Thursday 20th September 2018

Nefarious War Background Information

➢ Li Po never fought in the war but he was an advisor for Chinese emperor Ming Huang.
➢ During the 750 BC, China was lead by the Tang Dynasty aka “Golden Age of China”.
➢ The Sang-Kan river is now called the Yangtze River
➢ The barbarians are the Chinese people who migrated to northern China. They are known as
the non-Hans who lives just outside the ancient China’s border.
➢ The names of the barbarians are based on compass directions
➢ The English version of the poem removed some of the literary devices from the original
version.
➢ The language usage of the original version is much harder

Friday 21th September 2018

Lament of the Frontier Guard

Why is Ezra Pound translation so controversial?

What were the problems in translating the poems?

➢ Ezra Pound was an American, born on October 30, 1855, in Hailey, Idaho. He was famous for
publishing several successful books of poetry on the “modern” movement in English and
American literature. He was also famous for translating Chinese and Japanese poems.
➢ The war is known as the “Wars of Chinese Spring and Autumn Period”. It started during the
722 BC and finished in 481 BC. The war started because the Zhou Dynasty feels that they are
losing power due to being destroyed by Quanrong and losing their homeland in the
Guanzhong region. The victorious parties of the war are Han, Wei, Zhao, Qin, Chu, Qi and
Yan Dynasty. The defeated parties are the small states.
➢ The language usage of the original version is much harder to understand.
➢ Some of the translations and punctuations are different.
➢ The structure of the original version is much better than the translated version.
➢