On Ezra Pound's Translation Strategies In Cathay

1915 saw the first appearance of Ezra Pound's slim anthology entitled Cathay, translations of 19 classical Chinese poems. Its philological errors often fall under some critics' attack, while the creative translation and its distinct foreign flavor win others' praise. This thesis is essentially descriptive rather than prescriptive. A new perspective, Han Vermeer and Christiane Nord's Skopostheorie, is adopted to reexamine and reevaluate Cathay.After a brief introduction of the thesis in Chapter one, Chapter two is mainly focused on the theoretical framework of the thesis. It should be noted here that since no theory is adequate to explain fully the enormous complexity of translation activity, Skopostheorie, in this thesis, will be supplemented by Polysystem theory and Manipulation theory, etc, to make it more reasonable and comprehensive. Translation is, by nature, a purposeful text-processing activity under the guidance of certain translation brief set by the initiator. The translated text is supposed to have both intratextual coherence with the receivers' situation and intertextual coherence with the corresponding source text. According to Skopostheorie, intertextual coherence is subordinate to intratextual coherence, and both subordinate to translation brief. More importantly, the criterion for judging a translated text is its adequacy to the translation brief instead of its equivalence with the source text.Chapter three centers on Ezra Pound's literary viewpoints. Being tired of Victorian genteel poetry in the late 19th century, Pound began to draw inspiration from classical literature and foreign literature, among which Chinese classical poetry was of great appeal. The modern qualities he found in Chinese classical poetry, in one way or another, supported his Imagist principles, which finally led to his translations of the 19 Chinese classical poems. Though he attached great importance to directness in poetry, Pound also favored the suggestiveness in Chinese poetry, for his ideas of "images" are multi-dimensional and more involved. His preference for modern poetic language and Vers Libre is also elaborated in this part.Chapter four is the major part of the thesis. Though not a translation theorist,Pound has his principles of translating. He once stated, "my job (here refers to translation) was to bring a dead man to life, to present a living figure." (Ira B. Nadel, 2001: 205) Therefore, when translating Cathay, he sets a definite translation brief, i.e., to find support for his Imagist poetry, to shatter the Victorian genteel tradition, and to restore the cultural renaissance in the long run by ushering in exotic poetics, language and culture. The processing of the 19 Chinese classical poems is just under the guidance of such a brief. As a result, Cathay demonstrates distinct characteristics. Compared with other Sinologists' versions, Cathay teems with dense images. In some poems, vortexes are preserved or created to intensify the central effect of the original poems. Besides some of the cultural elements are reduced. As for the linguistic elements, Chinese strict rhythm patterns are removed, while some of Chinese grammar and syntax, such as juxtaposition of nouns, are brought into English. In all, the preservation and removal of certain elements of the original texts are all in line with Pound's translation brief.The reception and influence of Cathay are reviewed in Chapter five. The immediate warm reception after its publication in 1915 led to Westerners' enthusiastic study of Chinese literature. Cathay is generally regarded as the "pencil sketches" for The Cantos, and in a large scale, it exerts great influence on modern literature as a whole via its techniques, poetics and cultural value. Besides, translation theory and practice afterwards have all benefited from Pound's creative translation to some extent.The first five chapters set the stage for conclusions in Chapter six. Judged in the Skopostheorie framework, Cathay is an anthology of successfully translated poems. Its adequacy to Pound's tr...