From "What is poetry?" to "What is music?"
The series of personal sharings by various literary experts on local poet-cum-songwriter Huai Hua（槐华）in celebration of 50 years of his "poetic art" (no ordinary poetry) was great!
The American translator of his poems, Paul Manfredi, speaking of the difficulty of capturing the spirit and essence of Huai's works when translating, mentioned two definitions of poetry to illustrate his point:
i. poetry is what cannot be captured in translation
ii. poetry is what is lost in translation
I began to think: what is music vis-a-vis our acts of analysis? Is music what cannot be captured through our analytical interpretations? Is music what is lost when we analyze it?....you might like to ponder with me over this the next time you analyze a piece of music.
posted by ec @ Sunday, February 24, 2008
2 comments
2 Comments:
Well I'm no poet nor poetry critic, but I believe that what Paul Manfredi was referring to was the fact that in translating a poem, one loses the inherent beauty conveyed by the text in its original form.
However, unlike poetry which can be independently analysed or translated, a music analysis is both an analysis as well as a translation of the music into another "language". In that respect, yes, if you break down music into its little components and explain everything away, you lose the original beauty. But on the other hand, to do so allows one to highlight even further the beauty of music.
Firstly it allows one to pinpoint the aspects which make music beautiful. Secondly, how is one to appreciate the beauty of music in its entirety unless first presented with something lesser by which the greater can be revealed? ;-)
Came across by chance: the quote about poetry being what is lost in translation is by Paul Valéry.
Post a Comment
<< Home