Translation Review - The University of Texas at Dallas

and go to those happy fields,
happy fields, happy fields,
who will moan there for long? 14
Indeed, Watson does continue and extend the trend
initiated by Waley; he too rejects rhyme, opting for
free verse that better captures the spirit of the original.
There is a conscious choice of monosyllabic and
disyllabic words of Germanic origin as opposed to
polysyllabic words of Latinate origin—a general
trend in the United States in the latter half of the
20th century. The phonetic simplicity of the translation
actually mirrors the monosyllabic simplicity of
the original. Punctuation is used sparingly to reproduce
the rhythm of American speech. Finally, the
heavy use of contractions is also typical of the colloquial
diction we find in so much of late 20th century
American verse. What Watson offers the reader is a
version of the poem in a contemporary American
poetic idiom.
Watson also seems to have benefited from
Karlgren’s version in that he handles the final verse
as a question. One major difference in Watson’s
translation is his use of the first person singular
rather than first person plural that we saw in the
other translations. In the Chinese, there is no pronoun,
but English demands one. Watson simply
visualizes the situation of the lyric voice in a different
way from other translators and tends to make it
more personal.
From the foregoing discussion, it is clearly
apparent that the verse translation of any period is
often bound up with the larger problem of verse
composition in general. These concerns change with
time, as do our notions of what constitutes a poem.
The norms and demands of one time are clearly different,
and perhaps nowhere so greatly as between
the 19th and 20th centuries. Truly, each generation
must produce its own translation of any major work.
Notes
1 See Stephen Owen’s “Foreword” to The Book of
Songs, translated by Arthur Waley and edited
by Joseph R. Allen. New York: Grove Press,
1996. pp. xiv-xv.
2 James Legge. The Book of Poetry. Facsimile
reprint. New York: Paragon Book Reprint
Corporation, 1967. pp. 125-126.
3 William Jennings. The Shi King: the Old Poetry
Classic of the Chinese. Facsimile reprint. New
York: Paragon Book Reprint Corporation,
1969. p. 19.
4 William Jennings. pp. 20-21.
5 William Jennings. p. 126.
6 Arthur Waley. The Book of Songs. London: George
Allen & Unwin, 1954. See Waley’s preface.
7 Arthur Waley. p. 309.
8 Bernard Karlgren. The Book of Odes. Stockholm:
Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, 1950. pp.
73-74.
9 A tip of the hat to my friend Goran Malmquist for
this information.
10 Ezra Pound. The Classic Anthology Defined by
Confucius. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP,
1954. pp. 53-54.
11 Ezra Pound. ABC of Reading. p. 42.
12 Ezra Pound. ABC of Reading. p. 21.
13 Jacket blurb to Burton Watson’s The Columbia
Book of Chinese Poetry: From Early Times to
the Thirteenth Century. New York: Columbia
UP, 1984.
14 Burton Watson. The Columbia Book of Chinese
Poetry. p. 32.
Translation Review 41