Article published In:
TargetVol. 30:3 (2018) ► pp.388–414
Towards a poetics of immersion in lyric translation
Aesthetic illusion and the translator as immersive reader in English translations of classical Chinese ci
poetry
This study, with reference to a variety of English translations of Chinese ci poetry (詞), sets out to demonstrate
a mental state of ‘aesthetic illusion’, in which the translator-as-reader gets immersed into (an) imaginary world(s) triggered by
the original poems and imaginatively experiences the world(s) “in analogous ways to real-life experience” (Wolf 2013a, 11–12). It argues that the translator-as-reader’s imaginary experience of the world(s) ‘from
within’ activates a variety of manifestations and implementations of narrativity, and affects the interplay between the lyric and
narrative modes in the translated lyric poems. Drawing on analytical concepts and methods from cognitive narratology, aesthetic
illusion, and reading psychology, this study aims at foregrounding the translator’s role as an immersive reader, a
“side-participant” (Gerrig 1993) in the represented worlds, and at giving an enriched
account of what the translator’s reading of the original poems involve.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Aesthetic illusion: Reading as immersive experience
- 3.Immersion and distance
- 4.The translator and the text: Immersion or distance?
- 5.Immersion in lyric translation: From mental to textual involvement
- 6.Immersion and narrativity in lyric poetry
- 7.Conclusion
- Acknowledgements
- Notes
-
References
References
Alber, Jan
2002 “
The
‘Moreness’ or ‘Lessness’ of ‘Natural’ Narratology: Samuel Beckett’s ‘Lessness’
Reconsidered.”
Style 36 (1): 54–75.
Ayling, Alan, and Duncan Mackintosh
1965 A
Collection of Chinese Lyrics. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Bao, Yiyun (鮑倚雲)
1989 Tuiyuconghua (退餘叢話). Vol. 215 of
Congshujicheng xubian
(
叢書集成續編). Taibei: Xinwenfeng chubangongsi.
Boyd, Brain
2009 On
the Origin of Stories: Evolution, Cognition, and Fiction. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Bryant, Daniel
1982 Lyric
Poets of the Southern T’ang. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press.
Cao, Xueqin
1973 The
Story of the Stone, vol. I1, translated
by
David Hawkes. London: Penguin Books.
Caracciolo, Marco
2014 “
Experientiality.”
The
Living Handbook of Narratology, edited by
Peter Hühn,
et al. Last
modified July 1, 2014.
[URL].
Fludernik, Monika
1996 Towards
a ‘Natural’
Narratology. London: Routledge.
Fludernik, Monika
2003 “
Natural
Narratology and Cognitive Parameters.” In
Narrative Theory and
Cognitive Science, edited by
David Herman, 243–267. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.
Fludernik, Monika
2005 “
Allegory,
Metaphor, Scene and Expression: The Example of English Medieval and Early Modern Lyric
Poetry.” In
Theory into Poetry: New Approaches to the
Lyric, edited by
Eva Müller-Zettelmann and
Margarete Rubik, 99–124. Amsterdam: Rodopi.
Fusek, Lois
1975 “
Tune:
Sand of the Silk-Washing Stream.” In
Sunflower Splendor: Three
Thousand Years of Chinese Poetry, edited by
Liu Wu-chi and
Irving Y. Lo, 281–283. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Fusek, Lois
1982 Among
the Flowers: the Hua-chien chi. New York: Columbia University Press.
Gerrig, Richard J.
1993 Experiencing Narrative Worlds: On the
Psychological Activities of Reading. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Herman, David
2001 “
Spatial
Reference in Narrative
Domains.”
Text 21 (4): 515–541.
Herman, David
2007 “
Cognition,
Emotion, and Consciousness.” In
The Cambridge Companion to
Narrative, edited by
David Herman, 245–259. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hermans, Theo
2007 The
Conference of the Tongues. Manchester: St. Jerome Publishing.
Hermans, Theo
2010 “
The
Translator as Evaluator.” In
Text and Context: Essays on Translation
& Interpreting in Honour of Ian Mason, edited by
Mona Baker,
Maeve Olohan, and
Maria Calzada Pérez, 63–76. Manchester: St. Jerome Publishing.
Hermans, Theo
2014 “
Positioning
Translators: Voices, Views and Values in Translations.”
Language and
Literature 23 (3): 285–301.
Huashi zhuren (話石主人
)
1992
Hongloumeng
JingYi
(
紅樓夢精義). In
Hongloumeng Kaoping
Liuzhong
(
紅樓夢考評六種). Beijing: Renmin zhongguo chubanshe.
Lewis, David
1970 “
Anselm
and
Actuality.”
Noûs 4(2): 175–188.
Lewis, David
1973 Counterfactuals. Oxford: Blackwell.
Lewis, David
1986 On
the Plurality of
Worlds. Oxford: Blackwell.
Liu, Yih-Ling, and Shahid Suhrawardy
1948 Poems
of Lee Hou-Chu. Bombay: Orient Longmans.
Nell, Victor
1988 Lost
in a Book: The Psychology of Reading for Pleasure. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Rexroth, Kenneth, and Chung Ling
1979 Li
Ch’ing-chao: Complete Poems. New York: A New Direction Book.
Ryan, Marie-Laure
2001 Narrative
as Virtual Reality: Immersion and Interactivity in Literature and Electronic Media. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Ryan, Marie-Laure
2003 “
Cognitive
Maps and the Construction of Narrative Space.” In
Narrative Theory
and Cognitive Science, edited by
David Herman, 214–242. Stanford: CSLI Publications.
Ryan, Marie-Laure
2005 “
On
the Theoretical Foundations of Transmedial
Narratology.” In
Narratology beyond Literary
Criticism, edited by
Jan Christoph Meiser,
Tom Kindt, and
Wilhelm Schernus, 1–23. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
Ryan, Marie-Laure
2013 “
Impossible
Worlds and Aesthetic Illusion.” In Wolf, Bernhart, and
Mahler 2013, 131–148.
Semino, Elena
1997 Language
and World Creation in Poems and Other
Texts. London: Longman.
Toury, Gideon
1980 In
Search of a Theory of Translation. Tel Aviv: Porter Institute for Poetics and Semiotics.
van Inwagen, Peter
1980 “
Indexicality
and Actuality.”
The Philosophical
Review 89 (3): 403–426.
Wales, Katie
1989 A
Dictionary of
Stylistics. London: Longman.
Walton, Kendall L.
1990 Mimesis as Make-Believe: On the
Foundations of the Representational Arts. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Wixted, John Timothy
1979 The Song-Poetry of Wei
Chuang. Tempe, AZ: Arizona State University.
Wolf, Werner
2004 “
Aesthetic
Illusion as an Effect of
Fiction.”
Style 38 (3): 325–350.
Wolf, Werner
2006 “
Introduction:
Frames, Framing and Framing Borders in Literature and Other
Media.” In
Framing Borders in Literature and Other
Media, edited by
Werner Wolf and
Walter Bernhart, 1–40. Amsterdam: Rodopi.
Wolf, Werner
2013a “
Introduction:
Aesthetic Illusion.” In Wolf, Bernhart, and
Mahler 2013, 1–63.
Wolf, Werner
2013b “
Aesthetic
Illusion as an Effect of Lyric Poetry?” In Wolf, Bernhart, and
Mahler 2013, 183–233.
Wolf, Werner
2014 “
Illusion
(Aesthetic).”
The Living Handbook of Narratology, edited
by
Peter Hühn,
et al. Last
modified January 17, 2014.
[URL].
Wolf, Werner, Walter Bernhart, and Andreas Mahler
eds. 2013 Immersion
and Distance: Aesthetic Illusion in Literature and Other
Media. Amsterdam: Rodopi.
Yates, Robin
1988 Washing
Silk: The Life and Selected Poetry of Wei Chuang, 834?–910. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Yu, Pauline
ed. 1994 Voices
of the Song Lyric in China. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Zwaan, Rolf A.
1999 “
Situation Models: The Mental
Leap into Imagined Worlds.”
Current Directions in Psychological
Science 81: 15–18.
Cited by
Cited by 2 other publications
Wang, Yun, Haslina Haroon & Yean Fun Chow
2023.
The translator as an observant reader in
the Story of the Stone
from the perspective of aesthetic illusion and habitus
.
Asia Pacific Translation and Intercultural Studies 10:3
► pp. 279 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 8 april 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.