Brief Introduction of Ezra Pound

•IntroductionThe poems of Cathay contribute positively to literary and cultural interaction between the Chinese audiences and the English audiences. By and large, Cathay ought to be viewed as a recreation translation from the Chinese classic poetry. In terms of its relations to the Chinese classic poetry and Fenollosa's manuscripts, the intermediary translations base on, not all source texts are selected and not all qualities have been transferred in Cathay, including loss of local taste, of rigid rhythm and form of the originals. On the contrary, Cathay presents us a new mask: colloquial in language, graphic space in versifying, and flexible in its movement. According to Pound's strategies, the creative translation applied in Chinese poetry translation would produce a verse that reads like a "good" English poem but in fact distort the original in many manners. A translator who tries in this way usually needs super literary talent, for he cannot produce "good" verse if not an excellent poet himself. Pound was a gifted poet, so he did the job well. But perhaps the result of Pound's practice has had so much effect upon poetry that people notice only Pound's innovating Imagism and neglect his contribution to translation.ⅠBrief Introduction of Ezra PoundEzra Pound (1885-1972), a leading spokesman of the "Imagist Movement," was one of the most important poets in his time. Despite the fact is that he was politically controversial and notorious for what he did in the wartime, Pound's literary talents are extraordinary. He composed poems, wrote criticisms and did translations.1.1 Ezra Pound’s Education BackgroundEzra Pound was born in Hailey, Idaho in 1885. But he was brought up in Philadelphia. He made his first visit to Europe with his family in 1892 and 1902. At the age of twelve Pound entered Cheltenham, a military school, where he was introduced to Greek and Latin. Just before his sixteenth birthday, Pound entered the University of Pennsylvania, and in 1903 he transferred to Hamilton College, where he studied Anglo-Saxon and Romance(罗曼语，拉丁系语言)languages. He received his bachelor’s degree in1905. He was undoubtedly a genius. Before graduating from university, he had mastered nine languages. Such as English, Latin, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Provencal(普罗旺斯语), Anglo-Saxon, Greek and Romance languages, which laid a good foundation for his later literary and translation career. (Net.2)1.2 Pound as a PoetHe taught Romance languages at Wabash College in Indiana for a short time in1907. However, his teaching career was cut short when he had entertained an actress that he allowed to stay overnight with him in his room.In 1908 Pound traveled widely in Europe, working as a journalist. His first book of poems, A Lume Spento(1908), was privately printed in Venice. He then moved to London and came into contact with T.E. Hulme later founded imagism together with H.D. and Richard Aldington. And they edited their first anthology, Des Imagists(1914). In their manifesto the Imagists promised: "1. Direct treatment of the 'thing' whether subjective or objective. 2. To use absolutely no word that does not contribute to the presentation. 3. As regarding rhythm: to compose in the sequence of musical phrase, not in sequence of a metronome." Pound's short "one-image poem" 'In a Station of the Metro' is among the most celebrated Imagist works: "The apparition of these faces in the crowd; / Petals on a wet, black bough." Pound had seen a succession of beautiful faces one day on the Paris Metro, and in the evening he found suddenly the expression for his sudden emotion1.3 Pound as a TranslatorIn 1913 with the notebooks of the Orientalist Ernest Fenollosa, he pursued a lifelong study of ancient Chinese texts, and translated among others the writings of Confucius. Pound's translations based on Fenollosa's notes, collected in Cathay (1915), are considered among the most beautiful of his writings. Ezra Pound’s Cathay(1915) is the first collection of Chinese classical poetry published in America. The small pamphlet was a great success, as it not only attracted the western eyes to the oriental world, but also put forward the Imagism movement. Being a sensitive, rebellious poetic spirit as well as a multi-lingual translator, Ezra Pound had inexhaustible influence upon the American poetry and the translation of Chinese classical poetry.The First World War woke Pound up from his intense poetic occupations, and pushed him into the interest for economics and politics, which proved to be unfortunate for him. In the late 1930s’s, Pound devo ted much of his energy to defending fascism. At the end of the war, he was arrested by the U.S. military authorities. After being declared insane, He was sent to St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Washington, D.C.In 1958, the joint effort of such eminent personalities as T.S. Eliot, Robert Frost, and Ernest Hemingway secured his release. He returned to Italy, where he worked until his death in 1972.•ⅡEzra Pound’s Creative Translation of Chinese Classical PoemsEzra Pound’s Cathay is a great success. He translated 19 classical Chinese poets into English. At the same time, many others scholars, foreign or domestic, have been engaged in translating the classical Chinese culture to the world. However, the task has never been easy. In the history of verse translation, there emerged three different types of translating. Namely “metaphase” or literal translation represented by Arthur Waley; liberal translation represented Giles. And adaptation or creative represented by Ezra Pound. This paper studies the Ezra Pound’s translation theory and demonstrates its advantages.2.1 The Definition of Creative Translation of Chinese Classical PoemsWith the passage of time people seem to be forgetting his war time follies and beginning to evaluate his achievement as a poet, and has come to realize that he has helped to make modern poetry. And as such he will be remembered.In Pound’s literary works, it is often difficult to tell translation or adaptation from original composition. Translation to pound assumes an importa nce seldom found in other modern poets. To some extent, Pound’s poetics is essentially the poetics of translation. Actually, his translation theories reinforced and promoted his imagist poetics. Pound doesn’t see much difference between a poet and a poem translator. A poem translatorshould explore deep into the mind of the poet to think what he thought and to feel what he felt, so that the overlap of mind could occur and the cultural and linguistic barriers could be surpassed. Thus the translation could achieve fidelity to the original on both meaning and atmosphere. Pound doesn’t put much emphasis on words and sentences. Instead, he puts himself in the position of the poet and summarizes the poet’s thoughts and emotions, then turns it into the target lang uage. Words and sentenced are not the source text for him. But merely a media to introduce him to source text which is the thoughts and feeling of the poet. This is we called adaptive way of poetry translation which has come to be a dominant strategy in twentieth century fuelled also by the development of English free verse.2.2 Ezra Pound’ Creative Strategies in Translating Poetic Elements Though as a practical translator rather than a translation theorist, Pound made some noteworthy statements concerning translating activity. In how to read special points concerning the translation of different elements in poetry elaborated. The language is charged or energized in various matters that are to say there are three kind of poetry. Namely, Melopoeia, Phanopoeia, logpoeia. He makes three kind of distinction in his thinking about the translation of poetry, and endeavors to define elements that are more or less translatable. He suggests there are there kinds of poetry that may be found in any literature, the first is2.2.1 The Melody of PoetryMelopoeia (the melody of poetry): words are surcharged with musical property that directs the shape of the meaning. This musical quality can be appreciated by the foreigner with the sensitive ear, but cannot be translated, except perhaps by divine accident or even half a line at a time. In A Retrospect, Pound devoted a lot of space to discussing rhythm and rhyme. He insists it is not necessary that a poem should rely on its music, but if it does rely on its music must be such as will delight the expert don’t chop your stuff into separate iambs naturally, your rhythmic structure should not destroy the shape of your words or their natural sound or their meaning he believes in absolute rhythm a rhythm that is in poetry which corresponds exactly to the emotion or shade of emotion to be expressed. That is to say only when the thing builds up a rhythm more beautiful than that of set meters or more real more a part of the emotion of the thing , more germane intimate interpretative than the measure of regular accentual verse a rhythm which discontents one with set iambic or rhythm can be seen Chinese classical poem s however has strict rhythm patterns of ping平，ze 仄，wulv五律，wujue五绝，qilv七律，and qijue七绝all have fixed rhythm without which the poems will be devalued. Though Pound receives poems of the second hand source his literary insight guarantees his awareness of Chinese rhythm the thorough examination of all 19 poems of Cathay reveals that pound makes no effortto preserve the original rigid rhythm at all. Take separation on the river kiang as an example:送孟浩然之广陵separation on the river kiang李白by Ezra Pound古人西辞黄鹤楼，ko-jin goes west from kokako-ro,烟花三月下扬州。