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

[x_los]

This week, we're finishing 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. This week, we'll look at the last ten poems. 

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

Re: Postscript

[forestofglory]

Boodberg sounds like a character! I've seen a few lines of his translation of the Dao De Jing and it's equally unreadable.

Having mostly encountered Pound via references to his poetry translation I would have no idea he was a fascist if you hadn't told me.

I have the reprint of 19 Ways of looking at Wang Wei form 2016 which includes 10 more ways.

Re: Postscript

[superborb]

Anything interesting in the other 10?

Re: Postscript

[forestofglory]

Weinberger seems a lot more interested in how translations influence latter translations in the new section.

There's some German translations and some more french translations. Also the translation that's in The Anchor Book of Chinese Poetry which I wondered about because I have that book and its popular with anglophone c-ent fandom. (The commentary on it is about the influence of other translation and also notes that hanging moss is not native to China)

I liked this bit:
"A translation of, say, a poem into English is a a kind of palimpsest. It is not a poem in English, as it will always be read as a translation: a text written on top of another text. Yet it is appreciated (or not appreciated) in the same ways we respond to an original poem: in awe at the delicacy and intricacy of its manipulation of the language, or disappointed by its chunkiness."

Re: Postscript

[superborb]

Thanks~!