INSTIGATIONS

OF

EZRA POUND

TOGETHER WITH

AN ESSAY ON THE CHINESE WRITTEN CHARACTER

BY

ERNEST FENOLLOSA

BONI AND LIVERIGHT

PUBLISHERS NEW YORK

1920

TO

MY FATHER

HOMER L. POUND

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. A STUDY IN FRENCH POETS

Narration
Jules Laforgue
Tristan Corbière
Arthur Rimbaud
Remy de Gourmont
De Régnier
Emile Verhaeren
Vielé-Griffin
Stuart Merril
Laurent Tailhade
Francis Jammes
Moréas
Spire
Vildrac
Jules Romains
Unanimisme
De Bosschère's study of Elskamp
Albert Mockel and "La Wallonie"

II. HENRY JAMES

III. REMY DE GOURMONT, a Distinction followed by notes

IV. IN THE VORTEX

Eliot
Joyce
Lewis
An Historical Essayist
The New Poetry
Breviora

PART SECOND

V. OUR TETRARCHAL PRECIEUSE
A divagation from Jules Laforgue

VI. GENESIS, or the first book in the Bible

VII. ARNAUT DANIEL

VIII. TRANSLATORS OF GREEK

IX. An essay on THE CHINESE WRITTEN CHARACTER
by the late ERNEST FENOLLOSA,
edited by Ezra Pound

INSTIGATIONS

I

A STUDY IN FRENCH POETS

The time when the intellectual affairs of America could be conducted on a monolingual basis is over. It has been irksome for long. The intellectual life of London is dependent on people who understand the French language about as well as their own. America's part in contemporary culture is based chiefly upon two men familiar with Paris: Whistler and Henry James. It is something in the nature of a national disgrace that a New Zealand paper, "The Triad," should be more alert to, and have better regular criticism of, contemporary French publications than any American