4.0
Nineteen Ways of Looking at Wang Wei
ByPublisher Description
A new expanded edition of the classic study of translation, finally back in print
The difficulty (and necessity) of translation is concisely described in Nineteen Ways of Looking at Wang Wei, a close reading of different translations of a single poem from the Tang Dynasty—from a transliteration to Kenneth Rexroth’s loose interpretation. As Octavio Paz writes in the afterword, “Eliot Weinberger’s commentary on the successive translations of Wang Wei’s little poem illustrates, with succinct clarity, not only the evolution of the art of translation in the modern period but at the same time the changes in poetic sensibility.”Download the free Fable app
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesNineteen Ways of Looking at Wang Wei Reviews
4.0
“This little book on translation from the Classical Chinese is a masterpiece. It closely analyzes and compares 19 translations of the most well-known of T’ang Dynasty poet Wang Wei’s poems, and it does so in a manner that is stirring, engaging, intellectually exciting, accessible, and at times even hilarious. I know no Chinese, but this is still a fine book.
And the poem? Here’s Gary Snyder’s version:
Empty mountains:
no one to be seen.
Yet—hear—
human sounds and echoes.
Returning sunlight
enters the dark woods;
Again shining
on the green moss, above.
And here’s Burton Watson’s:
DEER FENCE
Empty hills, no one in sight,
only the sound of someone talking;
late sunlight enters the deep wood,
shining over the green moss again.”
“lifechanging lowkey”
About Eliot Weinberger
Eliot Weinberger’s books of literary essays include Karmic Traces, An Elemental Thing, The Ghosts of Birds, and Angels & Saints. His political writings are collected in What I Heard About Iraq and What Happened Here: Bush Chronicles. The author of a study of Chinese poetry translation, 19 Ways of Looking at Wang Wei, he is a translator of the poetry of Bei Dao and the editor of The New Directions Anthology of Classical Chinese Poetry. He was formerly the general editor of the series Calligrams: Writings from and on China and the literary editor of the Murty Classical Library of India. Among his many translations of Latin American poetry and prose are The Poems of Octavio Paz, Paz’s In Light of India, Vicente Huidobro’s Altazor, Xavier Villaurrutia’s Nostalgia for Death, and Jorge Luis Borges’ Seven Nights and Selected Non-Fictions. He has been publishing with New Directions since 1975.
Other books by Eliot Weinberger
Octavio Paz
Octavio Paz (1914-1998) was born in Mexico City. He wrote many volumes of poetry, as well as a prolific body of remarkable works of nonfiction on subjects as varied as poetics, literary and art criticism, politics, culture, and Mexican history. He was awarded the Jerusalem Prize in 1977, the Cervantes Prize in 1981, and the Neustadt Prize in 1982. He received the German Peace Prize for his political work, and finally, the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1990.
Other books by Octavio Paz
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