Pound, Ezra. Canto XLIX. Bilingual text, English and Hungarian. babelmatrix.com.
9. Rivas, Robert. “El bello canto 49 de Ezra Pound.” [Spanish translation and annotation. of canto 49]. Idiomas olvidados. Blogpost, 10 June 2016. inutilesmisterios.blogspot.com. 
10. Sellar, Gordon. “Canto XLIX.” Part 36 of 55 in the series Blogging Ezra Pound’s The Cantos.  gordsellar.com, May 12, 2013.  Free online.
11. Taylor, Richard Dean. “Canto XLIX and the Fourth Dimension.” [including Appendix with crib and images.] richard-dean-taylor.de.