Classical poetry writing and how to go to the world.

"Poetry is untranslatable, and China's classical poems are untranslatable." China people who love classical poetry, including many writers, scholars and translators, often say this, with seven points of pride and three points of regret in their tone. However, without translation, how can China's classical poems go abroad and go to the world? From another point of view, the export of China's classical poems seems to be facing a dilemma: on the one hand, it is an authentic domestic product, a truly "made in China" cultural product, and it is more necessary to maintain the "original flavor"; On the other hand, it was not originally produced for export. Can you successfully enter the "international market" without such packaging or modification? Only when people all over the world have studied ancient Chinese can they appreciate and actively introduce China's original classical poems. China people are always worried about the loss and deformation of their national cultural products in the process of translation and dissemination. However, when they accept and appreciate foreign cultural products, they are often easy to "bring them" and rarely worry about whether they are original or modified. Shakespeare has become the cultural wealth of the whole world. People in China talk about Shakespeare like old friends, and they are not worried at all. It was Shakespeare who was transformed several times in China and Chinese. Deformation is rebirth! Yes, what does deformation have to do with it? Shakespeare died in England in 16 16, and his works were reincarnated all over the world. Yu Wensuo 'an, a professor of classical literature in China at Harvard University, mentioned in an interview that China students and scholars often ask him incredulously: How can a foreigner understand China's classical poems? He always asks: So, do you think a China person can understand Tolstoy or Shakespeare? The answer is always, of course! He said with deep feeling, "There seems to be such an idea in modern China that western literature is about universal human nature, so everyone can understand that China's ancient literature belongs only to ancient times and to ancient China, so it has become a very rigid thing, which was put in the past and belongs exclusively to China. If you think so, this literary tradition is dead. This is actually a trap, and coming out of this trap can make this tradition alive. " This is the only way to inherit and carry forward traditional culture. Classical poetry is no exception. Translation bears the responsibility of reproducing China's classical poems in the world. Faced with this responsibility, we need to renew our concepts, and we should not blindly take "faithfulness" as the standard, and belittle the translated works and translators as slaves of the original. A good translator, like a good reader, will always be the friend and bosom friend of the original author. An excellent translator is often a friendly opponent and competitor in order to seek new expression and regenerate new life for an artistic conception. As Benjamin said, the translator is likely to borrow a new language and form to perfect the artistic conception of the original text in another way. "Books are not full of words, words are not full of meaning", and the highest realm of poetry lies between words and unspeakable. Therefore, no matter how great a poet is, no matter how great a poem is, it needs the cooperation of equally great readers and translators. The translation concept of preserving the quintessence of Chinese culture emphasizes faithfulness and truthfulness, which often ignores the requirements of readers of the times. For example, some translators try to be faithful to the metrical model of modern poetry and adopt the outdated metrical model of English translation, which is counterproductive, not only abandoning the spirit of the original poem, but also scaring off readers in the new era. Reading several English versions of Tang poetry published in China in recent years, we often see such regrettable translations. For example, Shi Fang's English translation of 300 Tang Poems recommended by authoritative scholars translated Liu Zongyuan's quatrain Jiang Xue in eight long sentences. In order to bet on the rhyme of aabbccdd, we have to add some unnecessary words. The sixth sentence uses a lame "yes" before a prepositional phrase, which loses the simplicity and fluency of the original poem. Another English translation of Tang Yihe's Three Hundred Tang Poems is similar. Professor Tang used three "be" sentences, which only conveyed the fact that there was no bird trail, no human trail, and there was a unique fisherman, which was what the ancients called the mistake of "tripping". Both versions try to be faithful to the rules and words of the original poem, but both deviate from the original poem. According to the introduction in the prefaces of the two books, both translators have English backgrounds and regard Tang poetry as "the treasure of China culture". Their patriotism and diligence are admirable, but will such a translation have readers? Professor Tang's translation shows that foreign students are the target audience. If foreign students who really don't understand Chinese or are beginners of Tang poetry read this translation, will they lose interest in Tang poetry? Translators of classical poems are not ancient people, and they don't need to translate for them, no matter whether the original poems belong to the ancients or the translated poems belong to the ancients. In fact, English poetry with traditional meter is not popular among contemporary English readers. Since the New Poetry Movement, the creation of English poetry has completely got rid of the shackles of traditional meter, and so has translation. Pound, the head coach of the American New Poetry Movement, translated 18 China classical poems in the form of free poems, which was very popular, set off an upsurge of translating China's poems, and also delivered foreign nutrition to the new generation of poets who just started. Willie, a British sinologist, followed closely. Contrary to the traditional sinologist's insistence on the concept of English poetry meter, he adopted the free "jumping method" to translate it into Chinese. It is precisely because Pound and Willy's translation ideas are in line with the poetics of the new era that their translation can be deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, and China's poems have begun to become household names in the English-speaking world. Among them, Pound's translation of Li Bai's Long March and Wei Li's translation of Bai Juyi's One Hundred and Thirty Rhymes have already become classics of English poetry and entered various authoritative selections of British and American literary works. This is the common sense and conclusion in the history of English poetry development and China poetry translation. Without understanding this period of history, examining the success or failure of these translations, or putting it another way, without the baptism of modern English poetry movement, and unwilling or unable to accept contemporary poetics and translation concepts, any translator, even with a high level of English, can't be competent for the English translation of Chinese poems unless his translation is not aimed at modern English readers, but just to entertain himself behind closed doors. Unfortunately, the translated version has no readers, just like the original is stillborn, even if it is forcibly sent out, there is no chance of new life. There is no need to "send away". Since Pound published Cathy, a pamphlet of China's poems translated into English in 19 15, some spirits of China's classical poems have long been "taken away" by European and American poets and absorbed into English poems, which has become an inseparable part of its national literature. On the other hand, with the help of generations of China translators and poets such as Feng Zhi, Cha and Bei Dao, foreign literature gained an indelible China, and modern poetry not only came from Europe and America, but also from China. This two-way translation gradually broke down the barriers of national literature. As early as 1827, Goethe said, "I believe more and more that poetry is the spiritual wealth of mankind ... national literature is nothing now, and the era of world literature is coming soon. Now everyone should play their part and promote his early arrival. " In the 2 1 century, ethnic literature was increasingly replaced by translated literature and world literature. Nowadays, national literature is not lost in translation, but gained in translation, and only what is gained in translation can become world literature. If any kind of ancient literature can't keep pace with contemporary poetics by means of intralingual or interlingual translation, there is no reason to participate in the development of today's world literature, nor will it become the cultural heritage of the whole world in the future. Let's expect more China classical poems to enter the world, and let Li Bai, Du Like, Shakespeare and Tolstoy become world literary heritages.