{"id":2806,"date":"2014-09-25T09:30:55","date_gmt":"2014-09-25T01:30:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=2806"},"modified":"2014-09-16T10:47:56","modified_gmt":"2014-09-16T02:47:56","slug":"notes-on-the-mosquito-at-m-dash-untranslatables","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=2806","title":{"rendered":"Notes on the Mosquito at M-Dash Untranslatables"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Egyptian<\/a>M-Dash<\/a>, the new literary journal from Autumn Hill Books, is running a series called “The Untranslatables” — “about those\u00a0words or phrases that give us pause as translators, that stump us\u00a0and then, sometimes, enlighten us.”<\/div>\n

To inaugurate their feature, they invited me to contribute something from my translation of Xi Chuan’s Notes on the Mosquito<\/em>. I wrote about my translation of the line there is a crowd of commoners as purple as red cabbage<\/em> \u6709\u4e00\u7fa4\u767e\u59d3\u50cf\u767d\u83dc\u4e00\u6837\u7fe0\u7eff. Here’s a teaser:<\/p>\n

The line deals with the essences of Chinese, but with a twist. While many scholars have codified the Chinese aesthetic as metonymic and literal, the poetry of Xi Chuan\u2019s line operates by revealing the fiction in the Chinese language\u2019s conceptualization: white cabbage is not white (that it is modified by the quintessentially Chinese \u201cjade green\u201d twists the twist with even more torque) … In this instance, though, I sacrificed the insinuation about Chinese in particular to imply that all languages may contain such falsehoods and misnomers: as purple as red cabbage<\/em>, because, of course, red cabbage is not red. And to reproduce the po\u00efesis<\/em> of Xi Chuan\u2019s alliteration, such as with the chiasmus of \/b\/ and \/x\/ (IPA [\u0255]) and the repeated \/c\/ (IPA [ts\u02b0]) in y\u01d2u y\u00ecq\u00fan b<\/strong>\u01ceix<\/strong>\u00ecng x<\/strong>i\u00e0ng b<\/strong>\u00e1ic<\/strong>\u00e0i<\/em> y\u00edy\u00e0ng<\/em> c<\/em><\/strong>u\u00ecl\u01dc<\/em>, I preceded it with, there is a crowd of commoners<\/em>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Click the image above to link to the full piece.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

M-Dash, the new literary journal from Autumn Hill Books, is running a series called “The Untranslatables” — “about those\u00a0words or phrases that give us pause as translators, that stump us\u00a0and then, sometimes, enlighten us.” To inaugurate their feature, they invited … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[3,16,7],"tags":[462,1654],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8srwF-Jg","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2254,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=2254","url_meta":{"origin":2806,"position":0},"title":"Notes on the Mosquito awarded Lucien Stryk Prize","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"October 21, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"The 2013 Lucien Stryk Prize went to Lucas Klein for his translation of the Chinese poetry collection Notes on the Mosquito by Xi Chuan. The $5,000 prize, which was established by an anonymous donor, recognizes the best book-length translation into English of Asian poetry or of source texts from Zen\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Reviews"","block_context":{"text":"Reviews","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=814"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.utdallas.edu\/news\/imgs\/photos-2013-10\/klein-chuan-500-2013-10.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2272,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=2272","url_meta":{"origin":2806,"position":1},"title":"Sinica: Chinese Literature in Translation podcast","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"November 5, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"At Popup Chinese Jeremy Goldkorn interviews translators Linda Jaivin and Alice Liu for a wide-ranging translation of what translation is, how it affects us, how to or not to do it, and how contentious translators can be in private. All that and a resounding endorsement of Xi Chuan's Notes on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Links"","block_context":{"text":"Links","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1731,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=1731","url_meta":{"origin":2806,"position":2},"title":"Xi Chuan on Translating Poetry at Middlebury","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"March 12, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Tuesday, 3\/12, 4:30 PM: Translating Poetry: A roundtable discussion with Chinese poet Xi Chuan, Central Academy for Fine Arts (Beijing), and his translator, Assistant Professor Lucas Klein of City University of Hong Kong, and Middlebury College faculty. Xi Chuan is one of the most well-known contemporary poets writing in the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Readings"","block_context":{"text":"Readings","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=9"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/middleburywashandcarry.com\/images\/2003-10-07d_middlebury_college.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/middleburywashandcarry.com\/images\/2003-10-07d_middlebury_college.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/middleburywashandcarry.com\/images\/2003-10-07d_middlebury_college.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1370,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=1370","url_meta":{"origin":2806,"position":3},"title":"Bookslut Reviews Notes on the Mosquito","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"November 12, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"The online literary journal Bookslut has posted Greer Mansfield's excellent review of my translation of Xi Chuan titled \"Notes on Xi Chuan\u2019s Notes on the Mosquito: Selected Poems.\" Here's an excerpt: Xi Chuan has translated Borges and even written a poem about him, but these prose poems bring to mind\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Links"","block_context":{"text":"Links","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":179,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=179","url_meta":{"origin":2806,"position":4},"title":"Xi Chuan Interview part II","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"October 27, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Two weeks ago I linked to part one of Paul Nelson's SPLAB interview with Xi Chuan. Paul has recently uploaded part two, which continues to show the\u00a0 depth and breadth of Xi Chuan.Whereas part one spent more time on Xi Chuan's personal history, however, in part two he discusses details\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Links"","block_context":{"text":"Links","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2443,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=2443","url_meta":{"origin":2806,"position":5},"title":"New Issue of CLEAR","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"March 12, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"The new issue of Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews (CLEAR) is hitting the shelves (or stacks), along with it my article \u201cIndic Echoes: Form, Content, and World Literature in Tang Dynasty Regulated Verse,\u201d Charles Laughlin's \u201cNew Translators & Contemporary Chinese Literature in English,\u201d my review of Jonathan Stalling's Shi Zhi\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Links"","block_context":{"text":"Links","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2806"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2806"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2806\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2808,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2806\/revisions\/2808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}