The occasional nature of many Chinese poems means that knowledge of the context of a given poetic text is crucial to an understanding of its meaning. But how crucial is such knowledge to the understanding and enjoyment of a translation? How much of the context of a poem should be conveyed when presenting a translation to a wider audience of readers without specialized knowledge?

10:00-11:15am
Graham Sanders (U Toronto), Welcome and Opening Remarks
Stephen Owen (Harvard), “Texts, Anthology, and Metatext”
Daniel Bryant (U Victoria), “What do Western Readers of Chinese Poetry in Translation Need to Know and When Do They Need to Know It?”

11:30am-12:30pm
Wilt Idema (Harvard), “One Cheer for the Biographical Fallacy!”
Graham Sanders (U Toronto), “Constructing Narrative Contexts for Chinese Poetry: Should we tell a good lie?”

1:30-2:30pm
Luo Hui (U Toronto), “Words and Silence in Poetic Competence”
Zhou Yan (U Toronto), “Poetic Performance in Ming Romantic Novellas”

2:30-3:30pm
Grace Fong (McGill), “Gender as Context in Reading and Translating Chinese Poetry”
Li Wai-yee (Harvard), “Historical Contexts and the Circulation of Early Qing Poetry”

3:45-5:00pm
Tian Xiaofei (Harvard), “Allusion and Biography in Translating the poetry of Yu Xin (513-581)”
Richard Lynn (U Toronto), “The Role of Visual Aids in Enriching the Experience of Reading the Poetry of Huang Zunxian Composed in Japan (1877-1882)”