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Product Environment - Read "cathay",

Posted on:2007-10-18Degree:DoctorType:Dissertation
Country:ChinaCandidate:P XuFull Text:PDF
GTID:1115360212484354Subject:Comparative Literature and World Literature
Abstract/Summary:PDF Full Text Request
Ezra Pound' Cathay made a stir upon publication in 1915 and was considered his" most enduring contribution" to the English poetry. The success of Cathay is actually the success of the classical Chinese poetry in the United States. The literature "Imagism" was launched and advocated by Pound who, during his life time, translated a variety of Chinese classical poems, bringing the Chinese traditional poetry into the western modern culture and thus stimulating the development of American new poems. And furthermore, Pound also benefited greatly from his translation of Chinese poems. By doing so, he gradually mastered the skill of handling the mood of the literary works that Chinese poets usually achieved, and managed to use them in his own poetic writing as a goal. He firmly believed that Chinese poetry would provide American new poetry with great value and practical quality.At first, the dissertation makes an investigation into Cathay, the masterpiece by Ezra Pound, and at the same time those Chinese poems be chosen to be translated. In those poems in Cathay, coming from Ernest Fenollosa's notes and translations of the ideograms of Rihakub (Li Po), Pound is at his best both as poet and translator; he is amazingly competent in transforming the Chinese poet's world into his own. As it is said in comparative literature, for literary works, the more national, the more international. In the course of being read, chosen, and translated by others, our traditional poems could be read closely from a new viewpoint, and its image can be explored and specific mood in Chinese poetry can be highlighted. And, "Image juxtaposition" is an amazing way found by Pound to translate the Chinese poem into English and express the feeling and mood.In Pound's eyes, what the poet's job is a rendering of something, within him or without, without deformation, which he has clearly apprehended and seized in his mind. His reading must be something of seeing. A good translation looks like a miracle because one who is able to read the original, can see the poem before the poet writes it, and marvel at the success of his efforts to subdue his own language to the vision; but Pound has always written as if to meet a test of this kind, in aspirit of a fidelity to his material, whether a document or an intuition. For Pound, translation is indeed somewhat easier than what is called 'original composition'. A translation, by extension, is a rendering of a modus of thought or feeling in its context after it has already been crystallized, by a Cavalcanti or a Rihaku. Pound's success in securing the precise images from point to point and gestures to embody a vision which is neither his property nor that of the translator. His best translations exist in something between pedagogy and personal expression. To sense a remoteness, a sense on Pound's part that he is doing something exotic, thin, appreciated rather than lived, that just prevents the Noh sequence from standing, as Cathay does, with his finest original work. Pound was able to turn what he found in the ideograms into his own, and to convey them to us in translation.Those studies on Ezra Pound and Cathay concentrate on the influence of Chinese Poets on the development of American modern poets, with few inquiries into the Chinese poetry itself. Starting from the angle of comparative Literature, it is very important to pay attention to the development of the Image in Chinese poets itself, and furthermore look carefully and deeply into the source poets in Chinese. This dissertation gathers both English and Chinese poets of Cathay, tastes and studies the image in the poets during the translation. And to solve the problem why Pound can create an amazing work in translation even he knew few Chinese. It is the Image in the poets, which finds expression in the sentences. Image was first rendered in the Chinese poets, later exerted influence on the literary creation of Japanese, and at last on Pound. And, contemporary Chinese younger poets have been influenced by the Image in the western literature to a great extent. Image is developing during the course of its being used, translated, influenced and imitated.All kinds of literary works come into being with the purpose of satisfying the human nature, with the essential factor about geography, psychology and aesthetics. One-dimensional thought of people in the East always tries to keep a harmonious relation with nature, while two-dimensional thought of people in the West always tries to controlthe nature. As cultural approaches, they run in opposite directions. But concerning the nature of human being, they are the same, just tainted with dust. What can and will clear the dust? The image can accomplish this goal. The image has the great power, and even more the "imagism made by image juxtaposition" has. Poetic image could clear the dust, arousing aesthetic memory in the heart.
Keywords/Search Tags:Ezra Pound, Image, Imagism, Aesthetics Memory, Chinese and western culture
PDF Full Text Request
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