Traduttore, Traditore?

The Creative Translations of Ezra Pound's Cathay

Abstract

This paper focuses on Ezra Pound's Chinese creative translations or adaptations in Cathay (1915). Evidence is given why the poems in this volume should not be considered to be regular translations, failing to obey the most evident requirements of "translation" proper. Although adaptations of Cathay retain foreign peculiarities of the original poems, some additional features of Western 20th-century literature are also infused into them. After some preliminary theoretical considerations about Pound's translation theory, a few exemplary poems of the volume will be analysed with respect to the techniques of adaptation Pound applied. The Fenollosa manuscripts Pound used as a source will be taken into account for comparative purposes.