Rescuing the Odes from Modernity
The Rhetoric and Sources of Ezra Pound's Confucian Translation
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8909657 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Monica E M Zikpi (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2018 |
| Volume | 55 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 115-143 |
| Publication date | 2018-02-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Comparative Literature Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0010-4132 • E-ISSN: 1528-4212 |
| Publisher | The Pennsylvania State University Press (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.5325/complitstudies.55.1.0115 |
| OpenAlex | W2793506897 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 10 |
This article argues that Ezra Pound's late translation practice, exemplified in his work on the Chinese Confucian canon, is both reactionary and derivative with respect to the scholarship of his time. While previous critics have asserted that Pound's translations are creative, intuitive, and felicitously inaccurate due to excusable ignorance, this paper closely examines several odes in his version of the Shijing 詩經 (Classic of Odes), which he entitled The Classic Anthology Defined by Confucius, in terms of his source material. The analysis demonstrates that his work in fact engages a contemporary scholarly debate about the correct interpretation of the Odes, and asserts itself strongly in favor of an imperial tradition of didactic allegorical exegesis as reconstructed via the editorial apparatus of James Legge and other Western translators. Considering the rhetoric of the translation, this article discerns the construction of a philological translation ethos to lend Confucian authority to the reactionary interpretation and exclude the politically progressive interpretations of modern scholars and translators. The findings problematize certain principles of Translation Studies, especially the distinction between source text and receiving culture
Art · Epistemology · Ethos · Exegesis · Ignorance · Interpretation (philosophy · Linguistics · Literature · Modernity · Pound (networking · Reactionary · Rhetoric · Scholarship · Chinese history and philosophy · Law · Philosophy · Poetry Analysis and Criticism · Translation Studies and Practices
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |