Ideogrammic method
The ideogrammic method was a technique expounded by Ezra Pound which allowed poetry to deal with abstract content through concrete images. The idea was based on Pound's reading of the work of Ernest Fenollosa, especially The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry, composed by Fenollosa but edited by Pound after the author's death, 1908.
Pound gives a brief account of it in his book The ABC of Reading (1934).[1] He explains his understanding of the way Chinese characters were formed, with the example of the character 'East' (東) being essentially a superposition of the characters for 'tree' (木) and 'sun' (日); that is, a picture of the sun tangled in a tree's branches, suggesting a sunrise (which occurs in the East). He then suggests how, with such a system where concepts are built up from concrete instances, the (abstract) concept of 'red' might be presented by putting together the (concrete) pictures of:
ROSE | CHERRY |
IRON RUST | FLAMINGO |
This was a key idea in the development of Imagism.
References and further reading
- Géfin, Laszlo K. (1982), Ideogram: History of a Poetic Method, University of Texas Press, ISBN 9780292740976
- Xu, Ping (1998), "Rose-Cherry-Sunset-Iron Rust-Flamingo' Diagram And The Genesis Of Ezra Pound'S Ideogrammic Method", Paideuma, 27 (2/3): 53–68, JSTOR 24726187
- Yee, Cordell D. K. (1987), "Discourse on Ideogrammic Method: Epistemology and Pound's Poetics", American Literature, 59 (2): 242–56, doi:10.2307/2927043, JSTOR 2927043
See also
- Ideogram
- Imagism
References
- ^ Pound, Ezra (1934). ABC of Reading. New Directions Publishing Corporation. ISBN 0-8112-0151-1.
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- A Lume Spento (July 1908)
- A Quinzaine for this Yule (December 1908)
- "Ballad of the Goodly Fere" (1909)
- Ripostes (1912)
- "In a Station of the Metro" (1913)
- Cathay (1915)
- "The River Merchant's Wife: A Letter"
- Hugh Selwyn Mauberley (1920)
- The Cantos (1917–1968)
- Cultural references in The Cantos
- The Spirit of Romance (1910)
- Des Imagistes (1914)
- ABC of Reading (1934)
- Jefferson and/or Mussolini (1935)
- Guide to Kulchur (1938)
- Radio broadcasts, 1941–1945
- If This Be Treason (1948)
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