#michael berson

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BUGHOUSE! Las Vegas #22 | May 20, 2019

Monday, May 20, 2019

Music for the BUGHOUSE! Podcast is provided by Mike Vinopal and Local Motive.

Artists:

Callout Culture: Toxic or Necessary?

Pierson Brown vs Jessica Pena (winner)

The Future is Female: Are Men Are Obsolete?

Dana Jerman vs Chimmie Hernandez (winner)

The Better Franchise: Star Wars vs Star Trek?

Michael Berson vs Eric Wilson (winner)

Audience Favorite: Jessica Pena

[theliterateape]

BUGHOUSE! #19 | April 9, 2019

Tuesday, April 9, 2019

Music for the BUGHOUSE! Podcast is provided by Mike Vinopal and Local Motive.

Artists:

Tattoos: Art or Just Trashy?

Dana Jerman vs Eric Wilson (winner)

Political Correctness: Progress or Regress?

Michael Berson vs Don Hall (winner)

Has Social Media Made Us More Narcissistic?

Erik Lewin vs Chimmie Hernandez (winner)

Audience Favorite: Chimmie Hernandez

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Beginnings of a final paper

The central issue of this paper is the degree to which the grammar of a translation’s target language requires the insertion of elements not explicit in the original text. I try out degrees of insertion in ci poems by Song dynasty poet Li Qingzhao, and in Latin epigrams. Ci and epigrams are around the same length,and therefore showcase well the different syntactic choices between the two languages.

I take some guiding concepts from Eliot Weinberger and Octavio Paz’s small book Nineteen Ways of Looking at Wang Wei, which features nineteen different translations of Wei’s Luchai, and Weinberger and Paz’s comments. One of the recurring themes of these comments is the observation that the translator has inserted a new element or idea (typically incorrect or biased) into a translation, where the original had no such thing. Commonly the issue is the addition of something as measly as a pronoun. Of G.W. Robinson’s translation they say “In this poem Robinson not only creates a narrator, he makes it a group, as though it were a family outing. With that one word, we, he effectively scuttles the mood of the poem.” (Weinberger 29)

This problem occurs over and over when translating Chinese poetry. Chinese syntax requires a minimal number of words to complete a sentence, and with no inflection of gender, number, case or tense, each word carries less information than a speaker of a western language might be used to. As a result, translation into, say, English, requires insertions to even be grammatically complete. Pronouns are a common insertion. But the translator into English also needs to make choices about tense or number that the original left indefinite, or add prepositions or articles where the original implies or does not need them.

I choose Latin as a counterpoint to the problems of Chinese translation. Latin, conversely, has a grammar and syntax that require much more specificity than English speakers are used to- fully fleshed out case and conjugation systems, in particular. While in Chinese the word吃chi gives no more clues than the idea of “eating,” a given Latin equivalent must tell you who did the eating, and when. “Ederunt” tells us that the action was completed in the past, and by multiple people. Ironically, the informational richness of verbs makes the use of pronouns less frequent in Latin, too.

香冷金猊 has Literary Chinese’s hallmark economy of pronouns conjunctions, but it is entirely clear in this poem who the subject is: the poet Li Qingzhao. This is not an issue of ambiguity about the subject, rather the opposite. But what is less clear is, given the specific content of the poem, whether the economy is a stylistic choice, or just an artefact of the language. The first half of the poem is about a lethargic and rather lazy morning. The cold incense suggests that no one has kept up the fire in the censer; red waves of the quilt show the carelessness of an unmade bed; dust has not been cleaned from the mirror box; “sun overtakes curtain hook” implies that Li has moped in bed until from her perspective in bed the sun has risen to overtake the curtain hook at the top of her bedpost, that is, until midday. The language of this poem suggests a mopey laziness that also would keep the author from adding pronouns etc. where they were not expressly needed.

Below are some first very rough translation attempts. In (A) I try to add as few extra words as possible. In (B) I add in pronouns etc., and also use more idiomatic language where in (A) the relationships between words are still ambiguous. That required an occasional shift in word order. I am torn about smaller wording changes that explain the poet’s meaning more explicitly, but obliterate what was probably intended as poetic description, such as changing “locks” to “surrounds.”

鳳凰台上憶吹簫（香冷金猊）

香冷金猊，被翻紅浪，起來慵自梳頭。任寶奩塵滿，日上簾鉤。生怕離懷別苦，多少事、欲說還休。新來瘦，非干病酒，不是悲秋。

休休。這回去也，千萬遍陽關，也則難留。念武陵人遠，烟鎖秦樓。惟有樓前流水，應念我、終日凝眸。凝眸處，從今又添，一段新愁。

(A)

Incense grows cold golden lion, quilt turned back in red waves, arise lethargic, alone comb hair. Allow precious mirror box dust fill, sun tops curtain hook. Become afraid emotions of leaving bitterness of parting, how many things, wish to speak still have not. Newly thin, is not concerned with liquor illness, is not melancholy.

No, no. This return! Ten million times Sun Pass, also then difficult to remain. Think of Wuling man far, smoke locks Qin tower. There is only flowing water before tower, should think of me, all day staring. Stared-at place, from now again adds a new length of sorrow.

(B)

Incense grows cold in the golden lion censer. The quilt is turned back in red waves. I arise, and lethargic and alone comb my hair. I have allowed my precious mirror box to fill with dust. The sun overtakes the curtain hook. I am afraid, of the emotions of leaving and the bitterness of parting. how many things, wish to speak still have not. Newly thin, is not concerned with liquor illness, is not melancholy.

No, no. This return! After I recite Sun Pass ten million times, it also then difficult to remain. I think of the farness of the man from Wuling. Smoke surrounds Qin tower. There is only flowing water before the tower. You should think of me, all day staring. The stared-at place now again adds a new length of sorrow.

 #Michael Berson #paper draft #ci #Li Qingzhao

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Dante in Chinese

This is from Tian Dewang’s 1997 prose translation of the Divine Comedy. The clunky English translation is mine.

在人生的中途，我发现我已经迷失了正路，走进了一座幽暗的森林，啊！要说明这座森林多么荒野，难险，难行，是一件多么困难的事啊！只要一想起它，我就又觉得害怕。它的苦和死相差无几。但是为了述说我在那里遇到的福星，我要讲一下我在那里看见的其他的事物。

Midway through life, I realized I had already lost the straight path, and gone into a dark forest. Ah! To explain how wild, dangerous, and hard to travel this forest is is a very difficult thing! As soon as I think of it, I feel afraid. Its bitterness is not very different from death. But in order to recount the lucky star I encountered there, I will try to explain the other things I saw there.

#Inferno #Chinese #Michael Berson