Freudian Structure of Personality and Poundian Translation: A Case Study of Cathay
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17507/tpls.1604.11Keywords:
personality, Pound, translation, psychoanalysis, CathayAbstract
Freud’s tripartite structure of personality—id, ego, and superego—together with his topographical structure of the unconscious, preconscious, and conscious, provides a productive framework for translation studies. This paper argues that the interaction between a translator’s personality structure and levels of consciousness can be traced in distinctive translational choices. Ezra Pound’ s Cathay offers a compelling case: elements of the id and the unconscious contribute to his errors and misinterpretations; the superego and the preconscious inform his poetic ideals; and the ego and the conscious mind are manifested in the multiplicity of innovative strategies employed in the target text.
References
Cabellero, B. (2002). An active approach to translation: Connections between translation and psychoanalysis [Doctoral dissertation]. University of Edinburgh.
Cheadle, M. P. (1997). Ezra Pound’s Confucian translation. University of Michigan Press.
de Rachewiltz, M. (2022). Ezra Pound: Father and teacher (Kai Lan, Trans.). Guangxi Normal University Press.
Fang, A. (1957). Fenollosa and Pound. Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 20(1/2), 213–238.
Freud, S. (1964). New introductory lectures on psychoanalysis. Penguin.
Freud, S. (1996). New introductory lectures on psychoanalysis. The Commercial Press.
Freud, S. (2010). Introductory lectures on psychoanalysis (A. Zhang, Trans.). Jiangsu Literature and Art Publishing House.
Freud, S., & Strachey, J. (1976). The complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud (Vols. 1–24). W. W. Norton & Company.
Guo, Y. (2020). A Pounding Text: A study of Ezra Pound’s the Cantos. China Social Sciences Press.
Ingram, S. (2001). Translation studies and psychoanalytic transference. TTR: Traduction, Terminologie, Rédaction, 14(1), 95–115.
Kennedy, G. (1958). Fenollosa, Pound and the Chinese character. Yale Literary Magazine, 126, 24–36.
Lu, Y. (2001). Literary theory of psychoanalysis. Shandong Education Press.
Mahony, P. (1982). Towards the understanding of translation in psychoanalysis. Meta, 27(1), 63–71.
Paige, D. D. (1971). The selected letters of Ezra Pound (1907–1941). New Directions Publishing.
Pound, E. (2015). Cathay: The centennial edition. New Directions Publishing Corporation. (Edited with an Introduction and Transcripts of Fenollosa’s Notes by Zhaoming Qian)
Qian, Z. (2023). Breaking boundaries and “miking it new”: Oriental elements in western modernism. Peking University Press.
Quinney, A. (2004). Translation as transference: A psychoanalytic approach to a translation problem. The Translator, 10(1), 109–128.
Selden, R., Widdowson, P., & Brooker, P. (2004). A reader’s guide to contemporary literary theory. Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press.
Venuti, L. (2002). The difference that translation makes: The translator’s unconscious. In A. Riccardi (Ed.), Translation studies: Perspectives on an emerging discipline (pp. 214–241). Cambridge University Press.
Xie, M. (1999). Ezra Pound and the appropriation of Chinese poetry. Garland Publishing.
Yip, W. (1969). Ezra Pound’s Cathay. Princeton University Press.
Zhao, Y. (1985). The far-roaming muse. Sichuan People’s Publishing House.
Zhu, C. (2005). Construction and reflection: A study of Pound’s translation theory. Shanghai Translation Publishing House.
Zhu, L. (2002). Contemporary Western literary theory. East China Normal University Press.
