In April, many people quoted the beginning of Eliot's classic long poem "The Wasteland" on social platforms: "April is the most cruel month" - 2022 is the year that "The Wasteland" is the centenary of the creation of "Wasteland".
The Wasteland is a masterpiece by the English poet Eliot, whose publication has been hailed as "a milestone in Western modernist poetry". In October 1922, Wasteland was first published in the inaugural issue of the quarterly Standard, edited by Elliot himself, and at the end of the same year, a single edition was published in the United States, and Elliott added more than fifty notes to the monograph.
Wasteland is in China
In April, The Paper interviewed several Chinese poets, many of whom were critics, writers, scholars, translators, and editors of literary journals, on the history of the reception of Wasteland in China, its influence on Chinese poets, and its relevance to the present.
This article is an exclusive interview with the surging news reporter by the poet and professor of Chinese min University, Wang Jiaxin, on "Wasteland".
Wang Jiaxin was in his hometown of Danjiangkou, Hubei Province, in 2013. Photo by Hu Min
【Dialogue】
The Paper: This year marks the centenary of the publication of "Wasteland", would you like to talk to us about the dissemination and acceptance process of this classic long poem in China?
Wang Jiaxin: In China, the first person to vigorously introduce Eliot and make a significant impact on new Chinese poetry was Ye Gongchao. Ye Gongchao studied in the United States and Britain, published English poetry collections, and in the mid-to-late 1930s, when he was teaching at Tsinghua University, he successively wrote "Eliot's Poems" (Note: At that time, Ye Gongchao translated "Eliot" as "Eliot") and "Re-discussing Eliot's Poems", and asked his then-student Bian Zhilin to translate Eliot's important poetic treatise "Tradition and Personal Talent". Later, his "Re-discussion of Eliot's Poems" became the preface to the first Chinese translation of "Wasteland", that is, Zhao Luorui's translation.
Elliot
It was precisely because of the vigorous translation of Ye Gongchao and others that the new Chinese poetry circle at that time contributed to a round of "Wasteland Shock Wave" (Sun Yushi). Now it seems that Ye Gongchao's comments on Elliot still have considerable sensitivity and penetration. He believes that "The Wasteland is his great work of maturity, when he has seen through himself thoroughly, and at the same time he has realized the suffering of mankind, in short, he has obtained a considerable title, which is 'death' and 'resurrection'". He also points out that "waiting for the rain" is the "most serious theme" of The Wasteland.
In terms of poetry, Ye Gongchao called Wasteland "the greatest experiment in poetry" because it "is a synthesis of all previous forms and methods." It is worth noting that Ye Gongchao did not talk about technology, but looked at the problem from a historical perspective: "Eliot's poems are not noticeable in his religious beliefs, but in his further profound expression, the expansion of intricate consciousness, and the emotions envisaged for the future of the entire human civilization"; "Eliot's method is to create an enlarged intricate perception, to express the mind of the entire civilization, to understand the existence of the past..."
"To create a consciousness of ancient and modern intricacies" and "to express the soul of the entire civilization", Ye Gongchao profoundly grasped the nature of Eliot's poetry. So a translator like him can expand and deepen the poetic consciousness of an era. The poems of Bian Zhilin and others influenced by Eliot in the new Chinese poetry scene in the 1930s can be said to be in a sense "lilacs on the wasteland" (Zhang Jieyu).
By the 1940s, Eliot and Auden had a greater influence on China's new poetic poets, especially on the Southwest United Poets. It is this influence that has effectively promoted the artistic pursuit of modernity by a group of new poets such as Mu Dan. For example, Mu Dan's poem "May" obviously adopts the collage method of different styles of "Wasteland", and the whole poem is composed of a unique "main text" and "chorus": "chorus" is a parody of five talented and beautiful people, wind and snow in the style of the old style poem, "main text" is a Mudan-style poem, the language is rich in modern texture and inner tension, highly condensed to the point of exploding, and even consciously uses some violent military terms and industrial metaphors, with the utmost realistic pain and cruelty during the war. In this way, between the "main text" and the "chorus", a meaningful contrast is formed, and a strong tension of ideological art is generated. It can be said that it is precisely because of the inspiration and revelation of Eliot and Auden that Mudan has found a way into their own reality.
The Paper: When did you first read "Wasteland" and how did you feel at that time?
Wang Jiaxin: In the early 1980s, I first read a translation of Zhao Luorui's "Wasteland" from the Selected Works of Foreign Modernists (Volume I, Volume I), edited by Yuan Kejia and others. Together with the poems of Rilke, Yeats, Auden, Valery, and Lorca that I had read at that time, it constituted for me a "baptism of modernity" that was crucial to my life. As for the impression that "Wasteland" gave me at that time, like a giant mural or symphony of the times, it is difficult for me to describe them all, and as a young poet, it was difficult for me to get a glimpse of it at that time. I remember I marked the poems with marks, and those fragments and sentences were probably the most stimulating place for me. But even then I realized that this was apocalyptic work that I needed to read repeatedly. It's hard to say until now that we can exhaust it.
The Paper: In the years of repeated reading since, has your feelings about Wasteland changed?
Wang Jiaxin: Indeed, the reading and understanding of "Wasteland" will accompany us throughout our lives. When I was in London in 1993, I wrote this sentence: "Dark clouds are spitting and breathing in the streets. And when it gets darker, the streetlights in Eliot's poems come on. Later, I wrote articles such as "The Eighth Line of the Wasteland" and "Speaking with the Tongue of Literary History"—Eliot's "The Wasteland" and Its Repercussions," and then I later studied Zhao Luorui and Mu Dan's translation of the Wasteland. As far as translation is concerned, Zhao Luorui's translation is not only the first translation, but also in many ways it is difficult to surpass for posterity, Mu Dan's translation, he himself is not very satisfied, he once suggested that friends still read Zhao Luorui's translation, but he can give his translation a unique language power, which is not ordinary translators can do, such as Mu Dan's translation of the "Wasteland • Funeral Rites of the Dead" section -
But when we came back from the Hyacinth Garden, it was late,
Your arms are full, your hair is wet,
I couldn't speak, I couldn't see with both eyes, I
Neither life nor death, knowing nothing,
Looking into the center of the light, there was silence.
Desolate and empty is the sea.
Such a translation not only accurately reproduces the texture, difficulty and heterogeneity of a modern poem, but also is very profound and touching, as if reading such a translation, I really entered the core of "Wasteland". There I was also "speechless" and "neither alive nor dead, I knew anything", but I could "see into the center of the light".
Years have passed, and Wasteland has not been "outdated", and like the timeless classics of history, it has become something that requires us to constantly "reread". And every time I reread it, I still have a sense of freshness and admiration, and I am amazed by Eliot's incomparably mature and strange mind, that deep and vast historical insight, and the structure and narrative of "The Wasteland" itself, which still seems wonderful today to continue to produce poetic meaning in contrast, irony and collage.
The Paper: In recent years, you have also gained a richer understanding of "Wasteland"?
Wang Jiaxin: Not only is Wasteland not obsolete, in many senses we still live in the Wasteland, just as Eliot himself felt that he was still living in Dante's hell when he walked through the city of London.
"Wasteland" is the "name" of an era and a world. What is a "wasteland"? Some people say that it is a portrayal of the Western world after the First World War, and some people say that the "wasteland" is the human life itself after the disappearance of divinity. It all depends on our reading of it from our own lives, for example, the Wasteland is very gloomy, as if it were a modern version of Dante's Hell, but in the last chapter of the poem, "The Words of Thunder," there is a hint of hope: "A pillar of lightning has come from the brush." Then there was a wet wind / bringing rain" (Zhao Luorui translation), and the heavy rain was about to come to this dry wasteland, while Thunder spoke sanskrit that the average Western reader did not understand: "datta, dayadhavam, damyata", which was somewhat ironic. The poem ends with these three Sanskrit words, which are quoted from the Buddhist text Vedas, meaning: "giving, compassion, restraint."
I noticed this intriguing ending, and experienced its restraint and a hint of irony in great compassion, which was also a recent thing. This shows that the reading of The Wasteland, like the reading of all great works, needs to accompany our experience of life and the world, and requires a certain "wisdom that comes with time," as Yeats put it.
The Paper: Looking back, in what sense do you think Wasteland has had an impact on you and your generation of Chinese poets?
Wang Jiaxin: "Wasteland" reappears in front of Chinese poets and readers after a long period of imprisonment. Its "reappearance" in the early 1980s was also the time, when our generation woke up from our own "wasteland." We also need to see and walk out of our own spiritual ruins. That is to say, "Wasteland" also has a certain epoch-making significance for our generation.
Of course, there are also different views on the huge influence of "Wasteland". The American poet Williams once said that "the emergence of 'The Wasteland' is a disaster for American poetry." But the problem is that this "catastrophe" is something that modern poetry must experience. Without this "catastrophe," Williams himself would not have been able to find another way in poetry.
Personally, I value Wasteland more in Eliot's work. Another famous long poem of the poet, "Four Quartets", is more exquisite in poetry and has a summative significance in personal spiritual history, but I think that "Wasteland" has more "original" meaning and impact, it is richer and more generative and revelatory. I like its kind of "broken integrity".
As for the influence of "Wasteland" on Chinese poets, it must be combined with Eliot's other works and literary theories, which are a corresponding whole. For example, Eliot put forward the "historical sense" (also translated as "historical sense") in his far-reaching literary treatise "Tradition and Individual Talent": "The consciousness of history contains a kind of understanding, not only to understand the past, but also to understand the existence of the past, and the consciousness of history not only makes man write with the background of his own generation, but also feels that the whole literature of Europe since Homer and the whole literature of his own country have a simultaneous existence, Form a simultaneous situation. This historical consciousness is consciousness of permanence, consciousness of the moment, consciousness of the permanent and the combined of the permanent and the temporary. It is this consciousness that makes a writer traditional. It is also this consciousness that makes a writer most acutely aware of his place in time, of his relationship with the present." (Translated by Bian Zhilin)
This passage has been repeatedly quoted by many Chinese poets and critics. We will also see more clearly now that it is this "historical consciousness" that gives Eliot himself a broader and more thorough grasp of the relationship between the individual and tradition, poetry and time and civilization, making it possible for him to "speak with the historical tongue of literature" in The Wasteland, rather than merely issuing incoherent dreams of individuals. It is this "historical consciousness" that runs through ancient and modern times that led him to invent a unique "quotation writing" to make all ages "coexist" in the present, so that his "wasteland" becomes an artistic portrayal of the entire Western civilization and soul.
Associated with this "historical consciousness" is the so-called "non-personalized" poetics. Eliot came to the poetry world with an anti-romantic poetic style, and in Tradition and Personal Talent he pointed out: "Poetry is not indulging feelings, but escaping feelings, not expressing individuality, but escaping from individuality"; he even claims that "the progress of an artist is to constantly sacrifice himself, to constantly destroy his own personality". This "impersonal" poetics, and especially the "high theory" of "an artist's progress is to constantly sacrifice himself and constantly destroy his own personality", was not particularly understood in the early years, but now fully understood: he shows us the ultimate state of an artistic spirit.
"Historical consciousness" and "non-individualization" form the core of Eliot's poetic thought. Intriguingly, Eliot also claimed that this "historical consciousness" was "the most indispensable" for a "person who wants to continue to write poetry after the age of 25." It can be said that I and many poets of my generation continue to write poetry "after the age of 25" and continue to write to this day, and the reason is that we have listened to this teaching. At the very least, it helps us to cross the lyrical stage of youth, to begin to try to "speak on the historical tongue of literature" and to enter the adulthood of a literature that is becoming more and more mature and open.
The Paper: Every April, many people quote "April is the most cruel month." What do you think about the relationship between Wasteland and the present?
Wang Jiaxin: There is no doubt that "Wasteland" is being staged again in our time, and the global epidemic, war, and deepening life dilemma will make people have a more personal feeling for "Wasteland". That's why I understand the famous quote "April is the cruelest month."
The long poem "Wasteland" was created a hundred years ago, but it is "pointing to the future", and it is constantly leading us to "enter the present", which is where its vitality lies. It's just that its relationship with the present is not so direct and simple. For example, the end of the Sanskrit quotation inserted into The Wasteland, it now seems that it is most appropriate for the poet to let the rumbling thunder at the end speak the Upanishads, that is, Sanskrit. This fully reflects Eliot's ironic understanding of the spiritual dilemma of modern people, and perhaps also reveals the intention of reflecting on the crisis of his own civilization with another cultural reference. Moreover, this was done out of respect for the poetry itself, which was confronted with the problems of the whole epoch and civilization, but he was reluctant to provide clear conclusions, and he wanted to keep his Wasteland a "multi-voice" character, full of ambiguity and paradox. As Ricciati puts it, "Wasteland" offers not preaching, but "the music of thought." May we, too, listen to The Wasteland, or rather, to our own times.
The Paper: In your opinion, why is "Wasteland" still alive after a hundred years? When we commemorate Eliot, when we commemorate Wasteland, what are we commemorating?
Wang Jiaxin: Yes, after a hundred years, what are we commemorating? To answer this intractable question, I still think of the two famous poems in the Four Quartets: "At my beginning is my end, and at my end is my beginning." These two verses have become Mr. Eliot's epitaph, and we are still trekking through the "wasteland." Or that we are still in some cycle of literary spirit, life, and destiny. What we have to do is to be able to continue to open a new page in literature and life in the midst of all difficulties, after a great example like "The Wasteland".