The artistic conception of Pound's poetry is also the closest to China's poetry. Without careful understanding, people often think that Pound's poems were written by a poet in China. Pound, who deliberately inspired China's poetry, probably learned only superficial things. In the United States, far away from this soil, it is even difficult to get into the marrow of China's poems, because the soil, water and air there can't produce the artistic conception of China's poems.
As a masterpiece of imagist poetry, In the Subway Station was originally written by Pound, with hundreds of lines. Pound, standing at the subway exit, faced with the dark crowd, the poet Pound did have too many sighs. Faced with this image that later became a classic, the poet flashed a branch of nature and the flowers connected to it. This flower is neither brilliant nor dazzling. Flowers defeated by rain, like countless faces, are numb and have no spirituality. This is probably a true portrayal of westerners in the twentieth century. Hundreds of lines confuse the poet's original intention. At this time, the poet's mind flashed China's simple and vivid poetic charm. So, one hundred lines of poetry was reduced to only two lines by him:
The appearance of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on wet black branches.
These faces flashed through the crowd like a mirage;
Count the petals on the wet black branches. (translated by Bai Fei)
When I first read this poem, I really had a spiritual similarity with China's poem. Simple images convey the poet's inner feelings. But in details, it is different from China's poems. Wang Wei, an ancient poet, is good at expressing emotions with images. In his poems, the poet uses the combination and overlapping of multiple images to express the same emotion. Pound used only one image to express his complex feelings. This may be the difference between the two.
Standing outside China's poetry hall, Pound always stood on tiptoe to look in, but he couldn't cross the threshold of this hall. However, he was intoxicated by the beautiful scenery in the temple, which made the arrogant poet put down his airs. Not only was he willing to tell the poets around him what he saw, but he also began to imitate China's poems. From this, we can find that imagist poetry in the 20th century is the school closest to China's poetry in verve. All this is probably inseparable from Pound's efforts.
The Chapters of Poetry is Pound's most beautiful long poem, written in prison, when the poet's spirit was not perfect. At this time, the poet has not forgotten the poetry hall in his heart, and the scenery printed in his mind has not disappeared because of the poet's arrogance. Therefore, in this long poem, the poet left a proper place for this hall, and he once again introduced Confucius' thoughts to the world in the language of poetry. Pound may be the first western poet to translate and introduce China's poems so completely. He translated many poems of Li Bai in English. Because of his ignorance of Chinese and the poet's unique rich imagination, Pound's translation of Li Bai's poems has many personal understandings and feelings, which are probably beyond recognition compared with Li Bai's original works. Fortunately, the hearts of poets are always connected, and national boundaries and language are only external obstacles.
In the concept of China people, writing style is like a person, and writing style is a person's character. When Zhou Zuoren was regarded as a traitor by the world, all his works were suspected of being traitors. In fact, Zhou Zuoren's faint essays have no traitor flavor at all. But people cannot easily work for a traitor. In contrast, Pound is much luckier than Zhou Zuoren. He was happy to broadcast propaganda for fascism in World War II and opposed his motherland, the United States. After the end of World War II, he returned to the United States and deserved to be punished, but people forgave the poet's fault. Many poets pleaded and appealed for him everywhere, which made him spend his old age in Italy. This tolerance for the poet seems to us to condone his rebellion, but westerners have their own views on a poet, which separates people from works. If readers who don't know Pound's experience are reading Pound's poems, it's difficult to associate him with a traitor.
Pound, who loved China's poetry, did not enter the land of China in the end. This ending may be the poet's great fortune, because the grand occasion of China's poetry has disappeared, which is far from Pound's impression. It is probably a kind wish to leave a good impression on the poet.
I wonder who wrote the Chinese translation of the poet's name. I always think that this translation is not only a simple transliteration, but also a very vivid translation. The word "Pang" is a common surname in China. At first glance, it is an extremely ordinary China person, while "De" is the quality that China people have been pursuing. Giving these two words to him is the highest recognition of the poet, and the Chinese people do not regard Pound as an outsider. If Pound knew the translation, he might be happy to accept it. All this, we can only think of it as a fate between the poet and China.