With all the different versions of this poem, the author’s writing method and word choice separates the poems. Just from the titles of the poems, they each show a different side to the same story.
In “The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter” by Ezra Pound, the writing used in the poem is much more casual. Also, the tone here in this version is sad since every stanza describes the narrator as being sad and even the place where she lives is filled with sorrow.
With W.J.B. Fletcher’s “That Parting at Ch’ang Kan”, the poem is written in a very formal and old style. The words being used aren’t words you use everyday such as o’er, lo, and thee. With these words, the whole poem becomes difficult to understand. The tone from this poem seems to show the narrator as being very anxious of her husband’s return.
In contrast to the previous poem, Witter Bynner’s “A Song of Ch’and Kan” simplifies the words being used in the poem . The simplicity of it makes the poem relatively easy to understand . The writing here could be said as being the language that most people would talk with nowadays. The tone of the poem gives off also a sad and longing tone from the narrator.
The version I like more than the others would be Shigeyoshi Obata’s “Two Letters from Chang-Kan“. It gives the narrator an actual image when the first line describes her as being a river merchant’s wife. Also with how everything is described in the poem, I find it to be the most well described of the various versions.
2 responses so far ↓
ms158714 // Mar 31st 2015 at 7:54 pm
I too found it difficult to read certain poems as certain translators over complicated the prose. Instead of being simple and straight to the point, their choice of words and stanza separation botched the poem.
rh161368 // Mar 31st 2015 at 9:25 pm
I agree that Shigeyoshi Obata’s version was a lot more descriptive than other versions and I think it was more organized than the rest of the interpretations which made it easier to understand the changes between parts of the song.