Emily Dickinson: A Bee Gatecrashing Eternity

Abstract

Abstract:Yu Kwang-chung (1928-2017) is an established Chinese Modern poet across the Taiwan Strait and also an important literary translator who introduced modern English and American poetry to the Chinese reader. His Chinese translation of thirteen well-chosen poems by Emily Dickinson was published with an introduction to the poet in the 1961 Anthology of American Poetry edited by Stephen Soong (1919-1996) and published by World Today Press, Hong Kong. Yu's critical introduction to the art of Emily Dickinson's poetry was later included in his Anthology of Modern English and American Poetry in 1968, wherein he translated 99 modern English and American poems into Chinese; he revised this collection half a century later. In the 2017 republished edition, he translated another twelve of Emily Dickson's poems into Chinese and prefaced them with a critical introductory essay entitled "Emily Dickinson (1830-1886): A Bee Gatecrashing Eternity." The article, on the one hand, unveils the poetic features and the secluded life of the hermit poet of Amherst. On the other, it weighs Dickinson against a spectrum of other modern English and American poets with succinct yet profound criticism. In order to promote Dickinson Studies on the global stage, it is worth translating the poet-translator-critic's well-wrought Chinese article into English so that the voice of Taiwan can be rendered to the Anglophone world.