On Metaphor Of Classical Chinese Poetry And Its Translation

Classical Chinese poetry is a pearl of classical Chinese Culture. Tang Anshi, an outstanding expert on Han dynasty has ever commented:"Chinese literature is the artistic peak of the most literary, the most artistic, the longest-established civilization that exists. " He believed: "All Chinese poetry is polished, vivid, formal, forceful, dramatic and rhetorical. " Satisfactory comprehension of classical Chinese poetry as a whole presupposes thoroughly understanding of it in parts such as cultural factor, historical influence, Chinese thinking mode and concept and so on, which are usually embodied in metaphor, the"logic" of poetry (John Brigges & Richard Monaco, 1991:8). This thesis studies metaphor in CCP and its translation.The thesis in Part 1, makes an introduction to the significance and aim of the study; Part 2 is no metaphor, which attempts to make a comprehensive study on metaphor in common including its essence, typologies, formations, semantic structures, semantic features and its relationship with poetry ; and then Part 3 focuses on metaphor in CCP, which further the study of origin, characteristics, forming factors, formal structures and functions of metaphor in CCP; Part 4 is on the translation of metaphor in CCP, in which translation criteria together with the aspects considered in the process of translation is put forward. On the foundation of these, it analyzes different versions of metaphors in CCP of different types at different discourse levels (lexical level, syntactical level, textual level). Finally, a conclusion is drawn.The feature of this thesis is that it goes for a systematical research on metaphor in CCP and attempts to apply the recent achievement on metaphor —the theory of conceptual metaphor raised by Lakoff to the understanding process of metaphor in CCP in the hope of providing translators with some strategies in rendering metaphors in CCP.