On the Translator’s Visibility of Selecting Material in Cathay

○ Wu Yujin Luo Xuan

(Honghe University, Mengzi, Yunnan, 661100)

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On the Translator’s Visibility of Selecting Material inCathay

○ Wu Yujin Luo Xuan

(HongheUniversity,Mengzi,Yunnan, 661100)

It is a common sense that the translator is the most important part in translation activity. But in the translation circle, translator’s status is inferior to the author even to the original work. In order to change the mode of writing poems in his time and make people realize the damage of the war, Pound selected and translated sixteen Chinese ancient poems in his Cathay, which makes readers see translator’s visibility. This poetry is also a provement that translator’s visibility has its reasonable value in the translation.

Cathay, Pound, translator’s vsibility, selecting materials

I. Introduction

In the year of 1909, Pound was lucky to get Fenollosa’s manuscripts of Chinese poetry. Earnest Fenollosa, a Spanish

American, graduated from Harvard University and then became a professor of Tokyo University in Japan. He took interest in art of the East Asian in 1920s and has written several books about Chinese and Japanese poetry. However, when Fenollosa discussed his books with some specialists of the Great Britain Museum in English, he suffered a sudden heart attack and then died. Since Fenollosa’s manuscripts only included the Chinese poems, Japanese pronunciations and the explanations of every character, his wife, Mary Fenollosa, was in a pressing need for a poet who could translate her husband’s posthumous manuscripts into beautiful English poems. By a chance, Pound got this manuscript and then translated it into English.

Translator’s visibility, according to Lawrence Venuti, is

often reflected in the following aspects: the subjective choice of the translation materials; the different foreignizing translation strategies，such as the remaining of the realia or target language archaisms; the resistance translation strategies which can help translator to maintain the exoticism of foreign countries as well as improving translator’s status and even making, the most important of all, translator share the same authority with the author. Ezra Pound’sCathayhas fully embodied the above points. Translator is generally thought to be inferior to the author, for the author is the person who creates the work, thus his translation is just the derivative fake, potentially a false copy. Venuti points out that in British and America, translation is just an “adaptation” or “derivative work” bases on an original work of authorship. In this sense, the translator is subordinate to the author.

This tradition is challenged by Venuti who proposes several translation strategies to deal with the problems in the face of translators.

Ⅱ. Literature Review

One of Ezra Pound’s translation characteristics is his interpretative translation. It means translator creates a new poem when he is translating, the creative writing in which Ezra Pound dispenses with the traditional translation standards. As William Van O’Connor said “his (Ezra Pound’s) translation has the same basic virtue as his other poetry: intuitive grasp of the shape and emotional essence of his subject.” He then appraises：“Ezra Pound is the new beginnings of poem, or release energies, of vast curiosity cutting across cultural barriers” (O’Conner 1963:28). According to Peter Wilson, (Ezra Pound’s) translation is inventive as well as creative, much closer to writing an original poem (Wilson 2005:43). G Sigh divides Ezra Pound’s motivation of translating poems into the following three categories: 1) as a poet who, on the verbal, stylistic and linguistic plane, finds common ground between himself and the poet he is translating; 2) as a critic who sees for himself and interprets to others the bearing his translations have on his work; 3) as a comparatist who can adduce principles of artistic excellence and critical criteria from the work translated” (Sigh 1994:112). Hugh Kenner, an American specialist of Pound, exclaims that some of Pound’s translations are intended misinterpretation. Arthur Waley, though he has not criticized Pound’sCathayopenly, did retranslate several of Li Bai’s poems ofCathayin1918. To Hugh Kenner, “Ezra Pound also believed that ‘a(chǎn) great age of literature is always a great age of translations; or follows it’, and considered translation as a great as a necessary part of a poet’s training” (Kenner 1953:17). Ford Madox Hueffer exclaimed inOutlookon 19 June 1915 that “The poems inCathayare things of supreme beauty. … what poetry should be that they are. And if a new breath of imagery and of handling can do anything for our poetry, that new breath these poems bring” (Ford 1915:35). Randall Jarrell argues in hisFiftyYearsofAmericanPoetrythat “the best poems inCathayare marvelous in their crystalline clearness, in the way their words stand out in delicate lucid pure being (Jarrell 1962: 65). Though T. S. Eliot doubts that Ezra Pound’s translation workCathayis not faithful to the source text, he predicts thatCathaywill become a poetry model in the 21st century. In addition, he thinks Ezra Pound as “the inventor of Chinese poetry for our time because Ezra Pound’s Cathay enrich the English poems” (Zhu 2005: 45).

Xie Ming declares that it is difficult to distinguish from what is translation or adaptation and what is original composition. He argues that Pound’s translation stimulated and strengthened his poetic innovations, while the former one in turn guided and promoted his translations (Xie 1999:163). Zhao Yiheng says thatCathayis a success of Chinese poetry in the USA, henceforth Chinese poetry become a focus (Zhao 1985:150). Zhao also holds thatCathayprovides American poetry many new possibilities…. The influences generated byCathayon American new poetry movement are far more than any other Chinese poetry translation versions. In his Ph.D. paper, Yip Wei-lim argues that Ezra Pound can transmit the verse of the original work, though his translations are not loyal to the SL (Yip 1969:36). For Yip who gives the barest details argues that Pound inCathaygets into the central concerns of the original author by “clairvoyance”, andCathaypossesses an interesting and unique position in the history of English translation of Chinese poetry.ConstructionandIntrospection-AStudyofEzraPound’sTranslationis a relative comprehensive book in which the author, Zhu Chaoei (2005), analyses Ezra Pound’s translations in the light of the contemporary translation theories including Pound’s contribution to the innovation to American poetry. Generally speaking, this is the first systematic Chinese book discussing Ezra Pound’s translations written in Chinese. By translation, Ezra Pound finds out the relative relationship between tradition and creation. He thinks translation is not the simple reproduction, but a process of transformation (60).

Ⅲ. Translator’s Visibility in Pound’s Selection of

Materials

There are more than one hundred and fifty Chinese poems in Fenollosa’s manuscripts which is almost full of English explanations. However, only twenty-three of them are chosen in Pound’sCathay. Some critics of Pound’s time, like Cowley (1922), consider that Chinese poetry is merely loveliness but has no any beauty, and “sometimes the expression is purely pictorial, and there is no more appeal to emotion than appears upon a painted saucer” (521). Furthermore, to Salom(1916), “their poems are supreme in one direction only, -in the sphere of momentary suggestiveness; they are brief fights of song that have not time to soar high, tiny utterances that indicate more than they have opportunity to fulfill” (44). Therefore, to these critics, Chinese classical poems only have one or two points to be praised. Holding different opinions with those critics, Venuti suggests that translator can improve his status by choosing some certain source texts as his object. Of course,Cathay, the translated work from Chinese classical poems, is not considered as the popular work in the Western literature. It is of exploring the beauty and elegance when comparing from the aspect of Chinese and English languages. Being in ignorance of these prejudices from those scholars, Pound chooses Chinese classical poems as his translation materials out of his aim of changing the Victorian poetry form.

3.1 Pound’s challenge to the Victorian poetry

Being interested in the Chinese classical poems on one hand and combining his own thoughts with his subjectivity as a translator on the other hand, Pound chooses the twenty-three Chinese classical poems out of the following reasons.

First of all, Pound can challenge the popular poetry form of the Victorian period with the introducing the Chinese classical poems into English literature. In Pound’s time, most of the poets are proud of imitating the Victorian poetry which is characterized by the poets’ expression of their subject feelings and their euphuism. Whenever they have grief, passion, enthusiasm, hatred or other senses, the poets can express them as they like in the form of poem. However, this kind of creation only focuses on poet’s emotions, while it ignores the impersonal presentation, which leads to overflowing emotion because those Victorian poets prefer the euphemism seemed to be the “art for art’s sake”. As far as the nineteenth-century poetry is concerned, Pound (1914) has criticized that the Victorian poetry is an ambiguous (poetry), an overflowed emotion and an affected period (12). Pound points out that those poets of the Victorian period only

attach importance to lead off their emotion by image, which can not help readers to get the genuine feelings of the poets. Coincidently, Chinese classical poems meet Pound’s requirement of new poetry. The reason why Ezra Pound only chose twenty-three poems from the one hundred and fifty of Fenollosa’s manuscripts might be due to his own Imagism principles and his interest in Chinese culture.

It is a fact that Pound is fond of directly presenting images. To him, all the things are external and object, and the poet just presents a voice. Fortunately, Pound finds his poetics in accordance with the Chinese ancient poems which are translated Fenellosa’s album. Pound (1968) once comments “if we comprehend more about the Chinese poems, we will find this conception in them. Moreover, this has reflected in my translation” (218). The conception here means the characteristics like materiality, vision and pictorial images. In Pound’s opinion, the beauty of one thing should be found in itself, and the presentation of a thing’s beauty should be itself, which is the best way of showing (Pound 1914:28). In hisCathay, almost every poem has several or an obvious image at least. Therefore, all the poems in

Cathayare an excellent of his poetics. Pound explained in public his reasons of translating Chinese poetry, “It is because Chinese poetry has certain qualities of vivid presentation; and because certain Chinese poets have been content to set forth their matter without moralizing and without comment that one labors to make a translation” (Pound 1914:58)

Generally, the Chinese classical poems present readers with the vivid images after Pound introduces them into the Western countries, which brings freshness into the English poetry. W.C.Williams, an eminent English writer, concludes that comparing with the laconic art (the Chinese poems), the Western art seems to be more tensive (Zhao 1985:199). Thus many imagistic poets started to translate Chinese poems with their efforts to appreciate the profound art conception of the Chinese classical poems.

3.2 About war as Pound’s focus

Secondly, Pound’s intention of selecting three poems about war is to emphasize the serious result of war and the miserable life of the people.Cathayis published in Britain in the year of 1915 when the First World War has broken out for one year. InCathay, there are about three poems of war. They areSongoftheBowmenofShu《詩(shī)經(jīng) 小雅 采薇》,LamentoftheFrontierGuard《古風(fēng) 胡關(guān)饒風(fēng)沙》 andSouthfolkinColdCountry《古風(fēng) 代馬不思越》. During that period of time, the war brings Europeans great sufferings, while the government just attaches importance to the report of a victory from the frontier and in ignorance of the misery and suffering of soldiers. Thus the Europeans hate the war not only because that it causes their hardship but

also they have to depart with their relatives and friends. Therefore, we should combine Pound’s poetic principle and hisCathaywith his Imagism to figure out Pound’s intention to choose these poems. By translating the poems about war inCathayand with translating Chinese poems, Pound accuses the cruelty of war and expresses his resentment to the war. Most important of all, Pound shows his sympathy to these soldiers.

At the beginning of the album, the poemSongoftheBowmenofShuseems to be Pound’s violent accuse to the World War Ⅰ. Kenner once says thatCathayis an album of war for readers can observe the men who hold bows and arrows; the women who expect their husbands’ return; the destroyed dynasty; the lonely soldiers (Kenne 1953:184). All of these are out of Pound’s deliberate selection. Some poems are selected inCathaybecause of their obvious images includingTheCityofChoan,SouthFolkInColdCoutry,SenninPoembyKakuhaku, etc. As an important representative of Imagism, Pound holds that a precise image can help poet to present his instantaneous feelings (Pound 1914:89).

3.3 About women as the subject

Subject about women is another focus in Pound’sCathay.TheBeautifulToilet,TheRiverMerchant’sWife,TheJewelStair’sGrievanceandBalladoftheMulberryRoadare the four relative poems selected in this album. Almost all of the four poems talk about the lonely women whose husbands or lovers are absent. Like the Chinese women, the Western women are suffering their husbands’ absence. But being different from the Chinese women, Pound compares the Western women with Chinese women which reflect their hardship. The Western women feel lonely just because the World War Ⅰ. Pound’s translation about women informs the situation of the World War Ⅰ as well as emphasizing women’s considerable status in the poetry field. With much more attention to women inCathay, Pound implies in his selections that these youthful women, no matter in China or in the West, have no partner to share the ups and downs in their lives. They have neither opportunities to enjoy family happiness with their husbands nor a man to appreciate their youth and prettiness, which are causes of an unhappy life. Therefore, there

arise resentments among the women both in the East and West. TakeTheJewelStair’sGrievanceas an example, this poem depicts readers a lonely and infatuated woman waiting for her lover till late at the night in ignorance of her wet socks.

3.4 About departure as the theme

Another theme inCathayis departure between friends. There are four poems about departure between friends, includingFourPoemsofDeparture《送元二使安西》,SeparationontheRiverKiang《黃鶴樓送孟浩然之廣陵》,TakingLeaveofaFriend《送友人》 andLeave-TakingNearShoku《送友人入蜀》. The reason why Pound chooses this kind of subject is that the Europeans were in hardships because of the war. He selects these poems from the angle of friends and family members who are about to or already part with the person they care for. Such kinds of statements inspire many Westerners’ resonance. Therefore,Cathayhas achieved great success since its publication. Though there are no cars or buildings inCathay, the Chinese poem, i.e. Pound’s translation shortens the distance between the West and the East, which share the same resonance with the Western readers (Zhu 2005:56). An American poet once said that their (the Western) subjects might be literary and ideal in contrast with the simple but natural Chinese ones. (Zhao 1985: 195)

Ⅳ. Conclusion

InCathay, readers can get what is the translator’s intention after a close reading because the most of the poems in this album is of the four categories, which overturns the Western translation principle that what translator should do is to finish his task without any subjectivity in choosing translation material. It is from the selection of translation material that we can see Pound’s visibility in his translation. To him, the source texts are no longer the guide in his translation process, in other words, he does not have to translate the whole works of the source texts. On the contrary, he just chooses what he wants and what can help him to achieve his goals of embodying his challenge to the Victorian poetry and different problems caused by the war. Thus, his readers can get what he means and sometimes the readers can share the resonance with him. Through the novelty of the poems inCathay, Pound makes his own rendering methods accepted by many readers and even by the critics. All the strategies adopted by Pound challenge the dominance of the target-language culture, and this challenge as well as his friendly attitude toward cultures of other nations exerts great influence on the development of English poetry. As a result, his efforts in this regard helps to absorb alien cultural others and resist ethnocentrism and racism, together with cultural narcissism and imperialistic hegemony in the English-language translation. Most of all, the translator’s status is also almost promoted at the same place with the original author. The translator is no longer under the shadow of the author or even the publisher. In this way, the translations can offer the target reader as much room for imagination as the original does to the source-language readers. However, some connotations in the metaphorical images were lost because of cultural differences and his strict adherence to the original images.

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吳雨縉，女，貴州省人，紅河學(xué)院外國(guó)語(yǔ)學(xué)院講師，碩士，研究方向：英美文學(xué)；

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論《華夏集》中選材的譯者顯性

吳雨縉 羅旋

(紅河學(xué)院 外國(guó)語(yǔ)學(xué)院，云南 蒙自 661100)

在翻譯活動(dòng)中，最重要是活動(dòng)的主體，即譯者。但當(dāng)今譯壇中，譯者的地位從屬于原作者甚至原作品。為了改革當(dāng)時(shí)詩(shī)歌寫(xiě)作模式，呼吁人們認(rèn)識(shí)戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)帶來(lái)的危害，龐德精心翻譯16首詩(shī)歌納入《華夏集》。讀者們不難從選材上看出譯者的顯性。而該本詩(shī)集也證實(shí)譯者的顯性在譯文中存在的合理價(jià)值。

《華夏集》； 龐德； 譯者的顯性； 選材

羅旋，男，云南省人，紅河學(xué)院外國(guó)語(yǔ)學(xué)院講師，碩士，研究方向：英美文學(xué)。