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

11. Deep in the Mountain Wilderness

[x_los]

Deep in the mountain wilderness
Where nobody ever comes
Only once in a great while
Something like the sound of a far off voice.
The low rays of the sun
Slip through the dark forest,
And gleam again on the shadowy moss.

- Kenneth Rexroth, 1970

Re: 11. Deep in the Mountain Wilderness

[x_los]

I actually like the final line in this, for giving a sense of that ‘shine’ the others have sort of obscured for me.

Re: 11. Deep in the Mountain Wilderness

[ann712]

I love the use of ‘slip’ in the penultimate line as well.
. It captures the elusive nature of light in dark forests.

Re: 11. Deep in the Mountain Wilderness

[forestofglory]

His praise for this poem as being like "what Wang would have written if he had been born a 20th century American" feels out of place to me. Classical Chinese for Everyone talks about this as one extreme of translation philosophy, with word for word translation-ese as the other extreme

Re: 11. Deep in the Mountain Wilderness

[superborb]

I don't find this translation so especially poetic that it deserves such strong praise?