/lit/ - Literature

>>22916340
I highly praised Chinese poetry, and mentioned the fact that it has *already* been extensively studied by Western authors, and books such as Pound's Cathay are *already* part of the Western canon. As soon as I mentioned Pound and Waley, however, you started complaining about their "pseud" approaches. They're not faithful? No translator is. Not even the Chinese's reading of their own past is truly faithful to it. Perhaps Pound's translation is more faithful than a "faithful" one could be. Being a poet who sometimes translates his own poems, I know what I'm talking about.
Insofar as China has a worth-reading literature, it seems to me *as a foreigner* that it's already been translated and studied, and in fact begun to be so as soon as the West managed to access their books. Pound himself took very great pains to learn some Chinese, find rare editions of Confucius, corresponded with Chinese professors etc.
If you happen to believe there are many Chinese classics, muh "hidden masterpieces", which remain untranslated, maybe you learn some Chinese and translated them yourself, Mr. Highwit.
Keep in mind I am only talking about the English here. There are many more translations by the French, Germans, Soviets...
China has indeed a great literary tradition, which I never denied, though if there is a Chinese Dante, a Cervantes, a Goethe, a Mallarmé, a Proust, a Nietzsche, a George, I must confess I have never in my life read him, heard of him, suspected of his existence. Chinese literature for me holds the same level of interest as, e.g., Persian literature, or in fact ancient Hebrew literature (Bible), which contains some extraordinary works, but seems to never have reached a modern stage of development, which only really happens in Europe after the dolce stil nuovo, Petrarch, Cervantes and others. These literatures also, even at its best, contain nothing truly similar to the true major works of the Greeks and Romans, but rather to the likes of Hesiod and such. Leopardi on the differences betwn. Biblical and Homeric imagery is quite conclusive for me.
Michael Wood on YouTube wants to convince me that Du Fu is as great as Donne, maybe Shakespeare, that Chinese poets had attained in Medieval Times an excellence which the English only attained much later, with the Elizabethans and metaphysicals. Maybe??? I don't know Chinese! But in translations no, they don't, Beowulf is as good, the Goliards better, troubadours much better -- and I might make similar bold claims about dozens, maybe hundreds of authors from my own tongue, and once you read them and find they're not that good I can blame translators, no?

Not knowing the language, it's very hard to truthfully discuss Chinese (or Persian, Indian, Mesoamerican, Alaskan, Yoruba, Haiti slum etc.) literature. As far as I can see, it's a very great, very noble tradition, but overrated by the Eternal Chinaboo, like the Jews/Christians overrate the Bible (or do they? I don't know Hebrew either!).