iranian scholar on thoreau

[clay dube]

Ezra Pound is famous as a poet and infamous for his support for fascism. What is much less known is his strong and enduring interest in China.

Here's an academic study of Pound and China: https://www.press.umich.edu/11942/ezra_pound_and_china

Pound drew on the work of others to produce his versions of Chinese poetry.

Here is a discussion of his efforts: https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1794/5772/Stone_is_alive_in_my_hand.pdf?sequence=1

This includes a comparison of Pound's version of a poem with that of Herbert Giles, an early Western scholar of China.

[clay dube]

Iran is not part of the Association for Asian Studies definition of Asia, but many consider Iran part of the Orient. So, I'll seize upon that to share with you an amazing video. Alireza Taghdarrah lectures on Thoreau at Walden Woods. Taghdarreh's visit was part of his first trip outside of Iran. He did not have the chance to go to university and studied English on his own, right when Iran was convulsed in revolution. He picked up Thoreau and ended up devoting a decade to creating the first translation of Thoreau into Farsi.

Taghdarrah is introduced by rock legend and Walden Woods founder Don Henley.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=48&v=fwBZOR0Q7sQ

Let's use this thread to talk about how translation is impossible and essential. What a miracle it is to labor so hard and long to share something as profound as Walden or the works of Asian authors with English speakers. Please share your favorite translations or stories of translation.

Here, incidentally, is the Chinese wikipedia page for Thoreau:
https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh/%E4%BA%A8%E5%88%A9%C2%B7%E6%88%B4%E7%BB%B4%C2%B7%E6%A2%AD%E7%BD%97

According to the page on Walden (瓦尔登湖), there are many translations of this American classic. The American Institute in Taiwan includes a translation of "Civil Disobedience" (公民不服从) on its website: http://www.ait.org.tw/infousa/zhtw/PUBS/AmReader/p158.htm
edited by Clay Dube on 7/28/2015

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