The Rendering Of Artistic Conception In The English Translation Of Classical Chinese Poetry

Classical Chinese poetry is the essence and treasure of Chinese language with rich cultural connotation, and artistic conception is one of its main attractions and it is vital in poetry creation and appreciation. Also, as the soul of poetry, it concretizes poet's subjective emotion and thought which is abstract and hard to grasp, achieving the aesthetic effect of unlimited meaning with limited words. And owing to its abstraction, artistic conception is one of the primary difficulties in poetry translation.Abroad, there are few studies on Chinese poetry translation issues. Yet thanks to the prevalence of several Chinese poems translated by Ezra Pound and some versions translated by Witter Bynner, Herbert. A. Gilles and Willis Barnstone etc, the beauty of artistic conception of Chinese poem has been known to western readers. In our country, there are a substantial number of papers on poem translation and some papers discussed image reproduction. Many researches do have the achievement. Still, some of them are jaundiced viewpoints without academic spirit and objective judgement with comprehensive study and thinking. Poem translation can be classified into several schools according to the translated types or forms: metrical verse, free verse, and prose styles respectively represented by Xu Yuanchong, Witter Bynner, Weng Xianliang etc. Each type has the outstanding advantages and disadvantages in some aspects. They complement each other and satisfy different readers, leaving them space to appreciate the poetic beauty of classical Chinese poetry. Theses on the reproduction of artistic conception are quite few. Several explorations are from Semiotics perspective, and some considerations are from the perspective of Reception Aesthetic Theory.Until now, systematic studies on artistic conception rendering principles which will be instructive not only for theoretical probe but also for applied translation practice are few. So the scientific research of artistic conception reproduction in Chinese-English poetry translation has great significance. It will benefit further study and give successor theoretical guide or fresh inspiration in practical activities, prompting to produce more wonderful translated works for readers to read and enjoy. The purpose of this paper is to find some useful strategies by analysis and study on a large quantity of examples with descriptive translation research method.This thesis makes a systematic study on the problems of reproducing artistic conception in translating classical Chinese poetry. The research of the development, definition of artistic conception and the comparison with image mainly base on some Chinese literary study about yijing. In the broader perspective, artistic conception theory in Chinese literature and imagery theory in western literature actually belong to the same category and they have similar constituents which dissolve the poet's instantaneous emotion and thought into the poem line with vivid, refined description. This thesis then systematically disassembles the artistic conception into "actual realm" and "virtual realm". The relationship between actual realm and virtual realm is similar to that of phenomenon and substance and they cannot be isolated. Furthermore, some principles of rendering the artistic conception in translating classical Chinese poetry are also discussed in detail: first, translators must completely understand the artistic conception of the original poetry; second; the most essential task is to grasp and transmit the virtual realm which is the spirit of poem, including the emotion or thought of the original; then translators should master an appropriate degree between preserving the original implicit beauty and keeping the translated version readable; in other words, in order to preserve the poetic beauty, they must preserve the actual realm elements of the original to the utmost, avoiding direct expression and keep the original fuzzy beauty, leaving room for imagination; however the fuzzy beauty should not be too excessive to be available to or make sense to the target language(TL) reader. In addition, translators should do their best to keep the succinctness of classical Chinese poetry language. Last, the choice of words and sentences should match the whole emotional background. My preference is to use free verse to translate poem, expressing more the eternal original spirit of poetry. And I think "sacrificing meaning to rhyme" is unworthy and will reduce the total effect of artistic conception. In practical reproduction of artistic conception, two main difficulties are: one is the difficulty of keeping the original poetic beauty owing to the distinct difference between these two language symbols; the other is the treatment of actual realm with cultural element. Some translating methods of actual realm elements are: Literal translation (sometimes with annotation), substitution or generalization, addition and negation etc. Which method should be adopted lies on how well the virtual realm of artistic conception can be embodied. By doing so, the English readers can gain an identical or similar emotional resonance and aesthetic experience as the original readers.Based on the above analysis, the paper comes to a conclusion: artistic conception is not unsearchable. So far as translators understand the original poem exactly, and insist on the principles of rendering artistic conception, the beauty of artistic conception of classical Chinese poetry can be rendered to the utmost extent.In this paper, I mainly use the descriptive translation study method which is characterized by observation, description and explanation. It is the critical conscience of translation studies, urging historical awareness as well as theoretical reflection, attention to words as well as to the conditioning of our ways of making sense of them. With accumulated typical poems, I apply this descriptive method to the case study of the whole thesis. And the interpretative-theoretical method is used sometimes in the theory part which discusses the definition and deconstruction of artistic conception.