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Ezra Pound: Translations
Ezra Pound is destined to rank as one of the great translators of all time. Ranging through many languages, he chose for translation writers whose work marked a significant turning point in the development of world literature, or key poems which exemplify what is most vital in a given period or genre. This new enlarged edition, devoted chiefly to poetry, includes some forty pages of previously uncollected material. The Seafarer . (Cathay) Rihaku (Li Po). Bunno, Mei Sheng, T'ao Yuan Ming. Conversations in Courtship . du Bellay, de Boufflers, D'Orléans, Lalorgue, Lubicz-Milosz, Rimbaud, Tailhade. de Gourmont. Kabir. Cavalcanti, St. Francis, Guinicelli, Leopardi, Montanari, Orlandi. Japanese Noh 15 plays with Fenollosa's commentary. Catullus, Horace, Navagero, Rutilius. Provenç Bertrand de Born, Cercalmon, Daniel, Folquet de Romans, Li Viniers, Ventadorn.
448 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1953
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About the author
Ezra Pound
507 books1,018 followersEzra Weston Loomis Pound was an American expatriate poet, critic and intellectual who was a major figure of the Modernist movement in early-to-mid 20th century poetry.
Pound's The Cantos contains music and bears a title that could be translated as The Songs—although it never is. Pound's ear was tuned to the motz et sons of troubadour poetry where, as musicologist John Stevens has noted, "melody and poem existed in a state of the closest symbiosis, obeying the same laws and striving in their different media for the same sound-ideal - armonia."
In his essays, Pound wrote of rhythm as "the hardest quality of a man's style to counterfeit." He challenged young poets to train their ear with translation work to learn how the choice of words and the movement of the words combined. But having translated texts from 10 different languages into English, Pound found that translation did not always serve the poetry: "The grand bogies for young men who want really to learn strophe writing are Catullus and François Villon. I personally have been reduced to setting them to music as I cannot translate them." While he habitually wrote out verse rhythms as musical lines, Pound did not set his own poetry to music.
Pound's The Cantos contains music and bears a title that could be translated as The Songs—although it never is. Pound's ear was tuned to the motz et sons of troubadour poetry where, as musicologist John Stevens has noted, "melody and poem existed in a state of the closest symbiosis, obeying the same laws and striving in their different media for the same sound-ideal - armonia."
In his essays, Pound wrote of rhythm as "the hardest quality of a man's style to counterfeit." He challenged young poets to train their ear with translation work to learn how the choice of words and the movement of the words combined. But having translated texts from 10 different languages into English, Pound found that translation did not always serve the poetry: "The grand bogies for young men who want really to learn strophe writing are Catullus and François Villon. I personally have been reduced to setting them to music as I cannot translate them." While he habitually wrote out verse rhythms as musical lines, Pound did not set his own poetry to music.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
May 11, 2022
when they say "The world's glory is only for once, Comes once, blows once, and soon fades" well that's the whole ballgame
April 22, 2007
Say what you will about Pound as a person; say what you will about the value this book as an act of translation, as Pound knew little to nothing of the languages he was translating from. These "translations" are fantastic as poems in and of themselves, and should be read as such. Whether or not Pound can translate from the Chinese can be debated by minds greater than mine, but his renderings are beautiful.
March 26, 2021
Most of this is centered around lengthy volumes of Cavalcanti, Arnaut Daniel, and Japanese Noh plays.
The Cavalcanti translations are rather dull, except for the Canzone which Pound integrated memorably into Canto 36 (as a sort of ubermenschic interlude rising above its surroundings of anglo-saxon pedantry) - in the Literary Essays volume Pound explains his reasoning for the duller, Swinburnean translations of Cavalcanti's sonnets and madrigals, trying to show a vague english equivalent to the social tone Cavalcanti took up; nevertheless, the prosody is pretty dull and Pound's efforts to reinvent the tone obscure the language, making them pretty dull.
The Arnaut Daniel poems are excellent works of language, truly creative with the vast range of diction Pound saught to recreate the highly alliterative, constantly rhyming sounds he perceived in the Troubador poets; they're also presented with many helpful notes, and it's worth noting that the 'Arnaut Daniel' essay in Literary Esssays is verbatim what's included here, with only a short prologue.
The Noh plays, too, are presented in a very didactic, educatory way, and while the translations are dull themselves (I believe more on account of the libretto-like nature of Noh plays, than on failures via Pound) they're coupled with tireless and endless footnotes, essay interludes, and appendices to really show the reader the theatrical and spiritual value of Noh plays, and in all the entire selection (nearly 200 pages) does a beautiful job of exposing the entire spiritual experience of that theatre - although, as always with Pound, it's more Fenellosa with occasional Pound edits, and with all the fallibility and errors that come along with that.
Also included are Cathay (the chinese 'translations', ornate but generally full of errors) and his excellent translation of The Seafarer; available in many other Pound collections.
The volume concludes with a lengthy translation of aphorisms by Remy de Gourmont, which are occasionally insightful post-Nietzschean type psychologizing, although relatively dull (Pound seems to value Gourmont much higher than just about anyone else); some "translations" of Indian and Egyptian love poems, more included for the amusing character of ancient exotica; and a collection of various short translations which get rendered into his slippery, alliterative style.
In all, perhaps only the Daniel poems are essential here, since probably there are better ways of learning about Cavalcanti or Noh theatre
The Cavalcanti translations are rather dull, except for the Canzone which Pound integrated memorably into Canto 36 (as a sort of ubermenschic interlude rising above its surroundings of anglo-saxon pedantry) - in the Literary Essays volume Pound explains his reasoning for the duller, Swinburnean translations of Cavalcanti's sonnets and madrigals, trying to show a vague english equivalent to the social tone Cavalcanti took up; nevertheless, the prosody is pretty dull and Pound's efforts to reinvent the tone obscure the language, making them pretty dull.
The Arnaut Daniel poems are excellent works of language, truly creative with the vast range of diction Pound saught to recreate the highly alliterative, constantly rhyming sounds he perceived in the Troubador poets; they're also presented with many helpful notes, and it's worth noting that the 'Arnaut Daniel' essay in Literary Esssays is verbatim what's included here, with only a short prologue.
The Noh plays, too, are presented in a very didactic, educatory way, and while the translations are dull themselves (I believe more on account of the libretto-like nature of Noh plays, than on failures via Pound) they're coupled with tireless and endless footnotes, essay interludes, and appendices to really show the reader the theatrical and spiritual value of Noh plays, and in all the entire selection (nearly 200 pages) does a beautiful job of exposing the entire spiritual experience of that theatre - although, as always with Pound, it's more Fenellosa with occasional Pound edits, and with all the fallibility and errors that come along with that.
Also included are Cathay (the chinese 'translations', ornate but generally full of errors) and his excellent translation of The Seafarer; available in many other Pound collections.
The volume concludes with a lengthy translation of aphorisms by Remy de Gourmont, which are occasionally insightful post-Nietzschean type psychologizing, although relatively dull (Pound seems to value Gourmont much higher than just about anyone else); some "translations" of Indian and Egyptian love poems, more included for the amusing character of ancient exotica; and a collection of various short translations which get rendered into his slippery, alliterative style.
In all, perhaps only the Daniel poems are essential here, since probably there are better ways of learning about Cavalcanti or Noh theatre
March 22, 2016
The patron Saint of translation is not humble Francis but flamboyant Jerome. St. Francis didn’t translate the language of animals and stones and stars: he just frankly loved them. Whereas St. Jerome is always depicted in the company of a proud, lonesome lion while he writes and re-writes in a long table all by himself, the city (of men) shining from afar. They are both Saints and probably the translation craft needs both patrons. Pound was clearly closer to Jerome.
July 20, 2019
Need to reread personae after this cus im not sure if really read it cus i keep coming back to the pdf and finding new poems, for whatever my dementias worth this was a great book of translations, need to listen to schoppys advice to read some leopardi and need to purchas me a book of Saturno something or the other, also need to get Ezra’s actual translation of the analects instead of half assing it
July 27, 2007
Especially the Seafarer & the french stuff...excellent
October 3, 2023
I have always maintained, following Robert Frost, Ezra's bete noir that "poetry is what gets lost in translation". Pound, ever the contrarian, disagreed and set out to personally translate 3,000 years of global poetry, "the tale of the tribe", from ancient Egypt to China to his beloved medieval France. Egyptian hieroglyphics, the Chinese ideogram, Francois Villon, the bard and thief, and "the great master of the love poem", Guido Cavalcanti, all come in for dazzling display and fresh, bouncy translations by the Poet of the XX century, Ezra Pound.
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September 21, 2023
The endless Provençal love poetry here is perhaps slightly overrated by Pound, and the Rémy de Gourmont aphorisms were very hit or miss, but the range in this collection is staggering: 'Cathay' and his version of "The Seafarer" are some of Pound's finest moments, and the book-length essay and translation of Japanese "Noh" plays was fascinating and beautiful (particularly 'Nishikige'). Some of the random stuff towards the back, particularly Catullus, was equally exciting, and the 4 Saturno Montanari translations that close the volume are fantastic, even though he seemed to be literally just some guy whose dad sent Pound a manucript after he died. God damn this man has taste.
POMERIGGIO DI LUGLIO
Road in the open there,
all sun and grain-dust
and sour air
from the canal bank,
Ditch-water higher now
with the tide,
turns violet and red.
A swallow for shuttle, back,
forth, forth, back
from shack to
marsh track;
to the far
sky-line that's fading now.
A thin song of a girl plucking grain,
a child cries from the threshing floor.
POMERIGGIO DI LUGLIO
Road in the open there,
all sun and grain-dust
and sour air
from the canal bank,
Ditch-water higher now
with the tide,
turns violet and red.
A swallow for shuttle, back,
forth, forth, back
from shack to
marsh track;
to the far
sky-line that's fading now.
A thin song of a girl plucking grain,
a child cries from the threshing floor.
June 29, 2007
In my opinion, this is really the master compendium of poetry in translation. Pound absolutely revolutionizes poetic translation and his influence has been far under-appreciated by current translators who've been fooled into believing that a poem's substance lies in what it says literally. he also helps to resurrect any number of long-dead poets we all should have been reading instead of longfellow, and breathe new life into their work in English. Strongly recommended.
April 29, 2008
This is a great book, but I just feel a little incomplete. It doesn't have Homage to Sextus Propertius or some of his earlier Propertius translations.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews