Feb 18 Post - Ellie

 I really enjoyed reading the Nineteen Ways of Looking at Wang Wei work. I thought it was very interesting to read so many different translations and comprehensions of Wang Wei's poem, that is rather short, and the message rather plain. But I think that the translation style says a lot about the individual translators, how they chose to represent Wang Wei's words in this poem. I enjoyed most of the versions, actually, save for a few that I thought were over the top and arrogant-sounding. I thought that the critic who wrote the work was rather judgmental, though. He often critiqued the translated versions and the translators themselves as being arrogant and self-aggrandizing, but I think that he was essentially doing the same thing himself, picking apart these poem translations and casting them aside one by one like they weren't good enough. Something that really struck me was how he talked about the word "reflection" which he acted very confused by when the translators used it, but it felt like he was being purposefully obtuse when saying that. Any normal person (me included) would be able to understand what the translator meant by "reflection," and yet this critic kicked up a fuss about it, because he wanted to grandstand over these translators. Though his commentary was interesting, I really did not like his tone throughout the work, nor the way he talked about the many various translations. On page 18, he talks about the translators having an issue of ego, but I really think that accusation could be thrown back at him as well. He has a big ego, and it shows in the way he turns his nose up at the perfectly acceptable and beautiful poems, without providing one of his own to back up his claims with.