national poetry month day 18 (take 2)
Monday, 18 April 2011 23:23![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
extemporallySo! If you enjoyed my previous entry on Li Bai and the several different translations I provided of his poem, check out this post I found when googling "li bai death moon" (don't ask*), because it is even cooler oh my god:
Li Bai drinking alone (with the moon**, his shadow, & 32 translators)
Which basically does what its title promises. THIRTY-TWO translations of the same poem :DDD I don't know this poem well enough to say which translation is the best, but I'm enjoying the fuck out of Dongbo's so far ("I sing out! / Startled! / Moon stops dead! / I jitterbug!"), mostly for the exclamation marks, and, uh, "modernity" of it. (I always feel so self-conscious when I'm calling something "modern", you guys, I think this is a hangover from my days in Torchwood and Doctor Who fandom. Whenever the BBC tried advertising them they'd be like, "The new series is back, and more modern than ever! More gritty! More sexy! Did we mention modern and sexy??!")
Poetry is so ridiculous and awesome, you guys. So are languages. \o/
* I remember reading quite recently (in the last couple of days, at least) a poem about the belief that Li Bai had fallen into the Yangtze River when drunk, trying to embrace the reflection of the moon, but I don't remember where I'd read it.
** The moon was quite a Prominent Theme in Li Bai's works. So was being drunk.
ETA Also, from Li Bai's Wikipedia page: "He met Du Fu in the autumn of 744, and again the following year. These were the only occasions on which they met. A dozen of Du Fu's poems to or about Li Bai survive, while only one from Li Bai to Du Fu remains." BROMANCE.
Li Bai drinking alone (with the moon**, his shadow, & 32 translators)
Which basically does what its title promises. THIRTY-TWO translations of the same poem :DDD I don't know this poem well enough to say which translation is the best, but I'm enjoying the fuck out of Dongbo's so far ("I sing out! / Startled! / Moon stops dead! / I jitterbug!"), mostly for the exclamation marks, and, uh, "modernity" of it. (I always feel so self-conscious when I'm calling something "modern", you guys, I think this is a hangover from my days in Torchwood and Doctor Who fandom. Whenever the BBC tried advertising them they'd be like, "The new series is back, and more modern than ever! More gritty! More sexy! Did we mention modern and sexy??!")
Poetry is so ridiculous and awesome, you guys. So are languages. \o/
* I remember reading quite recently (in the last couple of days, at least) a poem about the belief that Li Bai had fallen into the Yangtze River when drunk, trying to embrace the reflection of the moon, but I don't remember where I'd read it.
** The moon was quite a Prominent Theme in Li Bai's works. So was being drunk.
ETA Also, from Li Bai's Wikipedia page: "He met Du Fu in the autumn of 744, and again the following year. These were the only occasions on which they met. A dozen of Du Fu's poems to or about Li Bai survive, while only one from Li Bai to Du Fu remains." BROMANCE.
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Date: Tuesday, 19 April 2011 03:35 (UTC)no subject
Date: Wednesday, 20 April 2011 17:48 (UTC)no subject
Date: Tuesday, 19 April 2011 22:36 (UTC)no subject
Date: Wednesday, 20 April 2011 17:48 (UTC)