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Nineteen Ways of Looking at Wang Wei: (With More Ways)
£7.60
The difficulty (and necessity) of translation is concisely described in Nineteen Ways of Looking at Wang Wei, a close reading of different translations of a single poem from the Tang Dynasty―from a transliteration to Kenneth Rexroth’s loose interpretation. As Octavio Paz writes in the afterword, “Eliot Weinberger’s commentary on the successive translations of Wang Wei’s little poem illustrates, with succinct clarity, not only the evolution of the art of translation in the modern period but at the same time the changes in poetic sensibility.”
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Additional information
| Publisher | Reprint edition (30 Dec. 2016), W. W. Norton & Company |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Paperback | 64 pages |
| ISBN-10 | 0811226204 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-0811226202 |
| Dimensions | 11.43 x 1.02 x 18.54 cm |
by C M
I’m currently trying to learn Janpanese, just to while away the lock-down hours, as you do. Japanese is heavily based on Chinese. This was a real eye opener to me just how fundamentally different Chinese is from English (Japanese is more of a half-way house, and that’s different enough!). Chinese has no tenses, no plurals, no formal word order and the same sound can have contradictory meanings. The mat cat on sat the is just fine in Chinese (except there’s no word for “the”). It’s all in the context, everything is relative, you are not spoon-fed the meaning. Fascinating, as is all the different attempts to translate this seemingly innocuous little poem. This is the first book I’ve read by Weinberger. He is very good at giving an insight into the poetic art, what look out for, pitfalls to avoid. I’ll be reading more.
by Amazon Customer
fascinating witty and illuminating
by Kobori Enshu
A fascinating analysis of the variation in translation of one Chinese poem. An insight on translators and how readers can be misled.
by ggw
the best tao
by Pinxing
Enlightening . Can Chinese poetry be translated ? I learned I prefer to read the original text . Chinese poetry is very profound , layers of meaning