The Cultural Interpretation Of Chinese Classical Poetry And Its Aesthetic Delivery In Translaton

Chinese classical poetry, the very essence of Chinese literature, is cherished as our unique heritage. The translation of Chinese classical poetry has long been considered the most difficult endeavor due to its complexity in form, grammar, rhyming, image and, most of all, cultural connotation. Translation is a complicated process of intercultural communication and quite different translations are often produced because translators have different ideas about translating and different interpretations of one and the same poem. No longer confined to language equivalence, poetry translation assumes the important responsibility of conveying the cultural connotation. Due to their separate history, geographical environment, lifestyles and customs, and cultural background, different nations have their own and unique language style, thinking habits and ways of expressions. Poetry is a special and incomparable literature style with its artistic expression and aesthetic value, rich in thoughts and culture. There is often the gap between two cultures and this inequivalence makes translation from a source language to a target language most difficult. The analysis on cultural factors is the basis and a must in appreciating and representing the beauty of classical poetry. This thesis lists out the manifestations of culture with respective interpretation and detailed analysis to arrive at a more reasonable interpretation of the source text and a more proper choice of translating strategies, thus represents and delivers the aesthetic value of Chinese classical poetry.It begins with an overall review of the history and development of Chinese classical poetry, and the importance of culture in the previous practice of translation. Understanding the different cultural backgrounds, and interpreting their cultural connotations profoundly affects the quality of translation and its communicative efficiency. Mr. Zhang Jin once defined translation as follows:"translation is the communicative process and toll for two language societies, which aims at promoting the development of politics, economics and civilization in the native language society, and its task is to transfer the logic image or artistic image in reality contained in the original works without any loss from one language into another one".The following chapter works at discussing and interpreting the cultural connotation in Chinese classical poetry, basing on the language and cultural perspective. The detailed analysis includes the structure, semantics, grammar, figures of speech and allusion in Chinese classical poetry, with necessary comparison between Chinese culture and western culture. Also brought in is the theoretical guidance of cultural context on C-E poetry translation.The third chapter probes into the strategies of dealing with culture in translation practice, especially the compensation of cultural gaps and losses. The various factors that lead to the intranstability of poetry include the information inequivalence in two cultures, or even a loss of one cultural element in another culture. Thus, to achieve an effective communication in translation, cultural compensation is indispensable. This thesis offers concrete measures and principles in practice.Based on the above studies, the author tries to achieve the aesthetic delivery of Chinese classical poetry in the"three beauties", and adopts skills in realizing the harmony of images, unity of cultural backgrounds and sublimation of emotions between the SL text and TL text.In conclusion, the interpretation and compensation of culture is vital in appreciating Chinese classical poetry, and its aesthetics delivery is always a mission hard to fulfill in cross-cultural communication, which relies on very careful and proper choice of strategies of transferring this specific literary style.