Poet's Interpretation And Scholar's Interpretation

It is said that"poetry has no fixed explanations", because different readers have different understanding. This is quite reasonable since poetry has about it a special characteristic. So, to translate a poem is all the more difficult, which gives birth to a lot of problems in the course of translation. For instance, the problem of translatability and the problem of translators have always been eye-catching. And the latter one is what I am going to talk about. Translator, the absolute subject in translation, is first of all the reader of the source text that he is going to translate. His understanding as a reader will definitely affect his translation, or to put it more precisely, decide his translation. As for poetry translation, readers/translators who know a lot about poetry differ from those who know nothing about it in understanding the poetry. And as the discussion deepens, the two kinds of readers/translators differentiate from one another as poet-translator and scholar-translator whose translations come into question frequently. Who should translate poetry? Or, which kind of translator could render poetry better? The answer could only be obtained by doing research into the subjects of the poetry translation. Different translating subjects have different understanding/interpretation, so it is suitable for me to carry on the study from the perspective of Hermeneutics.With the help of the hermeneutics theory, the author applies Steiner's Hermeneutic Motion to the analysis of the different interpretations by the two types of translators, and summarizes their different translating features which are proved in the case study part. Therefore, the optimal interpretation/translation of classical Chinese poetry is found.The paper begins with the existing problem in poetry translation, making clear the research motive and background for the thesis. A literature review is followed to give a brief introduction to the development of the theory. Although the hermeneutics theory is under criticism today to be applied to judging translation, and the theory itself is at a crossroad, it does not loose its meaning and feasibility in analyzing the two translators'interpretation/translation. Firstly, understanding/interpretation of poetry differs; secondly, that translation is interpretation is generally accepted in translation field. So it is very easy to find that Chinese literature criticism tallies with western translation theory on the level of poetry interpretation/translation. Before analyzing the features by both translators, the author makes a textual research into the two terminologies, i.e. poet-translator and scholar-translator, and then applies Steiner's Hermeneutic Motion in detail to carry on with the third part. Setting within the framework of the hermeneutics theory, Steiner's Motion is of easy feasibility, creating convenience for the author to probe into the case. Three features are found and then the author puts forward the optimal interpretation/translation. With Luzhai's case, the features are proved and neither type of translated versions is perfect, for there are merits and demerits in their understanding and translations. An optimal translation can be obtained by translator who can combine the merits in both types of translators.