The Temptation of Chinese Diagrams and the Spirit of E·Pound's The Cantos

This paper takes a particular view of Ezra Pound's epic, The Cantos, expounding the employment of Chinese diagrams in the great western epic. There are many Chinese diagrams dotting, and even crawling all over the pages,esp. in the second half of the book.The profound connotations and the artistic make ups of the Chinese diagrams reflect the spirits of the epic by which the poet intended to present a symphony of the western and Chinese cultures.This paper aims at a significant interpretation of the influence of Chinese culture upon Pound's poetics.