7 Comments
Mar 30Liked by Brendan O'Kane

Triplets, yes! I like triplets for the couplet. There's often too much in a couplet to contain easily in an English couplet, and a triplet structure allows you a bit of freedom to bring out unstated implications, if necessary.

And cartoon Chang'an, yes! It's remarkably watchable.

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Apr 1Liked by Brendan O'Kane

Love this... and full disclosure - I translated the subtitles for Chang'an. It's impossible to convey the beauty and meaning of the original poems (and there are a lot of them) in subtitle form, and I had to make a lot of compromises, especially where the meaning (especially meaning in context) had to take priority. I was lucky to work with a brilliant production team, many of whom had excellent English, and so we could discuss the translations at length. Do see it, it's rather fun, and the central friendship here is even less balanced than that between Du Fu and Li Bai, as it's between Gao Shi and Li Bai, the straight guy Confucian and the Taoist genius.

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Apr 3Liked by Brendan O'Kane

I believe the correct term is tercet. If the three lines followed the AAA rhyme scheme, then it would be a triplet.

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