11-Pond与诗歌翻译.ppt

The Imagist Poets (Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams) Imagism was an important literary movement between 1912 and 1917, led at first by Pound and then by Amy Lowell. Central to the Imagist idea was “clarity of expression through the use of precise visual images.” Influenced by the Japanese haiku(俳句） and partly by ancient Greek lyrics, the Imagist poets advocated concision and directness, building their short poems around single images. They also preferred looser cadences to traditional regular rhythms. In Some Imagist Poets, a landmark work of Imagism, six core principles were set as follows: To employ common language that is precisely suited to the phrase To search out new rhythms to express new moods To welcome all subjects to the field of topics To quell vagueness with exact images To produce hard, clear verse free of confusion and distortion To compress thought as though distilling the essence of meaning In a Station of the Metro The apparition of these faces in the crowd; Petals on a wet, black bough. The Metro: the subway in Paris Apparition: a visible appearance of something not present, and especially of a dead person. What does the speaker see? Why are the faces compared to petals? Why is it specified that the petals are on a “wet, black bough?” What might the latter refer to? 人群中这几张面孔幽灵般闪现， 湿淋淋黑树枝上几朵花瓣。 This haiku-like poem was inspired by a visit Ezra Pound took to Paris. When he emerged from the Metro one day, he “saw suddenly a beautiful face, and then another and another, and then a beautiful child’s face, and then another beautiful woman, and I tried all that day to find any words that seemed to me worthy, or as lovely as that sudden emotion.” At first he wrote a 30-line poem, which he destroyed. Then, a year later, he completed the 20 words (title included) of “In a Station of the Metro.” The “sudden emotion” which stimulated his creation provides the key to understand the specific choice of the word “apparition” and more genera