Seizing "Hagoromo": Ezra Pound's imaged drama and "The Cantos".

Abstract

"Seizing Hagoromo: Ezra Pound's Imaged Drama called The Cantos" presents a two-pronged analysis of Pound's relationship with the Japanese Noh drama that began with his acquisition of the philosopher Ernest Fenollosa's notes in late 1913. First, this dissertation demonstrates the influence that Noh drama itself had on Pound's early thinking, particularly in enabling him to move from the brief encapsulations of his Imagist poetry such as In a Station of the Metro, to the more dynamic, paradoxical, Vorticism that directly preceded his initial attempts at The Cantos. Second, Pound's experiences with the Noh form itself are examined, both in his edition of Fenollosa's translations of Noh plays, and in Pound's own newly published attempts at the form, which date from 1916. In the Introduction, the concept of "Imaged Drama" is explained by discussing Euripides' Bacchae. Imaged drama refers to the arena in which an audience combines elements of what the semiotician Keir Elam labels "dramatic" and "performance" texts. In an audience's "imaged text" both the dramatic and performance texts are simultaneously present, yet neither prevails. Chapter One introduces the Noh form in Fenollosa's and Pound's translations by discussing Suma Genji. Chapter Two indicates the impact that Noh drama had on Pound's theoretical move from Imagism to Vorticism. Chapter Three identifies the Noh play Hagoromo in its Poundian context. Chapter Four presents a comparison of three different Noh plays: Zeami's Nishikigi, Pound's Tristan, and Yeats's At the Hawk's Well. Chapter Five presents a reading of The Cantos in the light of the foregoing discussion of Hagoromo and the Noh drama. Chapter Six returns to the Greek stage by analyzing Pound's translation of Sophocles' Women of Trachis, which Pound felt could only be performed effectively by a Noh troupe. Although Pound knew no Japanese and knew even less of the Japanese Noh drama when he received Fenollosa's notes, he quickly adapted several of Noh's dramatic conventions to his emerging style of longer poetry. Ezra Pound "seized" Hagoromo from Japan and with it, he created a style of dynamic poetry as heavily allusive and rigorous as the Noh itself, without ever seeing a Noh performance. (Abstract shortened with permission of author.)