On Translation Of Chinese Classical Poetry In The Perstpective Of Intertextuality

Poetry is a valuable legacy of one country's outstanding culture, which can be rated as the intelligent crystallization of the nation. Tempered by thousands of years, the poetic language is concise, the meters are precise and the antithesis is neatly formed. In all nations, poetry could be regarded as the most superior aesthetic form or the supreme form of literature, which almost covers aesthetic nature of all art modes. Chinese classical poetry lights up one of the greatest cultures in the world. Its historical, cultural and literary value determines the importance and the necessity of the study on English translation of Chinese classical poetry. The beauty of Chinese classical poetry lies in its conciseness of wording, variety of forms, abundance of connotations and so on, which also bring about difficulties to poetry translation. Though the loss of connotation and the ablation of aesthetics are inevitable in the process of translation, poetry translation broadens the horizon of literature study of different countries and cultures, and brings additional credit to the literature study of human beings.Intertextuality, a theory about text, is an important term in modern literary critique, which originates from the western structuralism and post-structuralism ideological trend. It holds that symbols in any works are all related with other symbols not appearing in the present works, any text interweaves with other texts and is the refraction of others. They consult each other and involve each other, forming an opening network with limitless potentiality, which forms both an enormous radiating system of the text in the past, at present and in the future and an evolving process of literary symbols. Just as Julia Kristeva, a famous French theorist, who first put forward the term said,"Every text is constructed as a mosaic of citations, every text is an absorption and transformation of other texts."(Hatim & Mason, 2001, 125) After its coinage by Julia Kristeva, intertextuality has been employed in most of the important branches of literary theories. When it is involved in two kinds of different languages and cultures, this kind of intertextual relation may not be understood by people in different culture systems due to lack of mutual knowledge of cultural circles and then will become obstacles in cross-language communication. The intertextual reference is just like the director who not only hides deeply behind the curtain of culture but also manipulates the language signs acting on the stage. Only recognizing the actors but neglecting the director will lead to mis-interpretation of the original text. Therefore, full and accurate understanding of the intertextual reference makes it possible to avoid partial or even false interpretation of the original text, which is of great significance for translation. As a way of research and study, intertextuality provides us with a multiplexperspective which precisely coordinates with the trend of translation study -- the subversion of the centrism of the original text and the emphasis on the translation, the subjectivity of the translator, the cultural background and the multiplex translation standard, hence it has been adopted by translation study and has been explored thoroughly. As the intertextual theories accords with the language features of poetry, it is helpful and feasible to apply intertextuality to the study of poetry translation.This dissertation explores the translation of Chinese classical poetry from the perspective of intertextual theories in seven chapters, each bearing a focus of argument.After the establishment of the research object of the dissertation, the introduction states the peculiarity of poetry translation, and surveys the development of poetry translation studies both at home and abroad. It holds that poetry translation is not a closed and static system but an open system of continuous self-adjustment and self-adaptation, and only surpassing and elimination can endow poetry translation with endless vital force, which not only is the enlightenment and requirement of intertextuality, but also accords to the objective laws of literary theory and translation.Chapter 2 traces the origin, and development of the theory of intertextuality with a host of theorists, viewing intertextuality as both a depicting device and a critic weapon. As a post-modern viewpoint on text, intertextuality, pursuing the indeterminacy, incompletion, interactivity, nonlinearity and decentralism of text, has won extensive attention and exerted its profound influence in relative humanistic fields ever since its coinage. Various scholars from different fields have enriched and expanded its theoretical system in terms of their research emphasis and demand.Chapter 3 is focused on the innate relationship between intertextuality and translation studies. After a brief literature review on current intertextuality-oriented translation study, the dissertation argues translation as an intertextual activity from the intertexual nature of meaning and text. Then re-examined in this chapter are the relationship between the source text and the target text and the translator's triple-role in translation in the perspective of intertextuality. Last, the dialectical relationship between intertextuality and subjectivity of the translator is illustrated.Chapter 4 begins with the expanding on the components of the poem and the essence of poetry translation, and then relevant issues on poetry translation such as translatability & untranslatability, translation criteria, domestication & foreignization are discussed in the perspective of intertextuality in this chapter.Chapter 5 gives a helpful guide to the transmission of musicality in poetry translation in light of intertextuality. After a comparative study on manifestation of musicality between English and Chinese on three aspects of sound, namely rhythm, rhyme and phonemic effects, the chapter details the poetry translation strategies and tactics under various conditions separately. First it argues the Dun in Chinese classical poetry should be substituted for feet in English version, and five or seven-character Lines in Chinese poetry be rendered as iambic pentameter in English poetry in the perspective of rhythm. As for rhyme intertextuality between Chinese and English, this chapter holds that the rhyme type of the source language should be translated to the corresponding or certain fixed rhyme type of the target language and the rhyme-scheme of English poetry (i.e. free rhyme, alternate rhyme and embracing rhyme) forms intertextuality with that of Chinese. Last comes to phonemic effects, this chapter endeavors to establish the intertextuality between Chinese classical poetry and English one on two aspects: the synaesthetic sound symbolism and reduplicated words.Chapter 6 first presents an overview of poetic image study, including the definition, origin, development, essence and classification of poetic image. After that, this chapter provides a theoretical review of the two related theories on poetic image reconstruction: relevance theory and subjectivity. The chief part of this chapter is closely related to the translation methods and strategies concerning poetic image reconstruction in the traditional and intertextual perspectives. According to the analysis of the poetic image reconstruction process based on intertextual theory, the poetic image reconstruction process is simplified into two major strategies: maintaining Yi by keeping the original Xiang, or maintaining Yi by adapting the original Xiang. Both strategies are explained in a theoretical way as well as with analysis of examples. Finally, the author summarizes the interpretive power of intertextuality on poetic image reconstruction.Last, the conclusion dialectically reviews and summarizes the abovementioned issues. It argues that the theory of intertextuality undoubtedly has far-reaching significance to both poetry translation practice and translation criticism. In terms of the methodology of study on this subject, the dissertation has been adopting some scientific methods in interdisciplinary research: deduction, induction and analogy. In addition, based on meticulous readings of works or papers on intertextuality and poetry translation, the author undertakes a thorough theoretical probe. In this dissertation, specific translating cases in Chinese classical poetry are closely related to relevant intertextual theories, which embodies the logicality of methodology in the author's study.