9While reading these poems, they look very similar, in fact they have the same sequence of acts but the way they write the translations change the reader’s opinion and feelings about the poems.
I am going to focus on the poems translated by Wai-Lim Yip (1976) ‘‘Ch’ang-and Memories’’, the one by Ezra Pound (1915) ‘‘The River Merchant’s Wife: A Letter’’ and the one wrote by W.J.B Fletcher (1919) ”That Parting at Ch’ang Kan”. These three poems seem so similar but they actually have some points altered by the translations.
First of all the poem by Ezra Pound had a sense of feeling more extreme than the other poems. I think it is because the way that she expressed herself through the poem she was really feeling it. Or at least it what it seem to me. It is well shown in the verse ‘you walked about my seat playing with blue plums’ as a simile of her side, that a romantic way of saying that you came to be next to me, to be my partner. As well Fletcher write ‘And wreathed my bed with greengage branches o’er’ it is the same significance as the other he came to conquer her and be her partner. But as we can see the difference how the write it is great, referring to different objects that might confuse the readers thoughts. As is he conquering her or is he trying to have sex with her being romantic. Nevertheless Wai-Lim Yip it is more sober and direct in his poem made all by statements ‘ and around the bed we played with green plums’. As we can see the first one and the second one while reading the poem seem that he went up to her to conquer her, but in the last one it seem what it was just direct and without your ming flying in the sky, he came and he played with her with green plums.
As well this sense of deeply or intense feeling it is shown in ‘at fourteen I married My Lord you’ , meaning that she will marry him but having written down Lord as the most respected and loved man of her life. It is a good way to show the intense of the poem. Instead in the other poems recite ‘I became thy wife’ ( W.J.B. Fletcher) or ‘I became your wife’. That it is a good way of say it, but you lose the connection with the reader’s feelings, it is too direct and it is converting a poem in an statement therefore I believe the first version by Ezra gives a more intense feeling in the story of Ch’ang Kan, and keeps alive the story plus the feelings.
1 response so far ↓
dh141373 // Mar 31st 2015 at 10:13 pm
I like your take on some of the authors were more direct than the others about the certain scene, I didn’t really see it like that at all while reading the poems. What I thought was being described here was child’s play. I thought it was like a flash back to them meeting as children.