China In Ezra Pound's Eyes

As one of the most influential poets of the 20th century, Ezra Pound makes significant contributions to American poetry not only as a poet but also as a translator. However, scholars at home and abroad concerning Ezra Pound's translation demonstrate such two kinds of tendency: some set a high value on his translation, while others severely criticize the unfaithfulness in his translation. This thesis is not to comment on this controversial issue or make a judgment of whether his translations are good or not. It intends to provide a new approach to studying his translation by putting it into a broader postcolonial context.This thesis consists of four chapters. Since Pound is most famous as a poet, there is great need to introduce Ezra Pound and his literary assertions in the first chapter. As one of advocators and leaders of Imagist movement, Pound set down three Imagist poetic principles, and after that he gradually shifted from Imagism to Vorticism. At the same time, Pound proposed another three important concepts: melopoeia, phanopeia and logopoeia. His most famous translation collection is Cathay, which are translations of nineteen Chinese classical poems.Chapter two mainly introduces Pound's translation theory. As one of representatives of North American Translation Workshop, Pound is not in favor of literal translation. His translation principle is concluded as "theory of luminous details" by Edwin Gentzler. In the process of translation, Pound's emphasis is put on specific details more than the meaning of the text. Furthermore, ideogrammatic method is another principle that greatly influences his translation.Postcolonial theory and postcolonial translation theory are illustrated in chapter three. As a part of interdisciplinary field of cultural studies, postcolonial theory focuses on the relationship of culture, discourse and power between the "post"-suzerain countries and the colonized countries. Postcolonial translation theory is the application of postcolonial theory to translation practice accompanied by the appearance of Polysystems theory and cultural turn in translation study.Chapter four is the core of the whole thesis, which takes a postcolonial approachto Cathay on the basis of different postcolonial translation theories. The first theory introduced is cannibalism proposed by Brazilian translators Haroldo & Augusto De Campos who take translation as a form of cannibalism with the emphasis on taking the nourishment by devouring them. When cannibalism is applied to translation, it is in the notion of "translation as transfusion of blood". Translator can create an original work in his or her own right with no necessity to fully stick to the source. Pound's motivation of translating Cathay is just a kind of transfusion of blood from Chinese literature. With the decline of Victorian poetry and the surprising discovery of Chinese poetry, Pound finds his way into poetry innovation by translating Chinese classical poems. The second theory is Andre Lefevere's rewriting. Translation is a rewriting of an original text which is mainly under the influence of ideology and poetics. By analyzing Pound's selection of translation texts in Cathay, the themes of nineteen poems chosen by Pound are closely associated with the history and the ideology in Pound's time. Pound's poetics is another essential factor influencing his translation, which conversely serves for his poetics. This chapter analyzes the influence of Pound's triple concepts — melopoeia, phanopoeia, logopoeia — on his translation with supporting examples. The third postcolonial theory is Said's orientalism, which acclaims that the Orient is in fact the "Other" imagined by westerners. Even if Pound shows great respect for the East, the otherness of it has been reflected consciously or unconsciously in his translation.hi the conclusion part, the author points out that translators are unavoidably influenced by the ideological factors in the process of making decisions. In light of the post-colonialism theory, the relationship of the Orient and the West is not an equal one. The power differentials more or less affect cultural exchange as well as literary translation.