“W.B. Yeats: From Sligo to Nōh via Ernest Fenollosa”

Sean Golden has recently published “W.B. Yeats: From Sligo to Nōh via Ernest Fenollosa”, Moving Worlds. A Journal of Transcultural Writings, Vol. 16, No. 2, 2016, 37-50.

“Liu Xie ‘s Wenxin diaolong, Ernest Fenollosa’s Chinese Written Character and the 20th century avant garde”

Sean Golden has recently published “Liu Xie ‘s Wenxin diaolong, Ernest Fenollosa’s Chinese Written Character and the 20th century avant garde”, in Chen Yuehong, Tiziana Lippielo & Maddalena Barenghi (eds.), LinkingAncient and Contemporary: Continuities and Discontinuities in ChineseLiterature, Edizioni Ca’ Foscari Digital Publishing, 265-282.

Abstract

Ezra Pound’s edition of Ernest Fenollosa’s manuscripts for The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry was a landmark in modernist European poetry and the imagist movement at the beginning of the 20th century. Pound’s work has stood for Fenollosa’s vision since then and has been the subject of controversy among Sinologists for its emphasis on the graphic elements of Chinese written characters. A recent edition of the complete Fenollosa manuscripts by Haun Saussy, Jonathan Stalling and Lucas Klein has made it possible to see the differences between Fenollosa’s interests and Pound’s interpretations and to restore Fenollosa’s original intentions. Even though Sinologists have questioned the Fenollosa-Pound emphasis on the graphic elements of Chinese writing as a component part of Chinese poetry, Ch. 39 of the classical Chinese text 文心雕龍 Wenxin diaolong by 劉勰 Liu Xie (ca. 466-520) refers specifically to this phenomenon as a mode in the composition of Chinese poetry. Case studies of work by John Cage and Jackson Mac Low show that Fenollosa’s impact on 20th century avant garde literature went far beyond the works of Ezra Pound.

Yeats & Asia

On behalf of the International Yeats Society the East Asian Studies & Research Centre (CERAO) of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona is organising the symposium

Yeats & Asia

Imagining Asia through Yeats, Imagining Yeats through Asia

in Barcelona, at Casa Convalescència, from 15-17 December 2016.

In preparation for the Symposium the CERAO is co-financing a documentary film of the Sligo-based Blue Raincoat Theatre Company's production of The Cat and the Moon, a play by the Irish Nobel Prize winner, W.B. Yeats, inspired by a manuscript translation by Ernest Fenollosa of of a traditional Japanese kyogen-style play.

The documentary will be premiered in Barcelona at the Symposium by the play's director, Niall Henry.

Inaugural Conference of the International Yeats Society

Sean Golden, member of the Inter-Asia research group, spoke at the 1st annual conference of the International Yeats Society, A Writer Young and Old: Yeats at 150, at the University of Limerick Ireland, 15-18/10/2015, on the topic of:

The Ghost of Fenollosa in the Wings of the Abbey

 Abstract

Ernest Fenollosa’s unpublished manuscripts on Noh theatre influenced W.B. Yeats explicitly in 1913. Prior to that, Fenollosa’s publications on Chinese and Japanese art, and his theories of design, also influenced the works of Yeats. Correspondence among Yeats, Frank Fay, J.M. Synge and Lady Gregory in November 1904 regarding tree wings for the Abbey Theatre finds Yeats searching for an effect from Japanese prints he was researching at the British Museum and he confides in the taste of Pamela Colman Smith, in his own words, the only person who understood what he was seeking. In March 1909 Yeats is discussing Laurence Binyon’s Painting of the Far East, published in 1908, the year that Fenollosa died. Binyon wrote an obituary for Fenollosa in Littell's Living Age, and the Introduction to that book announces forthcoming studies on Chinese and Japanese art that Fenollosa’s widow would publish posthumously, prior to passing his papers on to Ezra Pound. Binyon’s studies draw heavily on Fenollosa’s published work. Pamela Colman Smith collaborated with Jack B. Yeats, and Lily Yeats, as well as W.B. Yeats. She studied design at the Pratt Institute in New York with Arthur Wesley Dow from 1893 to 1897, shortly before becoming involved with the Yeats circle and Edward Gordon Craig’s family. That was when Dow assisted Fenollosa in cataloguing East Asian art in Boston. Dow’s textbook on Composition draws heavily and explicitly on Fenollosa’s theories. The extent to which Fenollosa’s ghost inhabits the wings of the Abbey deserves greater scrutiny.

Linking Ancient and Contemporary: Continuities and Discontinuities in Chinese History of Literature and Thought

The Dipartimento di Studi sull'Asia esull'Africa Mediterranea (DSAAM) of the Università Ca'Foscari Venezia, in collaboration with the Department of Chinese Language and Literature of  北京大学 Peking University, organised an international conference in Venice from  21-22 March  2013 on the subject of "Linking Ancient and Contemporary:Continuities and Discontinuities in Chinese History of Literature andThought".  

Sean Golden, a member of the Inter-Asia research Group, spoke at the conference on the subject of “Liu Xie 劉勰’s Wénxīn Diāolóng 文心雕龙, Ernest Fenollosa’s complete The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry and 20th century avant garde American writing outside the Ezra Pound tradition”. 

Abstract

Ezra Pound’s edition of Ernest Fenollosa’s manuscripts for The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry was a landmark in modernist European poetry and the imagist movement at the beginning of the 20th century. Pound’s work has stood for Fenollosa’s vision since then and has been the subject of controversy among Sinologist’s for its emphasis on the graphic elements of Chinese written characters. A recent edition of the complete Fenollosa manuscripts by Haun Saussy, Jonathan Stalling and Lucas Klein has made it possible to see the differences between Fenollosa’s interests and Pound’s interpretations and to restore Fenollosa’s original intentions. Even though Sinologists have questioned the Fenollosa-Pound emphasis on the graphic elements of Chinese writing as a component part of Chinese poetry, Chapter 39 of the classical Chinese text  文心雕龙 Wénxīn diāolóng by  劉勰 Liu Xie (ca. 466-ca. 520) refers specifically to this phenomenon as a mode in the composition of Chinese poetry. Case studies of work by John Cage and Jackson Mac Low show that Fenollosa’s impact on 20th century avant garde literature went far beyond the works of Ezra Pound.