ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. It provides a closely demonstrated chronology in order to show up the various distinct stages, which often tend to be blurred, of the Imagist movement in relation to the work of Chinese translations. The book examines the whole notion of the Chinese ideogram in Fenollosa, Pound, and Lowell in relation to an appropriately reconstructed historical and critical context of Western conceptions. It considers the modulation of the elegiac and the role of personae in English translations from the Chinese, especially in connection with the immediately preceding context of late Victorian elegiac lyricism and Browningesque dramatic monologue. The book demonstrates aspects of poetic syntax and experiments with rhythm and cadence as shown in the Chinese translations as well as in more original poetic compositions of these writers. Finally, it highlights some of the most salient features of Pound's general involvement with translation.
