Jazz and the translation of classical Chinese poetry: Against the grammar-translation method and “Western Branch Orthodoxy”

Abstract

What is the difference between playing jazz piano and playing classical music on the piano? Are there better and worse ways to translate classical Chinese poetry into English? What do these questions have to do with each other? In this talk, Associate Professor Lucas Klein develops his earlier argument that the baseline for translating premodern Chinese poetry into English is what he has called “strong interpretation.” He will develop this argument by introducing the history of debates around classical Chinese poetry translation alongside a look at translations of other classical literatures—namely Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit—followed by a critique one of the dominant scholarly modes of translating classical Chinese into English. Since the baseline of translating classical Chinese poetry is strong interpretation, the translations that are most successful are the translations that own up to their interpretations, rather than trying to conceal them under the pretense of objectivity, and which necessarily incorporate improvisational techniques as in jazz.

About the speaker

Lucas Klein (PhD Yale) is a father, writer, translator, and associate professor of Chinese at Arizona State University. He is executive editor of the Hsu-Tang Library of Classical Chinese Literature (Oxford), author of The Organization of Distance (Brill, 2018), co-editor of Chinese Poetry and Translation (Amsterdam, 2019), and translator of Mang Ke (Zephyr, 2018), Li Shangyin (NYRB, 2018), Duo Duo (Yale, 2021), and Xi Chuan (New Directions, 2012, 2022).

Registration

This event is open to the public and free to attend, however registration is required. Click here to register.

Please note that this talk is taking place on campus. This talk will not be recorded or live-streamed.

Chair: Dr Cosima Bruno, SOAS Department of East Asian Languages & Cultures

Organiser: SOAS China Institute

Contact email: sci@soas.ac.uk