Chinanews.com, November 7th, according to the "Europe Times" report, "If you have not studied French and have not been exposed to French poetry, then my poetry and me may be different." Poet and translator Shucai said His ambition was to learn Chinese and French was purely accidental, but it was this "accident" that profoundly affected his later career and life.

"France and China are both poetic countries"

　　In 2008, Shucai was awarded the "Knight of Education" medal by the French government.

"Many people thought I was doing education after learning that I was awarded this medal." Shucai said.

In fact, this honor is related to the contribution that Shucai made to the exchange of Chinese and French poetry.

Since 2004, Shucai has cooperated with the French Embassy in China to transplant the French "Poet's Spring" series of poetry activities to China. "They are encouraging me to continue this activity and continue to translate French poetry." In terms of poetry translation, Shucai began to do things in the university era, and has done more and more deeply.

Le Verdi, René Charles, Bonafois and other important French poets, he translated their anthologies.

Sometimes, he also went to various universities to give lectures on the Chinese translation of French poetry and the whole translation theory thinking.

　　"I don't know why they awarded me this medal. They said that because I understand French." This answer may be "very French" in the eyes of the Chinese.

But in the eyes of a person who has long translated French poetry and studied French culture, French and French thinking are different.

　　I once worked as a diplomat, and later wrote poetry, translated poetry, and did poetry translation and research. These experiences left an imprint on Shucai, but perhaps none of the imprints left by language are more profound.

"French has a great influence on a person, even decisive." His sluggish tone makes people wonder whether this is more from his southern Chinese descent or French infiltration.

"The French phonetic system makes people not too anxious. The accent of each word naturally falls on the last vowel, like the Seine River flowing through Paris, and each voice composes a beautiful and undulating language."

　　In French, sentences without personal pronouns are not valid. It can also be seen that the personality and subjective consciousness of this nation are strong.

"I once asked a French poet friend, can the sentence'lift your head and look at the moon' directly start with a verb, and he said no, it would be very bad. But in Chinese classical poetry, personal pronouns are almost non-existent (deliberately omitted) This makes our ancient Chinese poems very concise, but there is a strong sense of substitution from readers when reading them."

　　Shucai said that French has made him better at analyzing and explaining the reasoning layer by layer, “French is a contract language with clear meaning. A French vocabulary, you can’t change its connotation and extension at will. Language is more suitable for persuading people, but the sensitivity and expressive power of images are not as good as Chinese."

　　So, do the French know that the Chinese think they are romantic?

"They know it, and they think it's a high look, but they don't think they are romantic." The tree laughed.

"The sensibility of the French is based on their respect for emotions, not on a moral perspective. There are of course many crazy examples of love in the Chinese, but for the French nation, they have a common understanding of emotions. Yes, they respect all the original unpredictable emotions and do not have a moral absolute point. They follow the phrase "love does not arise" that the ancient Chinese said long ago, so they will not blame an emotion from the moral point of view happen."

　　From the perspective of poetry, Shucai explained the different implications of the eternal word love in the two cultures of China and France.

"The French's attitude towards love may be traced back because they have experienced the knightly love of troubadours in the Middle Ages. The love between knights and aristocratic ladies who are about to go to the battlefield slowly evolved into an idealized product." Zaishu It seems that the ancient Chinese are not so good at dealing with love poems. "In the "Book of Songs" there is'I am gone, Yang Liu Yiyi. Today I come to think, Yu Xue Fei Fei.' This is very implicit. To say that the ancient Chinese restrained. This is a bit too restrained! Chinese poetry pays particular attention to friendship. Poets like Li Bai and Du Fu, Yuan Zhen and Bai Juyi often donate poems to each other." Shucai said with a smile.

"In the ci, love is more expressed as a kind of resentment. As Ye Jiaying, a great poet in the ci circle, said, the ci expresses the grievance and sadness of the Chinese people. Friendship is more prominent than love in ancient Chinese poems, which is different from France. It's totally different."

　　Even so, Shu thinks that if a country closer to China is chosen in Europe, it must be France.

"France and China have a natural closeness, because the two countries are both poetic and have a desire to build poetry on top of reality." Shucai said that the poetic nature of the French lies in being themselves, while the poetry of the Chinese Sex lies in the unity of nature and man.

"The cross-lingual experience also reminded me of the diversity of Chinese and French cultures."

The "time difference" between Chinese and French literature is getting smaller and smaller

　　Shucai pointed out that the scale and depth of literary and poetry exchanges between contemporary China and France are far beyond that of other European countries.

"The poetry translation series of French 20th century poems edited by Professor Qin Haiying and I is not available in other languages. The French publishing house is very open to trusted Chinese translators in terms of copyright, which also shows that they A positive attitude to promote French literature to China.” Despite the impact of the epidemic, in early 2021, China and France still held two "Poet's Spring" video events.

"I think the cultural exchanges between China and France are more advanced. Previously, the translation and introduction of Chinese and European poetry always lags behind, with a time difference of about 40 to 50 years. Now the Chinese and French literature is gradually getting closer. Contemporary poets from both sides There are more and more translations between works. In addition, the various poetry festivals held by the two sides have also played an important role." In Shucai's view, the most important issue now is to keep up with the cultivation of poetry translation talents.

　　"We are now talking about letting Chinese culture go out. This is still a topic related to translation. It should be two-way. If you don't bring in the good things from the other party, how can you let the other party know you and determine that you have good things? "Shucai believes that the translators who let culture go out should be Sinologists, writers, and poets from the receiving country, so that they can translate high-quality texts.

"Chinese people cannot arrange their own things to go out. For example, I never translate my own works because it is not my mother tongue. But I will read the translated manuscripts myself, and my French poetry collection ends with a friend of my French poet When I finalized the manuscript, I said to him, "You should boldly use your ability to write poetry." He only changed a few verbs and rhythms, and the authentic French language and poetry came out. So we should take the initiative to discover those excellent locals Translator."

　　According to Shucai, compared with contemporary Chinese poetry, the West has been translating and introducing Chinese classical poetry from a very early age.

But precisely because of this, the strong interest in ancient Chinese poetry in the West has also caused a kind of trouble for contemporary Chinese poets to some extent.

"Once they accept the system and form of Chinese ancient poems, they are not interested in such things as modern Chinese poetry and prose culture. But with the development of modern Chinese poetry in China, Westerners can also recognize those good works."

　　But it has to be admitted that poetry has ebb and marginalization in the consumer era.

"The sooner you enter a modern country, the more difficult it is for poetry, because they enter the consumer era earlier. The thinking that spiritual products like poetry brings to people is a different kind of work, so it is difficult to be consumed." And Shucai I believe that Chinese poetry is still a sensitive nerve in social culture, and Chinese poetry and translated poetry still have many readers.

"Although many people don't write poems, they still look at poems highly."

　　Poetry is the memory of human childhood, and the status quo of poetry shows that human beings are bidding farewell to childhood.

And those talents who insist on writing and translating poems have added more part of dealing with children in their work today. "I have taught children to write poems in France and China. Children can naturally write poems, but this Natural language skills will gradually degrade with Chinese education. Adults should learn from children again." In addition, Shucai also translated a version of "The Little Prince", which was widely welcomed by the market.

"I had already started dealing with children at that time, so I knew what the children’s language was like. Many predecessors translated this book as a classic, but I translated it as a fairy tale, determined to let the children read it. Understand."

　　From translating French poetry, organizing Chinese-French poetry activities to translating fairy tales for children, Shucai insists on doing these "poem-related" things, and also insists on his own philosophy, "translation is always satisfying the development of society. Need, abandoning foreign languages ​​is an expression of unconfidence.” As Shucai said, “in translation, the dimension of time collapses.” What he meant is that all translations point to the contemporary (this moment). After translation, ancient times The time difference with modern times has become blurred, and the ancient poems translated by modern people have a certain modernity.

But from another perspective, it can also be said that the dimension of space in translation will be reshaped. These opened up spaces will give China and the outside world more possibilities to build trust.

(Ge Road)