Neo-translation, Appreciation and Analysis of Tennyson’s Crossing the Bar

丁尼生《过沙洲》新译与赏析

河北农业大学 外国语学院 李绍青 071001

Abstract：As a world-widely popular poem, Tennyson’s Crossing the Bar attracts more and more people to appreciate and analyze it. And this paper aims at translating it in a new way, and analyzing it in a fully scientific way.

Key words: Tennyson; Crossing the Bar; new translation; appreciation; analysis

   Introduction

    Alfred Tennyson（1809-1892) is the most outstanding poet of England in the 19^th century. He was favored by Victorian Queen. In 1850, Tennyson became the Poet Laureate of England. He was also given the title of “Poet of the People” and the key role of “The Big Three of Victorian poets” as well. All his poems mainly concern the topics of life, death and immortal.

Crossing the Bar is perhaps the last and best poem written by the oldest poet within shortest time (only 10 minutes or so). In this poem, the poet depicts himself crossing the bar by boat on the sea to see God with a peaceful mind, which shows he has a very detached attitude towards death. This essay will present the latest translation of this world-famous poem and discuss the poem’s theme, form, poetic devices and rhetoric methods.  

Neo-translation

     In Crossing the Bar, Tennyson uses an extended metaphor to compare death to crossing the “sandbar” between the tide or river of life, with its outgoing “flood”, and the ocean that lies beyond death, the “boundless deep” as follows: “

Crossing the Bar  过沙洲

                By Tennyson  李绍青 译析

Sunset and evening star,                        日落星辰眨眼，

And one clear call for me!                       将吾召唤！

And may there be no moaning of the bar,        沙洲不闻浪拍岸，

When I put out to sea,                            出海登船，

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,         汹涌潮水似眠，

Too full for sound and foam,                      浪静沫闲，

When that which drew from out the boundless deep大海深处巨浪掀，

Turns again home.                                 潮退悄然。

Twilight and evening bell,                       钟鸣暮色突现，

And after that the dark!                           黑暗一片！

And may there be no sadness of farewell,         远行无视人伤感，

When I embark;                                    弃岸扬帆；

For though from out our borne of Time and Place  洪流时空无限，

The flood may bear me far,                         将吾携远，

I hope to see my Pilot face to face             盼与舵手面对面，

When I have crossed the bar.                       沙洲前边。”^[1]

Theme analysis

The poem describes his fearlessness toward death and his firm belief in God and the eternity of life. The title “Crossing the Bar” itself symbolizes travelling from life to death. It is thought that Tennyson wrote it as his own elegy, as the poem has a tone of finality about it.

Form analysis
    This poem consists of 4 quatrains with a rhyme scheme of “abab cdcd efef gaga.” The ABAB rhyme scheme of the poem echoes the stanzas’ thematic patterning: the first and third stanzas are linked to one another as are the second and fourth. To most note-worthy is that the first and third lines of each stanza are always longer than the 2^nd and 4^th lines, although the line lengths vary among the stanzas. The form of the poem follows the content: The wavelike quality of the long-then-short lines parallels the narrative thread of the poem. In other words, the staggering lines pictographs the waves of the sea, which knocks the heart of the poet and along with which the heart boats of readers floats.

The differing lengths of lines evoke the movement of a tide washing upon a beach, which is something that we all recognize to be cyclic, therefore, when I translated the poem, I made a great effort to realize this unique form by means of Foreignization and to rhyme consistently at the end of all the lines through the methods of Internization. Only in this way, I believe, can the hearts of the poet, the translator and the readers resonate harmoniously on the same platform!

Rhetoric methods analysis:（辞美）

In this poem Tennyson employs figures of speech, each at a proper place in a proper way:

First let’s take a look at the title. Tennyson uses the metaphor of a sand bar to describe the barrier between life and death. And “cross” here is a pun: for one thing, it has some Christian connotations, i.e. Jesus was hanged on the cross; for another it means crossing over into the next world. Hence, put “cross” and “bar” together, and we will get the meaning of the whole title: Leaving this world and entering the next world.

Also, the poet make good use of metaphor：Pilot literally is the sailing director, but actually it  refers to God. The Pilot on board all the while to the passenger is what God always steering everybody’s life is to everyone. Pilot (capitalized, as is done with “He” and “Him” in literature when referring to God), is a guiding and personal figure, the one who was steering his life. Christ is the Pilot in our earthly life, who guides us to the eternal God the Father.

Similarly, “Time” and “Place” are capitalized like proper nouns, such as names and locations, suggesting that Tennyson sees “Time and Place” as a specific location, which he knows for sure as well as “ London”. In a word, the three capitalized words remind readers naturally of God. This adds to the color of certainty in the poem, which shows that the poet takes death as going home, for he is going to the heaven instead of the hell! Here we can see Tennyson’s faith was Christianity, and Jesus as Christ is the root of that faith. The hero hopes that he will be able to reside in heaven with his creator.

Alliteration, a rhetoric device with English unique characteristics, can be obviously observed in “And one clear call for me!” and “Too full for sound and foam” of the poem.

Clearly we can also see that the poet uses assonance to achieve beautiful sound effect like “seems asleep” and “from out our borne”; that he employs personification to make vivid image as in moaning in L3 where a voice-like sound was made by the sea; and that he utilizes powerful parallel structure to enhance its coherence as in “When I put out to sea, …When I embark，…When I have crossed the bar, …”

Poetic devices analysis: (意美、音美)

Tennyson uses several poetic devices to express his theme.

Firstly, Tennyson uses imagery to carry his ideas. That is to say, Tennyson employs quite a few images in the poem.

The foremost two images are “Crossing” and “the bar” in the title. Now that the cross was where Jesus died, “Crossing” here is used as a euphemism for death. “Crossing” is an image of what we Chinese call“人间弥留之际”. Now as Tennyson himself dies, he evokes the image again in hope of complementing this metaphorical link with a spiritual one: he hopes that he, as a chosen citizen, will see the God. As for “the bar”, a sandbar to be exact, is a ridge of sand built up by currents along a shore. It is physically a bar of sand in shallow water. In order to reach the shore, the waves must crash against the sandbar, creating a sound that Tennyson describes as the “moaning of the bar.” However, metaphorically it means“阴阳界”in Chinese legend.

Other images are a few temporal words symbolizing the late stage in the poet's life. From the sunset, twilight, and evening star, which place the reader in a setting at the end of the day, until dark, who sees the writer “turns again home”, the time passing signifies the poet’s approaching step by step toward death as the poem develops. For each progressing physical time Tennyson makes a personal psychological reference to his “moving on toward his final destination”. After all, one’s whole life is but travelling from cradle to crave.

And images of “tide” and “flood” are symbols of life.

In a word, the poet creates sight and sound images to make the readers have a lifelike feeling.

Secondly, repetition and contrast can also be easily noticed in this poem.

The repetition of when in “When I put out to sea”, “When I embark” and “When I have crossed the bar” makes it clear to the reader that the event the poet is discussing is firmly placed in the future; it will happen, but hasn't happened yet. We can contrast this to the use of indefinite phrases in the poem: “And may there be no moaning of the bar”, “And may there be no sadness of farewell” and “I hope to see my Pilot face to face”. Through contrast Tennyson makes a clear distinction between events which he knows will happen, and events which he hopes will happen. The narrator himself has moments of certainty and uncertainty concerning his own death in this poem to that effect.

Conclusion:

From the above appreciation and analysis we can see that Tennyson’s Crossing the Bar is perfect in form, proper in image, and powerful in device, whether rhetoric or poetic. It is rich in imagery, picturesque in description. And what most merits our particular mentioning is his using long and short lines alternatively to symbolize the wave both physically and psychologically. Tennyson also handled rhythm masterfully. His use of the musical qualities of words to emphasize his rhythms and meanings is sensitive. In the readers’ mind this poem is really a crystallization of a beautiful picture, a wonderful song and a graceful poem as well. It veritably embodies the trinity of “three beauties”------ the beauty of sound, the beauty of form, and the beauty of imagery. After reading this poem we can’t help admiring the Poet Laureate himself not only because of his poetic art but due to his spirit of taking death as natural as travelling. No wonder it is spread all over the world and carried on from generation to generation.

Bibliography

[1] 李绍青. Crossing the Bar译析[J]. 英语世界，2011，（8）：16.

[2] 郭栖庆. 英语专业考研 考点精梳与精练 英美文学[M]. 天津：天津科学技术出版社，2011.

[3]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossing_the_Bar

                                     转自《海外英语》2011年第9期

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