The Studies Of The Rhythmical Features Of Zhu Shenghao's Translation Of Shakespearean Blank Verses

This thesis is an account of the rhythmic features in Zhu Shenghao's translation of Shakespearean blank verses. Zhu's translated work, as a prominent case of literary translation, has been overwhelmingly influential for the past half century and yet lacks systematical study amongst which, the metrical/ rhythmic study has been especially improperly ignored. The thesis thus focuses on the rhythmic features and reveals the musicality nature of Zhu's translation work.The thesis is divided into three parts. The first chapter is a configurative introduction of the Shakespearean blank verse as the target text. Additionally, an example is given in this chapter to demonstrate the interplay between the polyphony groups measured by linguistic phrases and that by rhythmic modes. The second chapter shed light on Zhu Shenghao's translation. As "rhythm" has been defined by Russian Formalists as the periodic repetition, this chapter analyses the tonality repetition including the rhythmic function of the rhyme and the reiteration of certain Chinese characters, which in all contribute to the sense of rhythm in the audible way. However, the rhythm is more than audible since the periodic repetition could also be based on semantic grouping as well as the pause between those groups of meanings. In the third chapter, the speech rhythm of the translation based on the semantic grouping is defined and classified, giving light to the most significant stylish feature of Zhu Shenghao's translation and the major components of the musicality in the translation work. However, the introduction of speech rhythm intrigues between the phonetic rhythm and the semantic rhythm the interaction and especially rhythmic combination, which contribute enormously to the formation of harmonious rhythm in general. In the last part of the thesis, based upon the rhythmic analysis of Zhu's translation, a comparison of rhythmic features between that of Zhu Shenghao and of Bian Zhilin is also introduced to give better understanding of the rhythmic features of Zhu's translation.