Pound, E. (2019). Cathay. A critical edition. Ed. by T. Billings. New York: Fordham U. P.

2021 ◽  
pp. 282-287
Author(s):  
O. I. Polovinkina
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Critical Edition ◽  
World Literature ◽  
Chinese Poetry ◽  
The West ◽  
Classical Chinese ◽  
Classical Chinese Poetry ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
Almost All

The new edition of E. Pound's poetic collection Cathay, first published in 1915, shows the idea of world literature to be as real as it is problematic. Thanks to T. Billings, the editor behind the publication, the book offers the most exhaustive description of the process whereby the translations were created: it involved not only Pound and Fenollosa, but also K. Mori and N. Ariga, who represent the Japanese tradition of reading classical Chinese poetry. The volume contains almost all of Pound's Chinese translations produced in the 1910s, his essay ‘Chinese Poetry,' as well as an impressive scholarly corpus: articles on the significance of these translations in the era of close relations between China and the West, extracts from Fenollosa's notebooks deciphered by Billings, and the original Chinese poems, each supplied with comments. The reconstruction of the process by which word-for-word translations were created puts Pound's translation effort into a new perspective.

On Necessity and Feasibility of Foreignization in the Translation of Classical Chinese Poetry

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (6) ◽  
pp. 455
Author(s):  
Hongwei Ye
Keyword(s):  
Chinese Culture ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Cultural Communication ◽  
Chinese Poetry ◽  
The West ◽  
Cultural Elements ◽  
Cross Cultural Communication ◽  
Classical Chinese ◽  
Classical Chinese Poetry ◽  
Cultural Connotations

Classical Chinese poetry is the concentrated reflection of traditional Chinese culture and its translation is an event of cross-cultural communication of increasing importance in the present age of globalization. This essay aims to analyze the necessity and feasibility of foreignization in the translation of classical Chinese poetry (CCP). Foreignization in CCP translation can convey the profound cultural connotations that are contained in cultural elements and retains the original poetic flavor. The author concludes that only through foreignization can we meet the needs of those curious readers in the west and achieve cultural communication with the West in the real sense.

Semiotics East and West: an aesthetic-semiotic approach to translating the iconicity of classical Chinese poetry

Semiotica ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Guangxu Zhao
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Translation Studies ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Translation Theory ◽  
Chinese Poetry ◽  
Semiotic Approach ◽  
Classical Chinese ◽  
Classical Chinese Poetry ◽  
Set Up ◽  
The Sacrifice

Abstract For some Western translators before the twentieth century, domestication was their strategy to translate the classical Chinese poetry into English. But the consequence of this strategy was the sacrifice of the ideogrammic nature of these poems. The translators in the twentieth century, especially the Imagist poets and translators in the 1930s, overcame the problems of their predecessors and their translation theory and practice was close to that of the contemporary semiotic translators. But both Imagist translators and contemporary semiotic translators have the problem of indifference to the feeling of the original in their translations. For the problem of translating the classical Chinese poetry by the Westerners before the twentieth century and the Imagist poets and translators of the twentieth century, see Zhao and Flotow 2018. This paper attempts to set up an aesthetic-semiotic approach to the translation of the iconicity of classical Chinese poetry on the basis of the examination of both Eastern and Western translation studies.

Translating iconicities of classical Chinese poetry

Semiotica ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 (224) ◽  
pp. 19-44
Author(s):  
Guangxu Zhao ◽  
Luise von Flotow
Keyword(s):  
Ezra Pound ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Chinese Characters ◽  
Chinese Poetry ◽  
Princeton University ◽  
Amy Lowell ◽  
Classical Chinese ◽  
Classical Chinese Poetry ◽  
History Of

Abstract In the history of translating classical Chinese poetry, there are two kinds of translators. The first kind translate classical Chinese poetry “by way of intellectual, directional devices” (Yip, Wai-lim. 1969. Ezra Pound’s Cathay. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press: 16). What these translators are concerned with most is the coherence of their translations. They give little attention to the ideogrammic nature of Chinese characters. I call them traditional translators. These translators include those in the history of translating classical Chinese poetry from its beginning to the first decade of the twentieth century, although there are still some who translate classical Chinese poetry in this way later. The second kind of translator is highly interested in the images created by ideogrammic Chinese characters and tries to convey them in target language. We call them modernist translators. These translators are represented by some American modernist poets such as Ezra Pound, Amy Lowell, Florence Ayscough, etc. From the point of view of iconicity, modernist translators’ contribution lies in their concern with the iconic characteristics of Chinese characters. But they did not give enough attention to syntactical iconicity and textual iconicity in classical Chinese poetry.

The lyric oeuvre of Afanasy Fet and Chinese idyllic poems

2021 ◽  
pp. 222-232
Author(s):  
Zh. Lu
Keyword(s):  
Chinese Culture ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Lyric Poetry ◽  
Chinese Poetry ◽  
Classical Chinese ◽  
Classical Chinese Poetry ◽  
Man And Nature ◽  
Chinese Texts ◽  
The Ancient Chinese ◽  
Light And Shadow

There are compelling similarities between Afanasy Fet’s lyric poetry and classical Chinese lyric poetry. This connection is traced in the article with specific examples. Fet, carried away by the ideas of Schopenhauer, argued that thepoetic feeling lives in every person and can be called the sixth and highest feeling. In classical Chinese poetry, the Confucian concept of ‘the sense of things,’ the Taoist formula ‘words and forms’ and the idea of the unity of man and nature played an important role. With characteristic fixation of subtle changes of light and shadow, with the transmission of flushed feelings, Fet’s oeuvre reminds the readers of the ancient Chinese lyric poetry. Like classic Chinese texts, Fet’s poems are textbooks where the idea of the unity of man and nature is developed. In both Chinese poetry and Fet’s works, human life goes into natural life, gaining eternity in the nature. As a result, although Fet was not familiar with Chinese culture, the intuitions that fed his work surprisingly coincided with pictorial techniques as a way of conveying emotion in classical Chinese poetry, separated from him by many centuries.

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