The poetics of translation and the synesthesia of appreciation
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Sino-Platonic Papers is pleased to announce the publication of its three-hundred-and-forty-seventh issue:
"Metric Montage in Chinese Poetry," by Conal Boyce.
https://sino-platonic.org/complete/spp347_metric_montage_chinese_poetry.pdf
Keywords: Chinese poetry; metric montage; Shěn Zhōu; Lǐ Bái; Lǐ Hè; Frodsham
ABSTRACT
It is said that the most obvious thing is the hardest to notice. For classic Chinese poetry, the most “obvious” thing is its metric montage, which is not just one of its features, but its life‑blood. Defined in a 1929 essay on Soviet film theory, the concept of metric montage can help us understand how Chinese poetry works as well: namely, with a steady pulse, each the notional analog of a cinematic “shot,” but timed so that two such shots — i.e., two hànzì — pass per second. That is to say, we read two characters of Chinese poetry for each heartbeat, assuming a nominal resting rate of 60 beats per minute (BPM). But that is only the basic rhythmic aspect, with its several variants excluded from this summary. Once the visual aspect is added to the mix, it changes the way one judges whether a supposed translation of a Chinese poem should be accepted as English literature or downgraded to an attractively packaged species of commentary, with caesuras.—–
All issues of Sino-Platonic Papers are available in full for no charge.
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Selected readings
- "Sacré bleu! — the synesthesia of Walmart cyan" (10/8/22)
- "Chinese Synesthesia" (7/26/17)
- "Synesthesia and Chinese characters" (3/9/17)
- "Parenthetical, alphabetical, ironical commentary in Sinographic texts" (12/29/21)
- "Pablumese" (3/22/23)
- "Mi experiencia como Team Leader de compras vecinales" (16/14/22)
- "ChatGPT: Theme and Variations" (2/21/23)
- Conal Boyce, "On the Varieties of Factoid: New Ones Bred of Phantom Polski and Snarky Deutsch, Old Ones Engendered by the Quirks of Gertrude Stein and Mi Fu", Sino-Platonic Papers, 275 (Feb. 2018), 1-15.
- _________, "The Dao De Jing Minus Ninety-six Percent: A Troubled Text Relieved of Its Politics and Bloat; and Another Look at the Indic Influence Puzzle", Sino-Platonic Papers, 221 (Jan. 2012), 1-26.