tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3395481176873249475.post8832522561275670355..comments2024-03-29T13:53:58.551+08:00Comments on Classical Chinese Poems in English: 李煜 Li Yu: 浪淘沙 懷舊 Lang Tao Sha (Waves Scouring the Sands) ReminiscenceAndrew W.F. Wong 黃宏發http://www.blogger.com/profile/13042865467544530221noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3395481176873249475.post-60139199230156998902011-04-13T07:14:27.490+08:002011-04-13T07:14:27.490+08:00hi, andrew,
may i post below an alternative rendi...hi, andrew,<br /><br />may i post below an alternative rendition with a slightly different interpretation:<br /><br />【浪淘沙·懷舊】 南唐·李煜<br />簾外雨潺潺<br />春意闌珊<br />羅衾不耐五更寒<br />夢裡不知身是客<br />一晌貪歡<br />獨自莫憑欄<br />無限江山<br />别時容易見時難<br />流水落花春去也<br />天上人間<br /><br />Tune: “Lang Tao Sha” (Waves Panning Sands) -- Reminiscence <br /> Li Yu (936-978: South Tang)<br />Outside my window-blinds the rain's dripping,<br />Alas, sweet Spring is fast away slipping. <br />Before-dawn chills my quilt cannot restrain;<br />In dreams, I know not a guest I remain,<br />For a while, a king again!<br /><br />Alone, from lean'ng on railings I must refrain, <br />O Before me lies my lost, boundless domain!<br />'Twas easier to part than be united --<br />Fallen flowers riding on<br />Flowing waters, and Spring's gone --<br />From hea'en to earth, I fell unexpected!Frank Yuehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17939635563021036391noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3395481176873249475.post-26520241302700414292011-02-28T01:09:39.588+08:002011-02-28T01:09:39.588+08:00您好,我是一个普通的男人, 也是普通读者...
There is great satisfacti...您好,我是一个普通的男人, 也是普通读者...<br /><br />There is great satisfaction in a superb translation ... We feel that something important is being said in the original language and in the parallel world of the translation ... Before Andrew Wong's magesterial efforts, there were inert words, or (for some readers) unintelligible markings on a page ... Now there is illumination ... This reader is grateful for a mirror text in which an original brilliance is reflected equally brightly ... <br /><br />I am sure I am not alone in admiring the translator's open-mindedness, and his patience in replying to all comments, even these, however off the mark they may be ... His very public acts of revision bring fresh hope to the art of Chinese to English translation ... <br /><br />To the translator's observation that what is posted here is "not a commentary on the poem," I hope that it will not be too much to assert that all translations are commentaries ... I leave aside the deeper issue of understanding the source texts themselves as commentaries ... <br /><br />Thus, mention of 刘禹锡's《忆江南》has a two-fold purpose, first, it concentrates attention on the Chinese contexts, and second, it points to the text as an organic whole integrated at some level into its cultural context, and permits us to see how this text is distinguished by deviation from that context (for example, in the subtle transformation of the first mention of seasons, l. 2 春意闌珊, to the second at l.9 流水落花春去也) ... The idea that "the thread should be accounted for" simply means that this verbal transformation might show up in the translator's choice of wording, perhaps as thematics ... I offer the following as an example:<br /><br />Nature and politics collide where cyclical change meets a linear model of history ... <br /><br />If I were a British reader (I'm not -- I now live in the midst of the political turmoil of an emerging democracy known as America), I should think that this poem is more Ozymandias than Paradise Lost ...<br /><br />No one would equate the passing of a season to the loss of an empire, except ironically; one involves cyclical and fleeting perceptions, the other, permanent loss and irreversible grief ... It is worth noting that in this sense, whatever else the poem is doing, it is signaling the suppression of a genre, as it is tracing a trajectory from 闺怨 to 哀辞 ... The translator must decide boundaries ... <br /><br />One develops a feeling, I suppose, of what it must have been like for Li Yu to write these words, or, in a broader sense, for Chinese culture to produce them ... At the very least, this "lament" is a rather complex example of the Chinese aesthetic, 此刻, 此景, 此情, but place has been displaced, the speaker of the text is not where he should be, and is in exile ... <br /><br />And to the degree that the larger theme of exile emerges, I wonder whether the revision of "paradise" to "land" goes far enough ... <br /><br />故乡何处是?<br />李清照 《菩萨蛮》<br /><br />Something has been lost ... What has been lost? ...<br /><br />不知道哪个世界才是他的家乡<br />穆旦 《自己》chinapetehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00584326901851736245noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3395481176873249475.post-6053566126253857172011-02-24T18:03:54.139+08:002011-02-24T18:03:54.139+08:00To continue my response to [TJPete], I do not quit...To continue my response to [TJPete], I do not quite follow his/her "… however distant the echo, the thread should be accounted for …". What I post here is neither an introduction to nor a commentary on the poem itself, but my translation. But I do thank him/her for telling us that Li Yu was not the first to have used the phrase 春去也. Although anyone could have thought of the expression 春去也, Li Yu must have borrowed it from his predecessor Liu Yuxi whose 憶江南 became so famous that the "tune" (詞牌) itself became known also as 春去也. If I may add, Li Yu also wrote a 憶江南 which runs "多少恨/昨夜夢魂中/還似舊時游上苑/車如流水馬如龍/花月正春風" with an XAXAA rhyme scheme required by the "tune".Andrew W.F. Wong 黃宏發https://www.blogger.com/profile/13042865467544530221noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3395481176873249475.post-35172649716443278152011-02-22T13:07:06.579+08:002011-02-22T13:07:06.579+08:00I thank {TJPete] for his/her very fair and insight...I thank {TJPete] for his/her very fair and insightful comment on my allusion to John Milton's Paradise Lost/Regained. It is in the least distracting and at worst detracting and should find no place in a translation of this poem. In attempting to lay bare the true meaning of line 8 as "losing and regaining a kingdom", I forgot, as a translator, I needed to retain the original subtle ambiguity. And worse, I substituted "paradise" for "land" and made this entirely inappropriate allusion. I have now decided to revise the line to read:<br />"A land so easy to part with, so hard to return to again".Andrew W.F. Wong 黃宏發https://www.blogger.com/profile/13042865467544530221noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3395481176873249475.post-74033567631852798642011-02-19T13:50:15.235+08:002011-02-19T13:50:15.235+08:00I have followed with great interest the numerous a...I have followed with great interest the numerous and often technical comments on this translation, especially the translator’s own – that is why I am posting these comments here, I want to focus only on the translator’s views, as expressed in the notes:<br /><br />What is the function of allusion in the English translation? For example, the bold reference to Milton is intriguing, not least of all because it takes the reader momentarily outside of the Chinese context (assuming there is such a thing, in the translator’s mind, as a “Chinese” context distinct from a “Western”) … What does the translator believe should happen when the reader encounters an allusion in the translation that refers not to the Chinese tradition, but to the Western? … Should the original recede completely, is it to be retained in a sort of dual focus, as a simultaneous illumination of the Chinese and a deepening of the English, or is there to be no connection between the Chinese and the English? … <br /><br />我举一个例子, 这些诗句吧:<br />無限江山 <br />别時容易見時難 <br />流水落花春去也<br /><br />Here, an elaboration into Miltonic imagery is tempting, but it is hard to understand how we get there (I’m sure a few of the commentators in the other blog noticed this); but whatever the rationale, shouldn’t the reader also be made aware of more direct allusions:<br /><br />刘禹锡《忆江南》<br /><br /> 春去也!多谢洛城人。弱柳从风疑举袂,等等。。。<br /><br />此词作于唐文宗开成三年(c. 838)(陈冲敏, 《唐宋词选》) … however distant the echo, the thread should be accounted for … <br /><br />Second question: Would it be right to assume that the focus of this translation is on iconicity, that is, the conformity in English to the form of the original … Thus there is much talk in the notes about pentameters and hexameters, internal and eye rhymes … And would it also be right to say that the iconicity plays out mostly at the level of sound, and not in the visual imagery? … We get a host of rather odd contractions, occasional archaisms, syntactic inversions – in short, English by Keats (I hope the translator takes this as a high compliment) … I mention this because it seems to me that the typical Western reader brings to (Chinese) poetry a bias towards visual imagery, and not sound – Frost was banished (or self-exiled) for claiming, in the teeth of Pound’s imagism, that the “sound is the gold in the ore” … <br /><br />Would the translator agree that, as the interpolated title “lament” implies, meaningful sound is the quality that carries the original, and therefore also ought to be carried as faithfully as possible into the translation? …chinapetehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00584326901851736245noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3395481176873249475.post-89545961939938686402011-02-17T16:10:11.553+08:002011-02-17T16:10:11.553+08:00I have made some revisions to my rendition. These...I have made some revisions to my rendition. These have been effected on my post of the same title on my other blog on www.hkej.com. To visit that blog, just click the "fountain pen" logo at the right hand top corner of this page. I will, of course, effect these revision on this post in due course. Andrew Wong.Andrew W.F. Wong 黃宏發https://www.blogger.com/profile/13042865467544530221noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3395481176873249475.post-32091840625460430552011-02-16T17:51:39.787+08:002011-02-16T17:51:39.787+08:00Dear Azurino, Thank you, but "In Captivity&q...Dear Azurino, Thank you, but "In Captivity" is not my title. Mine is "Reminiscence". Andrew Wong.Andrew W.F. Wong 黃宏發https://www.blogger.com/profile/13042865467544530221noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3395481176873249475.post-51547984823961072072011-02-16T16:50:46.682+08:002011-02-16T16:50:46.682+08:00In Captivity一題不俗,然此譯亦甚雅,不過數字後漏左隔一格 :P
呢首中文詩唔知有無令發叔...In Captivity一題不俗,然此譯亦甚雅,不過數字後漏左隔一格 :P<br />呢首中文詩唔知有無令發叔諗起Greensleeves呢?不過一個係不愛江山愛美人,一個係江山又無,朝臣又無,連D身家都走埋佬,哈哈。Azurinohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08990533595474003768noreply@blogger.com