These more than two-dozen variations on the text — and Weinberger’s brief observations of what they get particularly wrong (and also what they seem to get right) — also serve, in sum, as an excellent gloss on the poem. Of course, part of the exercise is to demonstrate the obvious, that there can be no ‘perfect’ 1:1 mapping of the poem — a useful lesson for those who all too readily rely on single translations of their favorite foreign poems and poets … — but beyond that the different perspectives — which is how the translation-attempts can also be seen –, from the most literal attempts to Kenneth Rexroth’s (“perhaps more ‘imitation’ than translation”), also reveal a great deal more about the original to those for whom the Chinese itself remains inaccessible.
\nHelpfully, Weinberger does not shy away from judging (harshly, where need be) — while giving his reasons for what went right (or oh so wrong) — a reminder, too, of how the often unknowing reader is at the mercy of what is available at the local bookstore or library, or what happens to fall into their hands.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
And<\/p>\n
The addition of ‘more ways’ to the original collection is also of interest, as it is not just more of the same: as Weinberger notes: “most or all of the English-language translators were aware of the book”, and presumably were influenced in their own takes at least in part by that, writing (or rather translating) in response to Weinberger as well.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Follow the link for the review in full.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I missed this when it was published. M.A. Orthofer at the Complete Review has reviewed the re-release of Eliot Weinberger’s 19 Ways of Looking at Wang Wei. Here’s an excerpt: These more than two-dozen variations on the text — and … 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":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[3],"tags":[47,30,1974,344],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8srwF-12E","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4503,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=4503","url_meta":{"origin":4008,"position":0},"title":"Chinese Translation of 19 Ways of Looking at Wang Wei","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"March 25, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Nineteen Ways of Looking at Wang Wei in Chinese Eliot Weinberger's classic study of \"how a Chinese poem is translated,\" Nineteen Ways of Looking at Wang Wei, has just been published in Chinese translation. Here's a quick write-up about it, from The World of Chinese: For American translator and writer\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Links"","block_context":{"text":"Links","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xichuanpoetry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/QQ\u56fe\u724720190313114026.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xichuanpoetry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/QQ\u56fe\u724720190313114026.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xichuanpoetry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/QQ\u56fe\u724720190313114026.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xichuanpoetry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/QQ\u56fe\u724720190313114026.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xichuanpoetry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/QQ\u56fe\u724720190313114026.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":3592,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=3592","url_meta":{"origin":4008,"position":1},"title":"Link on Weinberger’s 19 Ways of Looking at Wang Wei","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"November 30, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Perry Link at the New York Review of Books reviews the expanded re-release of 19 Ways of Looking at Wang Wei, by Eliot Weinberger. Link writes: Some of the art of classical Chinese poetry must simply be set aside as untranslatable ... Weinberger knows all of this and sensibly begins\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":3220,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=3220","url_meta":{"origin":4008,"position":2},"title":"On the Mountain: Two versions of Wang Wei","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"June 29, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"The online mag. I recently came across an old page on Hilobrow, starting with this: The Taiyi summit\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 nears the seat of heaven linked mountains\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 stretch to brink of sea and The Taiyi summit nears the seat of heaven; linked mountains stretch to brink of sea. Two versions of the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Links"","block_context":{"text":"Links","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hilobrow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/IMG_0210-e1318777219383.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4573,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=4573","url_meta":{"origin":4008,"position":3},"title":"Introduction to Chinese Poetry in Translation in SupChina","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"June 10, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"An introduction to Chinese poetry in translation: Five anthologies As part of SupChina's feature on poetry last month, translator Dave Haysom selected five books to introduce Chinese poetry in English translation: Chinese Poetic Writing\u00a0by Fran\u00e7ois Cheng (translated by Donald A. Riggs & Jerome P. Seaton), The New Directions Anthology of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Links"","block_context":{"text":"Links","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xichuanpoetry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Chinese-poetry-anthologies-1266x650.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xichuanpoetry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Chinese-poetry-anthologies-1266x650.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xichuanpoetry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Chinese-poetry-anthologies-1266x650.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xichuanpoetry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Chinese-poetry-anthologies-1266x650.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xichuanpoetry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Chinese-poetry-anthologies-1266x650.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":144,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=144","url_meta":{"origin":4008,"position":4},"title":"Translation & Cultural Distinction","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"October 20, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"In his introduction to Xi Chuan and Zhou Zan from their 92nd St. Y reading on October 10th, Forrest Gander referred to something his Brown University colleague John Cayley had said about classical Chinese poetry in English translation. Sylvia Lin and Howard Goldblatt, the translation editors of the NEA anthology\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Anthologies"","block_context":{"text":"Anthologies","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=13"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4064,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=4064","url_meta":{"origin":4008,"position":5},"title":"Cohen on WCW’s Chinese Translations","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"May 14, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"In a piece tiled \"Empty Hills\u2014Deep Woods\u2014Green Moss: William Carlos Williams\u2019s Chinese Experiment,\" Jonathan Cohen writes for Words Without Borders Daily about Williams's Chinese translations and the impact Chinese poetics may have had on his poetics: \"Williams had thought his invention of the triadic line that he used in The\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"David Hsin-fu Wand\"","block_context":{"text":"David Hsin-fu Wand","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?tag=david-hsin-fu-wand"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4008"}],"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=4008"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4008\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4009,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4008\/revisions\/4009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}