Nineteen Ways of Looking at Wang Wei, Week 1 of 2

[x_los]

This week and next, we're looking at Eliot Weinberger's "Nineteen Ways of Looking at Wang Wei". This short book discusses many ways to translate a single, brief Tang dynasty poem and the choices involved therein. We'll look at the first nine poems (or versions thereof) this week, and the remainder the following. 

I'll reproduce the translations under discussion here, but c/ping from the pdf is not very reliable and frequently introduces errors. I'm including the text here primarily as a reference point for our discussions: I advise you to look at the book file itself for your reading.

Comments

Introduction

[x_los]

Poetry is that which is worth translating.

For example, this four-line poem, 1200 years old: a mountain, a forest, the setting sun illuminating a patch of moss. It is a scrap of literary Chinese, no longer spoken as its writer. It is a thing, forever itself, inseparable from its language.

And yet something about it has caused it to lead a nomadic life: insinuating itself in the minds of readers, demanding understanding. (but on the reader's own terms), provoking thought, sometimes compelling writing in other languages. Great poetry lives in a state of perpetual transformation, perpetual translation: the poem dies when it has no place to go.

The transformations that take shape in print, that take the formal name of "translation," become their own beings, set out on their own wanderings. Some live long, and some don't: What kind of creatures are they? What happens when a poem, once Chinese and still Chinese, becomes a piece of English, Spanish, French poetry?

Here are 19 incarnations of a small poem by Wang Wei (c. 100-161), who was known in his lifetime as a wealthy Buddhist painter and ca1ligrapher, and to later generations as a master poet in an age of masters, the Tang Dynasty. The quatrain is from a series of twenty poems on various sights near the Wang River (no relation). The poems were written as par of a massive horizontal landscape scroll, a genre invented by Wang. The painting was copied (translated) for centuries. The original is lost; and the earliest surviving copy comes from the 11th century: Wang's landscape after 1000 years of transformation.

Re: Introduction

[x_los]

Point about translation occurring in the original language is well taken, this feels v inflected by Benjamin’s task of a translator

Re: Introduction

[superborb]

Perhaps especially relevant since references and allusions to poetry form a greater part of modern Chinese than English?

1. Text

[x_los]

The poem is by Wang Wei (c. 700":"761), known in his lifetime as a wealthy Buddhist painter and calligrapher, and to later generations as a master poet in 'an age of masters, the Tang Dynasty. The quatrain is from a series of twenty poems on various sights near the Wang (no relation) River. The poems were written a,s part of a massive horizontal landscape scroll, a genre he invented. The painting was cOpied (translated) for centuries. The original is lost, and the earliest surviving copy comes from the 17th century: Wang's landscape after 900 years of transformation.

In classical Chinese, each'character (ideogram) represents a word of a single syllable. Few of the characters are, as is commonly thought, entirely representational. But some of the basic vocabulary is indeed pictographic, and with those few hundred characters one can play the game of pretending to read Chinese.

Reading the poem Jeft to right, top tooottom, the second character in line 1 is apparently a mountain; the. last character in the same line a person-both are stylizations that evolved from more literal representations. Character 4 in line 1,was a favorite of Ezra Pound's: w:hat he interpreted as an eye on legs; that is, the eye in motion,' to see. Character 5 in line 3 is two trees, forest. SpatiaJ relationships are concretely portrayed in: character 3 of line 3, to enter, and. character 5 of line 4, aboDe or on (top of). '

More typical of Chinese is character 2 of li11e 4, to $hine, which contains an Qf the sun in the upper .left and of fire at the bottom, as well as a purely phonetic element-key, to the word's pronunciation-in the upper right. Most of the other characters have no pictorial content useful for decipherment.

Re: 1. Text

[x_los]

this makes me think about how little attention I pay to character visual effect, calligraphy, original textual settings vis art—on the one hand when you read a language it no longer looks like pictures to you, but on the other calligraphy is something of a process of re-enchantment perhaps 

Fuck Ezra Pound

2. Transliteration

[x_los]

LU ZHAI

Kong shan bu jian ren
Dan wen ren yu xiang
Fan jing (ying)ru shen lin
Fu zhao qing tai shang

Re: 2. Transliteration

[x_los]

I want to listen to this later

Who tf are Rumanians

Huh really?? Re least number of sounds. Surprising

Re: 2. Transliteration

[forestofglory]

I also want to find out more about these Romanians.

Also I currently prefer to use Mandarin over modern Chinese, to avoid the implication that there's only one Chinese language. However "Mandarin" has it's own problems - I did read that article about it's origins. This seems supprisingly fraught

Re: 2. Transliteration

[superborb]

"But translators tend to rush in where wise men never tread, and often may be seen attempting to nurture Chinese rhyme patterns in the hostile environment of a Western language"

lmao

3. Character-by-character translation

[x_los]

This is really difficult to reproduce when you can't use tabs in this window. You're going to have to look at the book.

Re: 3. Character-by-character translation

[x_los]

Fuckin green/blue/black is back I see

Re: 3. Character-by-character translation

[forestofglory]

This mostly lines up with my classical dictionary except that the dictionary offers "sunlight" for the second character in the third line as well as bright. And "merely" for the first character on the second line.

4. The Form of the Deer

[x_los]

So lone seem the hills; there is no one in sight there.
But whence is the echo of voices I hear?
The rays of the sunset pierce slanting the forest,
And in their reflection green mosses appear.

-W .J.B. Fletcher, 1919

Re: 4. The Form of the Deer

[x_los]

Idk what to do with this defence of Pound's work honestly because he's an incompetent fascist with a broad Orientalist streak who may have popularised work or made it palatable to a modernism-pilled audience but invented exactly jack shit 

Even the language choices of this defence are yikes

Where are Asian translators in this mix? A Japanese informant--come the fuck on

Where are economies and rewards in this consideration of translation 

Re: 4. The Form of the Deer

[forestofglory]

This DNA metaphor doesn't really make sense if you actually understand what DNA does better than your average Star Trek writer.

Re: 4. The Form of the Deer

[superborb]

This is a use of the word Platonic that I've never encountered before.

Not going to touch this extremely weird defense of Pound.

The point about translations being relatives, not clones simply reminds me of that makeup advice about eyebrows. (Eyebrows are sisters not twins!)

5. Deer-Park Hermitage

[x_los]

There seems to be no one on the empty mountain...
And yet I think I hear a voice,
Where sunlight, entering a grove,
Shines back to me from the green moss.

- Witter Bynner & Kiang Kang-hu, 1929

Re: 5. Deer-Park Hermitage

[x_los]

A named Asian translator recognised 

So what's this movement of chinoiserie translation and imagists, is this related to the contemporaneous Kai Lung stuff?

Some very astute points on perception in the poem

Re: 5. Deer-Park Hermitage

[forestofglory]

Why is Bynner the only translator discussed in the text when Kiang Kang-Hu is also listed as a translator?

Re: 5. Deer-Park Hermitage

[superborb]

Weinberger seems to not approve, but in a way where I'm like, why are you cloaking your words in more sketchy descriptions?

6. The Deer Park

[x_los]

An empty hill, and no one in sight
But I hear the echo of voices.
The slanting sun at evening penetrates the deep woods
And shines reflected on the blue lichens.

-Soame Jenyns, 1944

Re: 6. The Deer Park

[x_los]

Poor lichens

That is a neat point about material precision in English--do I agree, though? Given how relational (and thus vague) Chinese--especially concise premodern forms of Chinese--can be? 

This is such a good idea, noting the translator's circumstances

Re: 6. The Deer Park

[superborb]

Weinberger has strong opinions on editorializing, but I'm not sure I'm totally persuaded to his side yet.

7. La Foret

[x_los]

Dans la montagne tout est solitaire,
On entend de bien loin l'kIlo des voix htunaines,
Le solei! qui penetre au fond de la foret
Reflete son eclat sur la mousse vert.

- G. Margoulies, 1948

Re: 7. La Foret

[x_los]

They might have done well to note the challenge presented by roughly translating a translation, if we're going to be this precious about the Chinese

Re: 7. La Foret

[forestofglory]

Yes, the double translation seems like an issue that should be discussed a bit

Re: 7. La Foret

[superborb]

This is a recent enough book that we can't assume the audience just knows French!!

8. Deer Forest Hermitage

[x_los]

Through the deep wood, the slanting sunlight
Casts motley patterns on the jade-green mosses.
No glimpse of man in this lonely mountain,
Yet faint voices drift on the air.

- Chang Yin-nan & Lewis C. Walmsley, 1958

Re: 8. Deer Forest Hermitage

[x_los]

It could be good if they were a bit more credulous regarding the 'improvements' in terms of thinking about them as genuine attempts to communicate? how did these translators think people would better relate to this poem via these changes

Kind of contemptuous regarding Chang, who may well not experience the contempt they assign him

Re: 8. Deer Forest Hermitage

[forestofglory]

I think the goals of translation are more numerous and complex than Weinberger allows here.

Re: 8. Deer Forest Hermitage

[superborb]

Beginning to wonder if Weinberger simply wants translationese! Though tbf, this does stray pretty far from the original.

Anyway, I disagree that lonely carries such a different meaning; after all, wrt to a place, it takes on the meaning of 'unfrequented' which surely is what is being implied here?

9. The Deer Enclosure

[x_los]

On the lonely mountain I meet no one,
I hear only the echo
of human voices.
At an angle the sun's rays
enter the depths of the wood,
And shine
upon the green moss.

- C.J. Chen & Michael Bullock, 1960

Re: 9. The Deer Enclosure

[x_los]

I could do with more info about where these translations appear, the purposes and audiences they’re trying to serve—are any of them attempting, even, to be THE Deer Park in English, or a Deer Park in English, to specific ends?

They don’t note it, but this one has their ‘enter’ and their singular ‘shine’, which their earlier commentary seemed to express a preference for

Re: 9. The Deer Enclosure

[forestofglory]

So Weinberger is contempous of translators adding a first person narrator, but since pronouns are so often implied in Chinese I think he's being rather hard on the translators.

Re: 9. The Deer Enclosure

[superborb]

More line breaks are more poetic don't you know

[forestofglory]

I'm waiting for a physical copy of the book to show up in the mail. (I read much better on paper than on screens)

In the meantime I thought I would try translating it myself to see how much I can understand on my own. I don't know what I'm doing, I just have a small amount of knowledge of classical grammar, and a classical Chinese dictionary.

Anyways here's my attempt:

On the empty mountain I don't see any people
Merely hear the echo of people talking
Sunlight goes back and arrives deep in the forest
it returns to the shining green moss above