Translating Classical Chinese Poetry: With (out) Rhyme

Classical Chinese poetry is a great heritage of Chinese people. In China there are a great many anthologies of classical poetry, including The Book of Poetry, The Songs of the South and Three Hundred Tang Poems, Song-ci poems and Yuan-qu poems. These collections illustrate the development of Chinese poetry from the earliest times to the full flowering of the Tang and Song periods. With the opening-up of China and the development of globalization, more and more westerners become interested in classical Chinese poetry. So its translation has become a significant issue for the time being.On the problem of translating classical Chinese poetry into English, scholars' opinions vary. One focus of their disputes is whether Chinese poems should be translated into English poems with or without rhyme. On this point no agreement has been reached so far. Some hold that rhyme is an important part of Chinese poetry, and it should be preserved while others think that meaning is the foremost thing, and rhymed translation will surely sacrifice the meaning. However, no systematic research has been made to highlight this problem yet.My paper first makes a review of rhymed and unrhymed schools and their representatives. After that this paper justifies the necessity of rhymed translation by presenting three reasons: the functions of rhyme; the importance of rhyme in Chinese and English poetry; the preservation of fidelity in cultural exchange. After a detailed comparison of rhyme and rhyme scheme between these two poetic systems, this paper justifies the possibility of rhymed translation. What's more, this paper points out the problems that rhymed translation should avoid for its perfection. In the end, this paper tries to give a definite answer to this question, that is, translating classical Chinese poetry with rhyme is preferable.This thesis is supported by theories of literary criticism and translation studies, and it is also data-based with many translation versions as examples. So it is a combination of theory and data. I hope this thesis will promote the research of poetry translation, and in the final analysis, promote cultural exchange between China and other countries.