Pablo Medina: “The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry” Reconsidered (July 2019)

The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry by Ernest Fenollosa, edited by Ezra Pound, caused a sensation in poetry circles when it was first published in 1919. Though Fenollosa’s theories on the pictorial nature of written Chinese were eventually disproven, the essay had a remarkable influence on poets in the Anglophone world for decades to come. This lecture traces its impact and explores Fenollosa’s—and Pound’s—relevance in the twenty-first century.