ideogrammic method

{{Short description|Poetry technique}}

{{Refimprove|date=December 2009}}

The ideogrammic method was a technique expounded by Ezra Pound which allowed poetry to deal with abstract content through concrete images. The idea was based on Pound's reading of the work of Ernest Fenollosa, especially

The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry, composed by Fenollosa but edited by Pound after the author's death, 1908.

Pound gives a brief account of it in his book The ABC of Reading (1934).{{cite book|last=Pound|first=Ezra|title=ABC of Reading|year=1934|publisher=New Directions Publishing Corporation|isbn=0-8112-0151-1|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/abcofreading00poun}} He explains his understanding of the way Chinese characters were formed, with the example of the character 'East' (東) being essentially a superposition of the characters for 'tree' (木) and 'sun' (日); that is, a picture of the sun tangled in a tree's branches, suggesting a sunrise (which occurs in the East). He then suggests how, with such a system where concepts are built up from concrete instances, the (abstract) concept of 'red' might be presented by putting together the (concrete) pictures of:

border=0 cellspacing=0 cellpadding=5 style="margin: 1em auto;" | ROSE | CHERRY

IRON RUST | FLAMINGO

This was a key idea in the development of Imagism.

== References and further reading ==

• {{citation| last= Géfin |first= Laszlo K. |title= Ideogram: History of a Poetic Method |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1ivgDAAAQBAJ|publisher= University of Texas Press |year= 1982 |isbn= 9780292740976}}
• {{citation|last=Xu |first=Ping |title= Rose-Cherry-Sunset-Iron Rust-Flamingo' Diagram And The Genesis Of Ezra Pound'S Ideogrammic Method |journal= Paideuma |volume= 27 |number= 2/3 |year= 1998 |pages=53–68 |jstor= 24726187}}
• {{citation| first= Cordell D. K. |last= Yee |title = Discourse on Ideogrammic Method: Epistemology and Pound's Poetics |journal = American Literature |volume= 59 |number= 2 |year= 1987 |pages= 242–56 |doi= 10.2307/2927043|jstor= 2927043 }}