Unity Of Opposites: A Study Of Ezra Pound's Paradoxes

Ezra Loomis Pound has been the target of controversy in terms of literature, arts, economics, politics, religion etc. for decades, and colossus documents, papers, reviews are contributed to the heated debate for his inextricable tangle of views and theories touching so many fields. Publications of comments from a vast number of critics are uncountable, and each writer offers his or her own interpretation. A great many would rather stand in his defense, justifying the innumerable contradictions or paradoxes in his works of theories and literature, while an equally huge number of others are convinced to hold the stance against him, arguing that Pound is guilty as charged for all the confusion in diverse respects that he has made. In truth, the Pound case for study is a highly controversial one due to the many paradoxes existing in his works, and to select out the core issues amongst those incalculable accounts of ideas to form a comprehensive view seems incapable of being accomplished; besides, to include all interpretive comments from the varied attitudes of those critics engaged in the quarreling about Pound's merits and demerits is greatly arduous. However, the paradox of Pound's case can not remain a neglected one and is totally worth discussing, therefore, the temptation to research into a tiny fraction of Pound's literary theories as well as his points of views regarding some closely-related areas becomes real. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the paradoxes cases of Pound's stances, i.e. the wobbling between"subjectivity"and"objectivity"(or in other words"impersonality"vs."personality") and the oscillation betwixt"unity"and"diversity".To examine Pound's paradoxes of subjectivity /objectivity and unity /diversity into detail, the illustrations on both of the opposites need to be brought forth for a careful comparison. First comes Pound's own accounts of his outlooks on the respective oppositional elements, and then the contradictions picked out by the literary critics based on the reviews of Pound's theories. With the elaboration of antithetical stances, the author of this paper will attempt at elucidating Pound's paradoxical perspectives...