方块里的神韵:论庞德对汉字的解析

Images Within Chinese Character:on Pound's Interpretation of Chinese Characters

庞德偏好解析汉字结构去理解其意义,并因此导致了一些误读。一些中国学者将其视为文化殖民的典型个案。本文试图通过例证分析《诗章》中引用的汉字在诗中的意义和作用,指出庞德其实是以一个诗人而不是一个学究式的汉学家或语言学家的身份来考据汉字的。汉字只是诗人在世界文化语境下表达思想情感和加强诗歌艺术表现力的独特媒介。凭借这种独特媒介庞德向西方世界极大地宣扬了中国文化,在一定程度上提升了汉语的国际地位。对其所谓误读我们不应过分苛责,应防止滥用后殖民主义理论分析文化交流中出现的一切问题。

To understand each individual Chinese character, Pound is inclined to dissect the character and work out its meaning by combining that of each part,which actually often brings Pound under fierce criticism of many Chinese scholars, who usually cite the poet as a good example of Said＇ s Post-colonialism. This paper attempts to correct such a stereotype. By illustrating some typical characters used in Cantos, the paper argues that Chinese characters, with the unique structures, are quite akin to what Pound calls “image”, therefore, become an ideal effective means for the poet to make his poetic experiment and a magic source for him to draw inspirations as well. At the same time, the poet helps to bring more westerners closer to Chinese characters and Chinese culture. We shouldn＇t accuse the poet of so-called misunderstanding and overuse post-colonialism to deal with any problems appearing in the process of cross-cultural communication, for the poet＇ s under-standing of Chinese characters is not that of a linguist or a sinologist.