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RONALD S.
JUDY
Ching Yun University, Taiwan
Abstract
This essay explores the role of Ezra Pound’s idea of
authoritarian aesthetic discipline in his translation of The
Great Digest, or the Ta Hsio. The Ta Hsio is one of China’s Four
Classics of Confucianism which Pound undertook a second
translation of in 1936, in Mussolini’s Italy. My argument
centers on the claim that Pound found, in the Ta Hsio and other
Confucian texts, an aesthetic attitude toward political and
social problems. This article is thus somewhat unique in that it
tries to connect, on the basis of a fairly close translation
reading, Pound’s fascist thinking to his “Confucian
speculations” of this time. I do so by focusing on the specific
techniques of the self that Pound tries to single out for us.
Although this study is fairly jargon-free, I implicitly rely on
some important notions from the work of Michel Foucault: first,
I understand his translation choices in terms of the discourse
of discipline that Pound was appealing to, i.e., rightwing
authoritarianism; second, I pay close attention to how personal
“power” (virtu / zhi) works in Pound’s diction and tone. Pound’s
self-conscious tone is understood as a lesson in subjectivation,
and an indication that he was always concerned with those
techniques of the self which lend the will (Pound’s zhi) the
necessary strength to perceive and write clearly.
Keywords: Ezra Pound, aesthetics, discipline,
authoritarianism, translation, Confucianism, The Great Digest
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