Nov 06 2014
Chinese poetry
In class today we discussed, how accurate a translation of a piece of literature really is. I discussed the poem Ch’ang Kan by Li Po, which has three different translations. The scholarly article which I used is all posted on the blog by the professor. The main point I was trying to show was how a piece of work which is translated could have many different versions. In all three poems there are some differences in the way it is formatted as well as how it is translated. In poem 1 and 2 it says green plums, and in poem three it says blue plums. As some of the native speakers helped us understand, that the real color is really turquoise and not what it says in the translation. The main part of the discussion was when a translator, translates something from another language how accurate is the translation, and how much of it is from what the translator wants to insert.
You could find the three poems by clicking HERE
The scholarly article could be found by clicking HERE
An original copy of the poem (in Chinese) could be found by clicking HERE