Words by the Look: Issues in Translating Chinese Visual Poetry

Cosima Bruno

Words by the Look: Issues in Translating Chinese Visual Poetry

In: China and Its Others

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Cosima Bruno

Cosima Bruno School of Oriental and African Studies

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Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 245–276

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789401207195_011

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Partly because of the increased use of the computer in creative writing, from the mid-1990s onward, visual, audio and performing-arts components have been integrated into the Chinese poetic text in an unprecedented manner. This paper presents a number of poems where visual form interacts with literary technique. When dealing with these texts, translators have often opted for non-translation. Indeed, translation of these texts presents serious challenges: How can we translate into an alphabetic language the interplay between verbal and visual so inherently embedded in certain uses of Chinese characters? How can we translate the relation and involvement between different artistic media into an exclusively verbal format? After presenting three different but not exclusive modes of resorting to the visual in contemporary Chinese poetry, I point out unique text-based issues, and derive a number of theoretical implications, which can inform the translation of these poems into English.

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China and Its Others

Knowledge Transfer through Translation, 1829-2010

Series: Approaches to Translation Studies, Volume: 34 and Approaches to Translation Studies Online, Volume: 34

E-Book ISBN:: 9789401207195

Publisher:: Brill

Print Publication Date:: 01 Jan 2012

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African Studies	Education	Media Studies
American Studies	History	Middle East and Islamic Studies
Ancient Near East and Egypt	Human Rights and Humanitarian Law	Musicology
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Asian Studies	International Relations	Religious Studies
Biblical Studies	Jewish Studies	Slavic and Eurasian Studies
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Book History and Cartography	Life Sciences	Theology and World Christianity
Classical Studies	Literature and Cultural Studies

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Words by the Look: Issues in Translating Chinese Visual Poetry

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China and Its Others

Knowledge Transfer through Translation, 1829-2010

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