Abstract
Since the beginning of “American new-style poetry campaign” in the 1910s, Chinese ancient poems have exerted influence on American poetry. As the outcome of Sino-Western poetics communication, The Widow’s Lament in Springtime is a household poem. The poem has both Chinese and American poetic features. When translating this poem into Chinese, the translator should try his best to reproduce the Chinese and American characteristics. Negligence of either side will lead to the failure of the translation. It is in this sense that translation is a matter of poetics communication.
Highlights
: The Widow’s Lament in Springtime Sorrow is my own yard where the new grass flames as it has flamed often before but not with the cold fire that closes round me this year
The author will take the poem for example to explore the issue of Sino-western poetics communication of the early 20th century
Symbolism could merge with English poetics tradition to form European orthodoxy, weakening the features of Americanization of American poems. (Zhang, 2001: 93) As a result, American poets turned to the other side of the Pacific ocean to seek resistant force
Summary
When it comes to the relationship between American modern poems and Chinese poetry, Ezra pound is the first to come into people’s mind. Thirty-seven Chinese poems in collaboration with David Wang He ever wrote two poems respectively entitled To the Spirit of Bai Juyi (1920) and The Portrait of the Author (1921), in which Williams borrowed the images of singing girl and “Yang Kue Fei” (concubine of Minghuang Emperor of the Tang Dynasty), who appeared in Bai Juyi’s poems before. As Ezra Pound’s close friend, Williams showed great interest in Chinese poems and actively tried the new techniques he discovered in Chinese poems. This made many of his poems display Chinese poetic features. As the outcome of the Sino-Western poetics communication, The Widow’s Lament in Springtime is a very famous love poem with Chinese poetic characteristics
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