Pound's Musical Aesthetic Thoughts Reflected In The Classic Anthology Defined By Confucius

As a modernist leader of poetry,Ezra Pound is widely known as a translator and poet,but his close relationship with music is less well known.In fact,Pound has been committed to combine with the two different art forms of poetry and music,and has continuously practiced his musical aesthetics in his poetry writing and translation.Shi Jing,as the last anthology of classical Chinese poetry translated by Pound,embodies his musical pursuit in this ancient collection of poems which is thought to be both poetry and ballad.This thesis focuses on two important musical theories in Pound's musical aesthetic thoughts: Absolute Rhythm and Great Bass,and mainly analyzes the reflection of these two musical theories in Pound's own translated work.With a detailed look at Pound's musical aesthetic thoughts in his English version of Shi Jing: The Classic Anthology Defined by Confucius,it has been found that Absolute Rhythm and Great Bass form a balance of internal emotion and external structure to make a piece of music with structure and freedom at the same time.And this kind of balance runs through the whole translated work,which effectively transfers the musicality in Shi Jing,To be specific,Absolute rhythm refers to the rhythm which should be the carrier of emotional expression,just like music.When it was applied in poetry,the true meaning is emotion of the poem.Pound translated the Shi Jing by following the internal rhythm and applying the techniques of emotional equivalence and persona to achieve an emotional unity between the original text and the translated work.Great Bass consists of tempo,beats,and meters which together form the basic structure of a piece of music.When it was applied in poetry,it means the external structure or form of the poem which make up the musicality of poetry.On one hand,Pound conveyed the musicality of Shi Jing by maintaining and absorbing the original structure,forms,and rhythm;on the other hand,he reproduced the musicality in Shi Jing through his creative translation in title,rhythm,and form,and grafts it with Western poetry,so that this ancient collection of poetry shines abroad.Therefore,analyzing Pound's Shi Jing from the perspective of his musical aesthetic thoughts not only provides a comprehensive perspective for analyzing Pound's comment's on music and poetry translation,but also his creative pursuit of the musicality of poetry.It also offers us another important dimension for the interpretation of Pound's poetry translation.