Where I Agreed With the Translator

Poems of the Late T'ang by A.C. Graham
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a very readable and enjoyable collection of poetry from the late Tang dynasty.

These translations have a number of moving parts. Always, there is an introduction, with the translator's take on his job; there are the poems themselves, in English; and there are the notes for specific poems along the way. All are done well here, IMO, though the poems that I least enjoyed are among the most celebrated--so that's a bummer.

A. C. Graham does an outstanding job of showing, in some detail, with specific examples, the manner in which these elliptical and allusive Chinese poems are translated into English, illustrating the difficulties in attempting to convey as much of the literal meaning, connotations, rhythm, rhyme, and other elements as possible without harming the other aspects of the poetry. The tradeoffs are obvious--forcing the poems to rhyme in the target language adversely affects the word choice, while focusing on exact meaning not only makes rhyme impossible but makes it more difficult to employ anything near the original rhythm: "As these lines illustrate," the translator tells us in the introduction, "the ideal of perfect literalness is soon betrayed by concessions to idiomatic smoothness, rhythm, and immediate intelligibility." He describes the balance he attempted to achieve between the varying demands of the original, and I find I agree with his determination.

I also approve of his within-text notes, which are mostly spare, though he troubles himself to fully annotate a few poems. (These are the ones I liked least, some poetry that is so densely packed with hints and allusions and metaphors and culture-bound idiom that it is utterly opaque to the reader without the notes and not very interesting with it.) In general, I found the occasional notes useful and not too disruptive to the reading. Other similar volumes are so packed with notes and helpful intrusions that it dries the poetry out to the texture of a stiff old textbook, a fate I feel he has avoided.

Some of the poetry here, like much of Tang poetry that I've encountered before, is direct and clear and comprehensible, filled with concrete imagery, universal experience, and relatively natural language. (The stuff I like.) Much of it, however, is more mannered, more difficult, based more on poetic models emerging from a mature tradition. These poems, according to the notes, are some of the most admired in the canon, at least among Chinese readers, but they are the least successful in translation. Understanding them even a little is more of an academic exercise (not a bad thing, all in all) than an aesthetic one. But, IMO, there are enough of the former that I still have an overall appreciation for the book.

Recommended most for students of Tang poetry or those who've already pored over the most common collections. There is a lot to enjoy here, and a great deal to work through if one is interested.

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