Read-in-Progress Wednesday

[geraineon]

This is your weekly read-in-progress post for you to talk about what you're currently reading and reactions and feelings (if any)!

For spoilers:

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Comments

[llonkrebboj]

Welcome ~ I'll drop more as I come across them as part of my readings for this thing 🤣 Maybe Chinese language ones too, if you're interested!

I have a book of his, The Making of Early Chinese Classical Poetry (i.e. mostly Han dynasty poetry) - unfortunately it's photocopied 2 pages per page which makes reading quite a chore on my ereader, and sourcing for a more reader friendly softcopy has been a thing on my to-do list for agesssss xD - which I'm enjoying as he's put the original beside his translation and comments on content and writing techniques as he goes through poem after poem.

Have to admit that it's basically 1:1 translation he does and not very interesting in terms of artistry though 🤣 What did you bounce off for his Du Fu?

I explained a bit upthread on the scope of the Wan'er project! It actually started with wanting to translate one of her poems, using the epitaph content to shed some light on her life. But then I realised a couple of odd things. Like how the epitaph does not mention her political importance and role as advisor and secretary to WZT, how the identity of its writer was unknown (which is not the case for some others), and the political drama she was involved in and the circumstances of her death. While looking up theories and opinions about that, I found that she actually did get to have her poetry compiled and a preface was written for them... But only the preface and thirty three poems exist today.

Pretty much more I poked, the more things there were to read LOL, and now I'm just rolling around doing classical chinese homework again 🤣 (rephrasing passages into modern Chinese while preserving the tone as much as possible) to practice for working on her epitaph.

[dayadhvam_triad]

Yes pls, thank you! I'd be interested in Chinese-language ones too.

It's great when translations also put the original side-by-side for the reader's convenience :D Reader-friendly softcopy on the other hand... I just took a stroll around my usual book-acquiring pastures to check, but no luck with this title alas :(

Re: his Du Fu, I can't remember specific examples off the top of my head, sorry. What happened was I picked up a copy of Burton Watson's Selected Poems of Du Fu secondhand, and as I was reading it I compared Watson's tl in print to Owen's tl online (open access! thanks Owen) to the og CN (haha thanks Owen x2). I thought Owen's tl was proper overall in grasping the meaning but rather dull, like he'd sliced a 木板 out of the emotional experience of the poem—whereas Watson's tl had more impressionistic life in its phrasing/word choice, but also hit me more than a few times with the "wait, isn't that a tl mistake?!?" stick. DX

Your project is so cool :o Not familiar with Shangguan Wan'er's poetry, but I look forward to your translations and t/n!! Honestly I love that experience of falling down a rabbit hole and discovering more and more interesting details. :3