Ernest Fenollosa Criticism
Ernest Fenollosa (1853-1908) was a pivotal American figure in the introduction of East Asian art and literature to the West. Renowned as a translator, art historian, educator, poet, and philosopher, he significantly influenced the development of Imagist poetry through his in-depth studies of Japanese and Chinese art and ideograms. Fenollosa's scholarly work laid the groundwork for the American poet Ezra Pound, who utilized Fenollosa's notes to produce significant works like Cathay and further develop poetic movements such as Imagism and Vorticism. As noted in A review of 'Epochs of Chinese and Japanese Art', Fenollosa's scholarship was highly regarded, highlighting his idea of art's origins from the Mediterranean and Western Pacific regions.
Born in Salem, Massachusetts, Fenollosa was deeply influenced by his diverse cultural background and education at Harvard University. His career took a significant turn when he became a professor at the Imperial University in Tokyo, where he immersed himself in Japanese culture, converted to Buddhism, and worked to preserve Japanese art during a time of Westernization. He played a crucial role in founding the Tokyo University of Fine Arts and Music and served as a curator at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts.
Fenollosa's major works include East and West, a poetry collection exploring cultural dichotomies, as discussed by William Morton Payne, and The Masters of Ukioye, a study on Japanese painting. His posthumous work, The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry, edited by Pound, sparked debate over its linguistic theories. Critics like Christine Brooke-Rose have praised his innovative understanding of Chinese characters as a poetic medium, though some argue these theories were based on etymological inaccuracies. Fenollosa's approach to metaphor and poetics, as detailed in this work, underscores the creation of vivid mental imagery as central to the poetic experience, influencing how poetry and language are perceived today. Additionally, his contributions to translations, such as those found in Pound’s Cathay, continue to resonate in literary studies.
Contents
- Principal Works
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Essays
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A review of "East and West: The Discovery of America and Other Poems"
(summary)
In the following essay, Payne determines that the poet characterizes the West as masculine and the East as feminine.
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A review of 'Epochs of Chinese and Japanese Art: An Outline History of East Asiatic Designs'
(summary)
In the following essay, Williams praises the author's scholarship, and agrees with his hypothesis that all art derived from two principle locations in the Mediterranean and the Western Pacific.
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'Noh,' or Accomplishment: A Study of the Classical Stage of Japan
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In the following essay, Fuller gives a brief overview of the origins, intentions, and structure of Noh drama.
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Misreading the Ideogram: From Fenollosa to Derrida and McLuhan
(summary)
In the following essay, Jung examines the influence of Ralph Waldo Emerson on Fenollosa's aesthetics, and how Jacques Derrida and Marshall McLuhan arrived at the same conclusions as Fenollosa and Ezra Pound.
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Discourse on Ideogrammic Method: Epistemology and Pound's 'Poetics'
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In the following essay, Yee explores the differences between Fenollosa's and Pound's approach to the Chinese ideogrammic method of poetics.
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Ezra Pound's 'Cathay': Compilation from the Fenollosa Notebooks
(summary)
In the following essay, Chappie relies on one of Ezra Pound's lesser-known essays on Chinese poetics to illuminate Pound's reliance on Fenollosa's notes to produce the poems published in Cathay.
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A review of "East and West: The Discovery of America and Other Poems"
(summary)
- Further Reading