The Reproduction Of "Aesthetic Equivalence" In The Translation Of Classical Chinese Poetry

This thesis is a tentative study on the translation of classical Chinese poetry from the aesthetic perspective. With Liu Miqing's theory of "aesthetic translation" as its theoretical basis, this thesis focuses on a comparative study of nine English versions of Song Ci—Sheng Sheng Man written by Li Qingzhao, the most outstanding female Ci-writer in the Song Dynasty. In light of Nida's theory of "dynamic equivalence", I tentatively put forward the term "aesthetic equivalence", and use it as a criterion for the translation of classical Chinese poetry.With refined language, elegant style and rich cultural images, classical Chinese poetry is considered a treasure-house and immortal heritage of Chinese culture. However, its translation remains an intimidating enterprise for lack of universally applicable translation standards or criteria. While "aesthetics", an old and relatively mature discipline has long been embodied in some translation theories both at home and abroad. Therefore this thesis introduces some aesthetic approaches into poetry translation in order to offer some insights for poetry translation. However, due to the linguistic and cultural disparities between English and Chinese, there is no such a thing as "perfect translation", and the "absolute equivalence" in translation is impossible to achieve. This thesis takes Nida's theory of "dynamic equivalence" for reference, pointing out that "aesthetic equivalence" is, in nature, a kind of dynamic equivalence, a proximity to the original work. Through a comparison of nine English versions of Sheng Sheng Man from two general perspectives, namely, the formal aesthetic constituents and non-formal aesthetic constituents, this thesis comes to the conclusion that the essence of poetry translation is to reproduce the "the closest natural equivalent of the aesthetic effect" of the original poem in the translated one, making the target-language readers aesthetically satisfied to almost the same extent as the source-language readers.