My analysis focuses on three translations of the famous Li Po poem by Ezra Pound, Amy Lowell and Wai-Lim Yip.
In Pound’s version the feeling of the woman speaker is presented throughout specific phases of her emotional development. We could feel how Pound divides the poem into different strophes, in order to define more contrastively the succeeding steps of revelation. He starts with: “While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead I played about the front gate, pulling flowers.” Use of words “while “ and “still” initiates into the story an anticipated feel of sentiment, nostalgia, lost purity and succeeding frustration, experienced by the narrator before she married her extant “Lord.” However, even thought the narrative tone of the poem is melancholic, it does not possess dramatic finish, rather regretful touch about transience of time, her naïve nature and sureness in everlasting passion that is implied in “Forever and forever and forever” line. Therefore, at the start of the poem a feel of ambivalence and nostalgia is implied, and the succeeding connection of the past state of innocence, through the stage of acceptance. Even thought the second part of the poem is very emotional, still we could trace this connection between the tone of childish and carefree insouciant and the regretful gravity of a young wife suddenly made older by the loneliness and anxiety of separation. Remarkably, this poem doesn’t offer you any explicit version of what was happened. Yes, we could understand that the narrator is struggle with loneliness, from the lines “They hurt me and I grow older”, but still, she seems too modest to complain openly, and Pound remains rather too tactful to hint at this, since she seems to have no reason to reproach her husband.
Lowell’s version, entitled “Ch’ang Kan”, contrasting can be viewed as a dramatic speech. The difference between the two translations would be that in the Pound’s version the speaker’s emotion and attitude would be generated from within the narrative and the perspective provided, while in the Lowell a more external, outside-looking-in approach is embraced. Lowell’s version is more implied and we could see it right from the beginning. The narrator, “ the Unworthy one” start her story by using the third-person pronoun “she” and “her” in the first two lines. These third-person forms could indicate that Lowell wants to invoke the superficial Western stereotypes for self-effacing oriental modesty by making the woman-speaker ironically refer to herself in the third person. “Then you, my Lover…” in the third line is probably an attempt at irony. Similarly in the seventh line: “At fourteen, I became the wife of my Lord.” For some reason, this version for me sounds ironic and more emotional, then the first one. First part of the poem is explicitly telling the audience what happened with “the Unworthy one”, she is failed and frantic “I often thought that you were the faithful man / that I should never be obligated to ascend to the Looking for husband ledge” She is blaming her husband for everything that what happen to her: “my heart is beating with grief / the bloom of my face has faded, sitting with my sorrows”. For me this version is associated with a fresh wound, since it hurts and bleeds and you could never forget or distract from it, while the first version is reminds me the concealed long illness, when you could only approximate your condition. The interesting fact is also the use of tenses; in the Lowell’s version, in the second paragraph the author uses generally Present Progressive tense when he describes the feelings of the narrator, while Pound uses Past tense. Therefore, this grammatical mechanism could emphasize the fact of more melancholic and calm tone of the Pound version, compare to intense and dramatic tone of Lowell’s one.
The last translation I choose is the Wai-Lim-Yip version. For me this version has the most traditional feel. The author avoids excessively lengthily single lines, preferring where necessary to use two rather then one. So it gives to the author more poetic control. This version is less emotional then other two, and looks like translation without the author’s interpretation of the text or any emotional undertones. Likewise this version doesn’t have any formality, compare to the previous version, which softened by the direct address of “you” and “I”.
Perhaps, my favorite translation is The River – Merchant’s Wife: A Letter by Ezra Pound, since this version is feel more like interpretation rather then translation, and this particular version brings imaginative insight that strengthening our understanding without reasoning to amplification (as, for example, we can see in second version). This translation is a golden mean between two extreme versions discussed above. It has the right amount of emotions, elegantly and intelligently presented to the audience. Also, I like that Pound has transported over and constructed the image of a gentle, emotionally sophisticated and mature woman in his version without “emotional nakedness” of Lowell’s version and plain character of Wai-Lam Yip’s version.
1 response so far ↓
m.ruiz // Mar 31st 2015 at 6:40 am
This is such a fancy post that it was a little difficult for me to understand what you were saying. I think it is cool how you bring up that the speaker is acting as if she is too modest to complain in the first poem; it almost is as if she feels like she does not have the right to complain. I am not sure what you mean when you say that Lowell’s version is more implied. You find importance in the words “while” and “still” in the first thought of the first poem and maybe it is because I am not a poetry buff but I don’t see how those two words on their own add a sort of sentimental, nostalgic, or frustrating vibe. I also do not see how they are related to the theme or lost of purity or innocence. Like I indicated before, this post was a little difficult to read.