What does Harvard Professor Stephen Owen’s complaint about Bei Dao’s poetry center on?

Question

BlackTom AI · Accepted Answer

To tackle the question, I will evaluate what Stephen Owen reportedly criticized about Bei Dao’s poetry and then assess each answer choice against that focus.
Option a: 'It is overly influenced by Western poetry in Chinese translation.' This would imply the complaint centers on the degree to which Bei Dao’s style or diction borrows from Western models through translation. If Owen’s concern is about obscurity rather than parodic or overt Western influence, this option misstates the core issue. It shifts the critique to translation impact rather than the inherent clarity or opacity of the poetry.
Option b: 'Bonnie McDougall’s translation into English.' This choice points to a specific translator rather than to the poems themselves. If the primary complaint is about the poetry’s own linguistic or stylistic opacity, then blaming a translator misses the substantive focus. It conflates translation quality with the poet’s original obscurity, which does not align with a complaint about the poems’ Menglong-level obscurity.
Option c: 'It is too obscure (menglong).' This directly identifies the cited issue as the poems’ obscurity, a notable characteristic attributed in discussions of Bei Dao’s style and of Menglong-era or post-Mei-era Chinese avant-garde poetics. If the complaint centers on the poems being too opaque or difficult to access, this option matches that specific critique.
Option d: 'Bei Dao was a dissident.' While Bei Dao’s political associations are a topic in discussions about his work and its historical context, describing him as a dissident is not a direct critique of the poetry’s linguistic clarity or Menglong-obscurity. The statement addresses biographical/political labeling rather than the stylistic criticism at the heart of a complaint about the poetry’s obscurity.
Putting these evaluations together, the option that most accurately captures a complaint centered on the poetry’s level of obscurity is the one asserting that it is too obscure (menglong). The other options either shift focus to translation influence, to a translator’s work, or to biographical claims, rather than to the textual characteristic of opacity that the complaint is about.

What does Harvard Professor Stephen Owen’s complaint about Bei Dao’s poetry center on?

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