Descriptive Study On Hu Shih's Poetry Translation

In early modern history of China, New Culture Movement was of historical significance in that it not only marked the beginning of New Democratic Revolution in China, but also showed intellectuals' appeals for "new culture". Intellectuals argued that the way out of China's problems was to adopt western notion of democracy and science by translating numerous western works in various fields. Actually in the early period from The Opium War in 1840 to 1900 Chinese intellectuals had started their translation activities, which were focused on the fields of military training, ship-building and weapons making. Very little was done in literary translation. It was from the beginning of the 20^th century that some changes took place when considerable number of literary works were translated by Chinese intellectuals who realized the most effective cure for problems of China was nothing more than western ideology and literature. They wished to hold translated western literary works as sharp weapons to fight against decadent feudal ideology and to construct Chinese new literature. In the period of less than 30 years there were so many literary works were translated that it witnessed the third high tide in Chinese translation history and many new literary genres including fiction in bai-hua (vernacular language), opera, and Chinese new poetry came into being under the influence of translated literary. Hu Shih, one of the devoted intellectuals, played a pioneering role in this high tide of translation. He advocated abandoning Chinese classical language and using bai-hua as the medium language for Chinese new literature. And in order to prove his proposal Hu first experimented with bai-hua in his poetry translation. Apart from his attempts at bai-hua, Hu Shih also conducted experiments with new poetic style, reflecting his subjectivity and creative treason as a translator. Hu's poetry translation is historically significant not only because of his introduction of foreign poetry, but also, more importantly, because his poetry translation in bai-hua spurred the birth of Chinese new poetry. Afterwards, number of poets, influenced by Hu's translated poetry in bai-hua, embarked their poetry writings in bai-hua, marking the modernization of Chinese poetry.Based on the theory of Culture Study School, this dissertation intends to conduct a descriptive study of Hu Shih's poetry translation, including his translation purpose, selection of translated texts, strategies, and influence of Hu Shih's poetry translation over the development of Chinese new poetry. Only by doing this can we have an objective and complete description of Hu Shih's translation activities in New Culture Movement.As I don't mean to make any value judgment on Hu's translation, this dissertation is not prescriptive, but descriptive. The dissertation consists of four chapters besides introduction and conclusion.Introduction briefs my idea for composing this dissertation and basic structure of the dissertation.Chapter one offers background knowledge including general introduction to New Culture Movement and poetry translation in this period.Chapter two focuses on descriptive study of Hu Shih's poetry translation, which is preceded by a general introduction to Hu Shih's life experience and his translation thoughts.Chapter three is about the subjectivity of Hu Shih as a translator and focuses on Hu Shih's subjectivity in his exploration of poetic style, language and in his translating intention.Chapter four is intended to explore how Hu's poetry translation played an exemplary role in the evolution of Chinese new poetry.The last part is a conclusion, which points out that Hu Shih's poetry translation was not only a means of introducing foreign literature, but also a means of proving the feasibility of bai-hua as medium language for Chinese new literature. More importantly it served as Hu's philosophical thinking on Chinese nation's future. Through the dissertation I discover that it is only from cultural perspective that can I have a complete and objective description of Hu's translation strategy and ultimately probe into the cultural nature of translation.