Every April, many people quote the beginning of Elliot's classic poem "The Wasteland" on social platforms: "April is the cruelest month" – the year 2022 is the centenary of the "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.
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 reporter on "Wasteland" by the poet hu Sang, an assistant professor of the Department of Chinese of Tongji University.
Husan
【Dialogue】
The Paper: How did the Western classic "Wasteland" come to China?
Hu Sang: "Wasteland" was introduced to China shortly after its publication. In the 1920s and 1930s, many Chinese poets were influenced by reading the English version. Zhao Luorui's teacher Ye Gongchao and others took the lead in introducing Eliot's poetics. In China at that time, the so-called "Wasteland Shockwave" was even formed. "Wasteland consciousness" has penetrated into the writing of many Chinese poets, such as Wen Yiduo's "Deserted Village", Bian Zhilin's "Spring City", and He Qifang's "Spring City". Chinese poets see the dilemma of the modern world, the pathologies of modernity, and the ethical situation of modern people falling apart from the imagery of the "wasteland". In particular, Zhao Luorui was invited by Dai Wangshu to translate "Wasteland", which was published in the New Poetry Society in 1937, once again promoting the influence of this long poem. Zhao Luorui's translations absorb the linguistic achievements of Chinese poetry in the 1930s, and her husband is the Crescent Poet Chen Mengjia, who in turn inherited the family school of her theologian father Zhao Zichen, who is familiar with biblical languages, especially Heheben languages. These have created the implication, comfort and precision of the language of the translation of "Wasteland". This is an excellent translation. This poem was of great importance to the poets of the Nine-Leaf School. For them, Wasteland is a model of depersonalized, intellectual writing.
The Paper: What has Wasteland experienced in China since then?
Husan: After 1949, Eliot, like many Western poets, was beaten into the cold palace. Yuan Kejia even wrote in 1960 that Eliot was "the royal literary valve of British and American imperialism"
Mudan later retranslated it in the 1970s, but it was not published until 1985 for inclusion in Selected Contemporary British Poetry. Qiu Xiaolong (1983), Ye Weilian (1983), Zhao Yiheng (1985), Du Ruozhou (1985), Tang Yongkuan (1994) and other translations have been translated. The "wasteland consciousness" in "The Wasteland" slowly faded, and the neoclassical tendencies were revealed. The modern activation of classic texts and allusions has stimulated many Chinese poets to look for modernity in Chinese traditions, and the more typical one is Yang Lian's "Norilang". In fact, traces of "Wasteland" can also be seen in Haizi's long poems.
By the 1990s, Chinese poetry was no longer satisfied with grand narratives, whether linguistic or spiritual. The everyday and narrative become the direction of change. At this time, the symbolic writing of daily life and the narrative treatment of life fragments in "Wasteland" inspired many poets such as Wang Jiaxin and Xiao Kaiyu. We can see the distillation of contemporary daily life fragments in Xiao Kaiyu's long poem "Tribute to Du Fu" (1996).
The Paper: When did you first read "Wasteland" and how did you feel at that time?
Hu Sang: In 1997, I read a collection of poems by Nobel Prize-winning poets compiled by Wang Jiaxin and Shen Rui, "The Brightest and the Darkest.". It contains a few poems by Eliot. It may just be because "Wasteland" is too famous, but it has no income. The first time I read the whole book of "Wasteland" was in 2000, when I came to Xi'an to study at a university. In the bookstore, I found Zhao Luorui's self-selected collection of translations "Wasteland". Surprisingly, in the preface, I found that Zhao Luorui was a fellow of the same town as me. She was born on May 9, 1912, at No. 1 Siping Road, Xinshi Ancient Town, Deqing County, Zhejiang Province, as a rice shop, which had gradually declined in the hands of her grandfather. Her house is right next to the flat bridge where I grew up eating wontons. However, later I learned that in 1992, the Zhao family's sanjin courtyard was demolished and rebuilt by Zhao Luorui's cousin into a very contemporary brick house.
At that time, after reading "Wasteland", due to the lack of knowledge reserves, I was full of doubts about it. However, I was impressed by the darkness, desolation, desire and messiness inside, especially from the Holy Grail and the Legend of the Fish King in The Golden Branch. Later, in order to study poems such as "Wasteland", I specially collected a lot of Elliot's English poems from the internet and printed them into a collection of Elliot's poems. At that time, the printing fee was particularly expensive, it was one dollar a page, which was the price 22 years ago. After a long period of studying the English version, I slowly became more able to understand this long poem. Its ability to name the times and the richness of its knowledge of the contemporary world is astonishing. However, due to my personal writing preferences, I was slightly dissatisfied with its overly strong intellectualization and the cumbersomeness of its allusions. I didn't fall for it, I didn't learn much.
The Paper: Later, did the post-reading feeling of "Wasteland" change?
Hu Sang: Indeed, when I returned to Jiangnan from Xi'an. I was even more touched by some of the fragments that Eliot had written, especially the sentence "I read most of the night, and I went to the south in the winter." "I had to re-experience and understand this "South" where I spent a long childhood and adolescence. I especially like Zhao Luorui's translations, and many sentence patterns and tones will inadvertently penetrate into my own verses. For example, Wagner's sentence "Desolate and empty is the sea" activated by him, and Dante's sentence "I didn't expect death to destroy so many people", I have deeply touched and secretly imitated.
I've been teaching at universities all these years and never thought about explaining this poem to students. But with the continuous study of the Bible, Dante, Shakespeare and others, in fact, we can better appreciate the magic of the allusions in the poems, and we can better understand the life force it nourishes from the Western tradition. As a result, he felt more and more that he had a strong creativity and a deep understanding of modern life. These are things that our poetry cannot match. Over the years, I have also felt the greatness of Eliot and the need to reread it again and again.
The Paper: Why didn't you think about explaining this poem to students?
Husan: I probably think it's too hard. Aside from the intellectual narrative, I can't grasp the path of telling this poem. It's like I didn't specifically explain Ulysses in class, even though I've always thought it was one of the greatest novels of the 20th century. I've been studying it all the time. But I always feel that I am not ready to explain to the students.
Teaching Wasteland in the classroom is a great challenge. For such a rich poem, it would be extremely tedious to read closely. And I like to lecture in a perceptive way. I think undergraduates need a peruse ability to understand the work between the lines – sensitivity, cognition and imagination.
Also, Elliot himself was an excellent critic. But in my reading horizon, the more classic, in addition to Helen Gardner's "The Art of Elliot", the criticism and interpretation of Elliott in western academic circles are not rich. Teaching in a university classroom requires a knowledge base. Without the explanatory basis of first-class Western scholars and critics, I dare not interpret it without permission. The reason why I dare to talk to students about the Divine Comedy and Shakespeare tragedies is because I can use a large number of classic Dante and Shakespeare in the West to expound. After all, we have a contextual gap with Western literature. I believe more in the accuracy of the expositions of scholars and critics in their language.
Another important reason, of course, may be that Eliot has commented too much on the poem, which limits the reader's way of reading. To interpret it is not to interpret the pleasure of Dante and Shakespeare who can constantly make new discoveries.
Elliott People's Visual Infographic
The Paper: Did you discuss this poem with your poets?
Husan: Not too much. For me and my friends, Wasteland is like a giant peak, standing silently there. We may climb alone in silence, not suitable for group climbing together. In fact, among the poets we have talked about in the past twenty years, Eliot's poetry is often absent. We may often talk about his literary theories, especially his Tradition and Personal Talents, or his expositions of Dante, Shakespeare, and the metaphysical poets. Because of Eliot's conservative tendencies, the "modernity" of his poems, though characteristic, is not particularly pronounced. Nor is the linguistic and emotional passion in his poetry intense. So, in terms of foreign poetry, we probably talk about brodsky, Heaney, Walcott, Bishop, Zelan, Milosz, these poets.
The Paper: How do you think Wasteland has influenced you and your generation of Chinese poets?
Husan: At first, I didn't understand the grand naming ability of Wasteland, the ability to refine experience, and the complex insight into contemporary life. Understanding it requires too much wisdom, or a mature mind.
Eliot's impression of the specific writing of the poets of my generation has little influence, because we first entered the poetry world as a rebellious grand narrative, to establish and concretely live immediacy and flesh, and to have a strong desire for the authenticity of personal experience. Eliot, on the other hand, advocated the importance of tradition and history, asking poets to "depersonalize." In this regard, in fact, his literary theory has a greater influence on me. At that time, when I was in the class of Mr. Chen Yue as an undergraduate, I listened to him explain Eliot's "Tradition and Personal Talent", which was deeply inspired. Since then, I have continued to re-read this article. I often quote Eliot when I'm writing critically. Eliot influenced me too much on the point of the poet's reconnection with tradition. My poems have also begun to re-deal with the appropriation and activation of certain elements of classical Chinese poetry. For example, I wrote the series of ancient poets "Mengjiao: Shubu", "Zhao Mengfu: Allegory", "Jiang Kui: Self-Reliance", "Wu Wenying: Su Duan", "Ye Xiaoluan", etc., and always thought of Eliot's teachings.
After coming to Shanghai, I slowly stopped caring about how to construct a generation's way of writing, but more concerned with the construction of personal voice and the future of Chinese poetry. At this time, Elliot's ability to name the experience of the times, the ability to refer to historical memory and textual experience, and the ability to update greatly inspired me. I started with the poem "Book of Panic", and the "wasteland consciousness" in the poem was actually strengthened. Whenever I write about Shanghai, I always think of London in Eliot's poems as the "city without substance." But how to understand the contemporary nature of Shanghai is still very difficult. In recent years, while caring about the influence of digital media on contemporary people, I have constantly tried to name the experience of the city, and tried to write poems such as the "Inner Volume Era" trilogy and "Empty City". It's a tribute to Wasteland.
Of course, in the past few years, our generation of Chinese poets has actually changed, has shed the traces of personalized writing, have a certain understanding of the huge naming ability of the "Wasteland", and even refine and name the writing style that transcends the individual, and refines and names history and reality, which is indispensable for poets who are moving towards the open.
The Paper: In April, many people like to quote "April is the most cruel month." What do you think about the relationship between Wasteland and the present? What do we need to commemorate today when we commemorate Wasteland?
Hu Sang: "April is the cruelest month" is a translation of Qiu Xiaolong. The translation I remember is still Zhao Luorui's: "April is the most cruel month." The concreteness of "one month" is shocking to me. The cruelty of the beginning of the poem lies in the fact that it is carried by the "April" of "a" concrete thing that we are accustomed to. Does this "April" have so much to bear?
In the context of pandemics, international wars, refugee waves, nuclear crises, energy crises, food crises, how do we view a month, a week, a day, and the specific people around us? I think the sense of nothingness and crisis in Wasteland has been shaping this century. Once, in the neoliberal context of my youth, I thought that "The Wasteland" was just a poem with a strong sense of symbolism. But it took me two years to understand that this poem is our reality, and it has been floating in our air. It looks at fragments of contemporary life by referencing the classics, stimulating the imagination of life in the present. All we need is this "watching" or, in Benjamin's words, quoting a text, a reference to history. To quote history is to illuminate our lives in the present. As we find ourselves in the wilderness, we need a mirror device of history to help us rebuild our ability to "see." Wasteland is always reminding us how to refer to the past, how to see history living in the eternal present, and seeing that our record of the times will become a memory of the future. At the same time, we are afraid that words will become frivolous, that we will resign ourselves to where our memories go, that they will be stolen, smeared, and masked, and that, to borrow Eliot's words from The Wasteland, we fear that our words will become "barbaric silence."