Cathay: Ezra Pound’s Orient

Published in 1915, Cathay, Pound’s collection of fourteen experimental translations of classic Chinese poems, was a groundbreaking work that set the stage for a new-found East in the West.

At the turn of the twentieth century, London was a breeding ground for the avant-garde. Modernist writers like T.S. Eliot, W.B. Yeats and Ezra Pound became infatuated with the Orient. Pound in particular was inspired by the clarity and precision of Eastern poetry to rethink the nature of an English poem. Published in 1915, Cathay, Pound’s collection of fourteen experimental translations of classic Chinese poems, was a groundbreaking work that set the stage for a new-found East in the West.