Principles of Poetic Imagism in Cathay A Case Study of Ezra Pound’s Translation Theory

1、principles of poetic imagism in cathay: a case study of ezra pounds translation theory华夏集中的诗歌意象主义原则：庞德翻译理论的例案研究 摘 要庞德是20世纪早期美国现代诗歌革新的奠基者和领导者。作为一个诗人，他倡导和推动了意象派诗歌运动,他的意象主义诗歌把英美诗歌从讲究修辞和机械呆板的节奏中解放出来.同时他又是个翻译家，他探讨了诗歌的可译性并且在很大程度上，改写了诗歌翻译的性质和理念。他的一些翻译原则和实践，与他的诗学是密不可分的。他的诗歌翻译处处体现了他的意象主义思想。这篇论文将首先探讨庞德的一些基本的翻

2、译思想。然后以他的华夏集为例，对他翻译中的意象主义作进一步研究。庞德的华夏集中国古典诗歌的翻译, 他代表了的诗歌翻译理论，并且对西方文学有重大的影响。与以往中国古诗翻译不同，在华夏集中庞德使用了一种新的翻译方法，这种方法支持他提出的意象主义观点。庞德，“中国诗歌的发明者”，不仅仅模仿，改编，改写了中国古典诗歌，并且用现代主义意象诗歌的特点重现了中国古典诗歌里的意象。因此，一种新颖而独特的庞式翻译方法由此而生。关键词：华夏集、庞德的翻译思想、诗歌翻译、意象主义abstractezra pound is the founder and leader of modern american poeti

3、c innovation in early 20th century. as a poet, he advocates and promotes the imagism movement which sets american and european poetry free from the rhetorical diction and rigid rhythmical pattern. meanwhile he is a translator. as a translator, he has discussed the translatability of poetry and has l

4、argely redefined the nature and ideal of poetic translation. his poetry translation principles and practices are closely related to his poetics. this thesis will firstly focus on some of pounds basic translation thoughts and then take a case of study of his cathay to explore the imagism in his trans

5、lation.pounds cathay-translation of chinese classical poetry is representative of his poetry translation theory and has a great influence on the western literature. different from others translation of chinese classical poetry, in of cathay, pound employs an innovative translation method which loyal

6、ly followed and carried on the imagism poetic principles he advocates. pound, “the inventor of chinese poetry”, not only imitates, adapts and rewrites the classical chinese poetry, but also re-made the images in the classical chinese poetry with the modern imagism poetic characters. therefore a new

7、and unique poundian translation method came into being.key words: cathay, pounds theory of translation, poetry translation, imagismcontents摘 要iabstractiichapter 1 introduction111 an overview about ezra pound112 pound as a poet113 pound as a translator2chapter 2 pounds basic ideas on translation32.1

8、the role of translator32.2 the motivation of translation42.2.1 literature enrichment42.2.2 cultural salvation42.3 the translatability of poetry62.3.1 melopoeia62.3.2 phanopoeia62.3.3 logopoeia7chapter 3 case study on cathay73.1 the translation of chinese classical poetry before pound73.2 pounds tran

9、slation strategies in cathay83.2.1 the treatment of rhyme and form83.2.2 the treatment of image103.2.3 the treatment of allusion123.3 the mistranslation in cathay133.3.1 accidental mistranslation133.3.2 deliberate mistranslation14chapter 4 conclusion14references15appendix 17acknowledgements 34chapte

10、r 1 introduction1.1 an overview about ezra poundborn on october 30, 1885 in hailey, idaho, ezra loomis pound grew up in philadelphia. with a strong will to become a great poet, he entered university of pennsylvania at the age of fifteen and got ma degree. in 1908 he left america for europe where he

11、made friends with many literary peers, started the imagism movement and became famous. during world war ii, he delivered many speeches full of fascism and anti-semitism on rome radio. after the war us government arrested and charged him with treason. however, pound was found insanity and sent to st

12、elizabeths. hospital and stayed there as long as twelve years. in 1949 he was awarded the bollingen prize for the pisan canto, which astonished the literary circle then. with the help of ernest hemingway, t.s. eliot and other poets and writers, pound finally discharged from st. elizabeths and return

13、ed to italy in 1958. afterwards, he devoted to finishing canto and studying confucianism. in 1927, he passed away in venice and buried in san michele cemetery on the island of san giorgio maggiore.in a sense, it is ezra pound who started the american modernism literature. leading imagism, he revolte

14、d against the conventional and victorian poetry. throughout his life he contributed to the innovation of literature continuously and had left many great works such as: a lume spento, personae, exultations, cathay, certain noble plays of japan, the cantos, and translations of confucius and so on. bes

15、ides his own work, pound supported and encouraged other modernists. “the strange thing is that ezra was so inexpressibly kind to anyone who he felt had the faintest spark of submerged talent” recalled h.d. 3 this may explain why so many writers helped to get pound set free in his later life. 1.2 pou

16、nd as a poetit is no doubt that one of pounds great achievements is his poetics. the core of his poetics is imagism and vorticism. (vorticism is the further development of imagism.)after sufficient theoretical preparation and ceaseless poetic practice, pound became the most outstanding leader of ima

17、gism. he defined image as an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time, as a vortex or cluster of fused ideas with energy. this may be difficult to understand. his three principles of imagism are much more concreted: 1. direct treatment of the thing whether subjective or objective2. t

18、o use absolutely no word that does not contribute to the presentation3. as regarding rhythm: to compose in the sequence of the musical phrase, not in the sequence of a metronomethese principles provide some basic writing rules for the imagist writers. the imagist theories call for brief language, pi

19、npointing the precise picture in as few words as possible, which to some extend coincide with the principle of chinese classical poetry. stressing free choice of subject matters, musical phrases, economy of expression and the use of a dominant image, or a quick succession of related images, imagism

20、revolts against romantic and victorian poetry. thus, it ushered in a whole new era of poetic experimentation.1.3 pound as a translatorthere has been an endless discussion about whether pound is a translator or not. “the case of the scholars against pound as a translator,” as g.s. fraser 2 has observ

21、ed, “is that he perpetually shows signs of not knowing properly the language he is translating from.” however, this view is not credible, for “pound studied, among other subjects, english, latin, german, french, italian, spanish, provencal, anglo-saxon, and greek” 14. this proves pounds serious atti

22、tude to learn multi-languages to better understand the original. the explanation for his translations going against the original lies in his special translation principles and ideas. as lawrence venuti commented in a nutshell, “in pounds view, the autonomy of translation takes two forms. a translate

23、d text might be interpretative, a critical accompaniment, usually printed text to the foreign poem and composed of linguistic peculiarities that direct the reader across the page to foreign textual feature, like a lexical choice or a prosodic effect. or a translation might be original writing, in wh

24、ich literary standards in the translating culture guide the rewriting of the foreign poem so decisively as to seem a new poem in that language. the relation between the two texts doesnt disappear; it is just masked by an illusion of originality, although in target-language terms.” 14the dominant tra

25、nslation tradition before the 20th century in the west focuses upon the concept of faithfulness. the prevalent translation strategy advertised by translation practitioners is the linguistic approach. this may explain why pounds approach to chinese poem is often denounced as full of mistakes. pound w

26、ith his special translation thoughts and practices make people started to see translation in the perspective of literature and culture.chapter 2 pounds basic ideas of translation 2.1 the role of translator in pounds eyesgenerally speaking there are three kinds of the role of translator: the invisibi

27、lity; the servant and the rebel. norman shapiro is the supporter of “the invisibility of the translator”: “i see translation as the attempt to produce a text so transparent that it does not seem to be translated. a good translation is like a pane of glass. you only notice that its there when there a

28、re little imperfections-scratches, bubbles. ideally, there shouldnt be any. it shouldnt be any. it should never call attention to itself.” 5 traditionally faithful to the original is the priority in translation. for instance, eugene a.nida claimed that “translating consists in reproducing in the rec

29、eptor language the closest natural equivalent of the source language message, first in terms of meaning and secondly in terms of style” 6. under this principle, the translators must try to make their works be equivalent to the original and hide their own opinion. thus, the author of the original is

30、just like the master while the translator is an absolute server who has no choice but to obey. people jokingly call the translator “a dancer with chains on the heels”. for thousands of years, this guide ignored and killed the activeness, personality, and creativity of the translator.however, in poun

31、ds eyes, the translator is by no means a servant. pound insists on the activity of the translator. “.what he insists upon, though, is that the translator should first and foremost be a reader. through his many notes and comments on translation, there is a consistent line of thought, which attributes

32、 to the translator a dual responsibility. the translator needs to read well, to be aware of what the source text is, to understand both its formal properties and its literary dynamic as well as its status in the source system, and then has to take into account the role that text may have in the targ

33、et system. time and again, pound reminds us that a translation should be a work of art in its own right, for anything less is pointless” 10 from passage above we can know that pound has a very clear mind maximizing the power of the translator. in his mind, the original work is the information provid

34、er, while the translator is the maker, the master. the translator should at one time respect the original but at the same time change it as needs. translation is to reflect the essence of the original and satisfy the motivation of the translator. therefore the translator must be active, from choosin

35、g the material to transfer the meaning. in pounds translation, he dares to be visible and adds to his label.2.2 the motivation of translation translation is a human activity and human activities usually have motivations, thus translation is no exception. in pounds view, there are two kinds of motiva

36、tion for his translation.2.2.1 literature enrichmentwith a full awareness of the importance of the translation, pound in his essay remarked: “it (english literature) was kept alive during the last century by a series of exotic injections. swinburne read greek and took english metric in hand; prosset

37、ti brought in the italian primitives; fitzgerald made the only good poem of the time that has gone to the people; it is called, and is to a great extent, a trans- or mistranslation.after this period english literature lives on translation, it is fed by translation; every new exuberance, every new he

38、ave is stimulated by translation, every allegedly great age is an age of translation” 2. pound believes that translation could bring new energy to target literature. hugh kenner in the pound ezra (1971) noted that “it seems to have been about 1911 that pound came to think of translation as a model f

39、or the poetic are: blood brought to ghosts” as for his poetics, there is no doubt that it is imagist movement. he finds his way into rejuvenating the english poetry by translating chinese classical poems. pound himself explains the reason why he translates chinese poetry in his essay “chinese poetry

40、”, “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 wihtout comment” 1. he regards translation as a model for the poetic art. translating chinese classical poems into englis

41、h greatly enriches the american poetry and provided english readers with freshness. by absorbing and digesting the chinese poetry, pound is able to take the nutrition and gradually transfuse it into native american literature coupled with his great admiration and respect for chinese poetry. during t

42、he translation, pound does not pay much attention to the traditional faithfulness which emphasized the linguistic equivalence. on the contrary, he imitates adapts and rewrites the original works. 2.2.2 cultural salvation pound once wrote that literature does not exist in vacuum. it is the same with

43、translation. a good translation should not consider its literal meaning but also the reality meaning in the target society. take cathay for example to understand pounds thoughts of translation as cultural salvation.according to textual research17，“cathay” is an antiquated english word referring to a

44、 far away fairly land. in addition, on the left of the cover of the first edition of cathay is a big chinese character “耀” which literally means “shining”. to be specific the title of this book is “耀 &cathay ”. since it is a convention that the title of the book must correspond with the content of t

45、he book, the title seems to tell that in this book pound will introduce a rich, prosperous and fantastic china to us. there are 18 english poems translated from 19 chinese classical poems. (pound combined two of libais poems into one) fenollosas manuscripts provide pound with 150 chinese poems conce

46、rning diverse themes. however, pound mainly chooses those sad ones. as hugh kenner points out, “ cathay is largely a war book.its exiled bowmen, deserted women, leveled dynasties, departures for far places, lonely frontier guardsmen and glories remembered from afar, cherished memoriesthe cathay poem

47、s paraphrase an elegiac war poetry nobody wrote.” 8 out of the 19 poems, three focus on the motif of the complaint of the frontier soldiers. these are song of the bowmen of shu, lament of the frontier guard, and south-folk in cold country. another three poems the beautiful toilet, the river-merchant

48、s wife: a letter, and the jewel stairs grievance concentrate on the complaints of the abandoned wives. the sadness of departure is also an important motif, which can be seen in four poems of departure, separation on the river kiang, taking leave of a friend, leave-taking near shoku and the city of c

49、hoan. another five poems center on the poets loneliness: the river song, poem by the bridge at ten-skin, exiles letter, sennin poem by kakuhaku, and to-em-meis “the unmoving clound.”. only the last two poems are about the good days in the past. however these are also sorrowful because the good belon

50、gs to the past. the sadness of soldiers, abandoned wives, departing friends, lonely persons and the reminiscence of the past are consistent throughout cathay. from the discussion above, we know that the title of the book contrast greatly with the content of the book. if we relate to the background o

51、f that time, it may be easier to understand pounds motivation during the selection.in and before the year of the appearance of cathay, europe was torn apart by world war two. people were tortured by tough war affairs, forced departure and misery of death. soldiers traveled far away to defend the glo

52、ry of their nations, sometimes in vain, leaving their beloved ones depressed and desperate. the sense of estrangement and disillusion prevailed. under this circumstance, pounds acumen for the war-torn people helped set the tone of sadness for the anthology of cathay. the early 20th century in the we

53、st is filled with the contradictions between man and nature, man and society and between men themselves. apparently, pound was talking about the society of old china while in fact it was about the cruel reality in modern western world. under the persona of alien culture, it moved the western readers

54、.2.3 the translatability of poetrytranslation of literal works is indeed a difficult task not even the translation of poetry. for many years, people try to define the translation of poetry. robert frosts remark that “poetry is what gets lost in translation” 10 implies that poetry is some intangible,

55、 ineffable thing which, although constructed in language cannot be transposed across language. however, pound commits to the translation of poetry and determines to find “the indestructible” or “what can not be lost” in poetry translation.2.3.1 melopoeiain his polite essays 2, pound laid out three o

56、f poetry, in which language is charged or energized. the first is melopoeia, or the musical property of the words, which means that music directs the shape of meaning. in pounds words, this musical quality can be appreciated by “the foreigner with the sensitive ear, even though he be ignorant of the

57、 language translated from.” however, “it is practically impossible to transfer or translate it from one language to another, save perhaps by divine accident, and for a half line at a time”.1 the music property of poems is mainly embodied by sound and rhythm. the intensity of sound can be achieved by

58、 the use of rhyme, alliteration, assonance, consonance and so on. at that time, the overwhelming rhythm used in poetry is iambic pentameter. greatly objected to monotony and meaninglessness in victorian poetry, pound advocates free verse. in his translation, pound freely breaks and links the lines to adapt to various emotions. 2.3.2 phanopoeiathe second is phanopoeia, or the visual property of the words, which is the “casting of images upon the visual imagination.” 1 pound regards it as the easiest to translate. it can be translated “almost, or wholly, intact” for i