Chapter 1. Introduction
crystal screen being let down, and someone watching the moon. However, there
are also clear differences between them in terms of word-meaning (jade, jewelled
and marble, for example) and form (line-length, line-breaks, and rhyme, for exam-
ple). This implies that rewriting poems is far from simple. If a translation is a text
which, by social convention, should have an “appropriate relation of relevant simi-
larity” with a text in another language (Chesterman 1997: 69), the three translators
have both shared and differing views as to what is an appropriate relationship be-
tween the two texts, and what similarities are most relevant to this relationship.
Those experienced in translating poetry might well agree with the layperson
that understanding and rewriting a poem is not necessarily easy. They would also
be aware, however, of just how complex a set of knowledges, skills and preferred
approaches is involved in understanding and rewriting. For example, which of the
potential multiple meanings of a word or phrase should one follow – e.g. líng lóng
in its literal sense ‘tinkling-clinking’ (as with jade pieces) or its transferred mean-
ing ‘exquisite’? Or how should one address a poem’s or line’s underlying image?
Here, as Cooper explains, Yù jiē yuàn refers to an aging concubine waiting in vain
for the emperor, and hence the tinkle of crystal beads in the curtain, which
he translates as glaze, alludes to her tears. And how should one prioritise the po-
em’s form? Here, for example, only Xu uses a traditional English verse-form
(rhymed iambic pentameters) to reflect Li Po’s traditional Chinese verse-form.
From a more abstract viewpoint, poetry translating even entails philosophical
questions. Is it ever possible, for example, to know all the meanings in the ‘source’
poem that one translates from, or even any of them? Might understanding a poem,
in other words, merely mean interpreting it from one’s own subjective viewpoint?
Is it ever possible to convey all of one’s understanding in a ‘target poem’ – that is,
in a poem rewritten into another (‘target’ or ‘receptor’) language? And is one still
translating if one does not even try to convey this understanding, but writes a dif-
ferent response to the source poem?
Translating also enables a writer of one language to communicate with readers
of another. This means that poetry translators who communicate with readers do
more than simply understanding and rewriting poems. They may select which
poet’s work to communicate (or poets’, in Cooper’s case: he included Li Po’s con-
temporary Tu Fu in the same volume), and which poems to translate. They typi-
cally work with other people to bring about this communication: publishers, say,
or ‘text helpers’ who give feedback on working versions. They may also write ‘pa-
ratexts’ (back-up materials): Cooper, for example, added an introduction to
Chinese poetry, and notes to most poems.
Moreover, poetry translators participate in wider social and cultural processes.
Ezra Pound’s translations of Li Po, for example, formed part of an influential ‘im-
agist’ drive to rejuvenate English poetry by rejecting “flabby, abstract language and