On Translation And Reception Of Qing Qing He Pan Cao From The Perspective Of The Reception Theory

The thesis is devoted to the study of the translation and reception of Qing Qing He Pan Cao with the reception theory as the theoretical foundation.The author first gives a brief introduction to the theme of the poem, that is ,"longing love out of separation"(相思之情). The foreigners will find it hard to understand because such an emotion is typical of Chinese culture. In this thesis, the different ways in which different translators understand and transmit such an emotion in their translations will be presented and analyzed.Since the emotion of a poem is condensed in its"artistic ideorealm"(意境), the thesis will introduce the concept of"artistic ideorealm". Centered on the theme of the poem"longing love out of separation", the thesis compares and analyzes the twelve translations of Qing Qing He Pan Cao in three respects to show how they deal with the"vision","hearing"and"feeling"of the poem to transmit its"artistic ideorealm". In the author's opinion, only when a translated poem brings the reader into an"artistic ideorealm"made up of the"vision","hearing"and"feeling"of the original poem, could it be appreciated and accepted by the reader. It is only at that time that the poem could be realized.Secondly, the thesis takes advantage of the reception theory as the theoretical foundation. The reception theory has correlations with the concept of"artistic ideorealm". The"artistic ideorealm"mainly consists of two parts, namely, the"written"part, the actual realm and the"unwritten part", the virtual realm. The two concepts"text"and"spots of indeterminacy"or"blanks"of the reception theory mean almost the same as the above two parts. What is more, according to the reception theory,"horizon of expectation"varies from translator to translator due to their different backgrounds of life and education, which will lead to their different ways of concretizing the"spots of indeterminacy"in the text and thus the fact that different translators will produce different translations of the same text.Different from the traditional literary theories, the focus of the reception theory has shifted from the author-centered and text-centered aspect to the reader-centered aspect. According to the reception theory, it is the reader who plays a decisive role in the realization of the text. Whether a translation is successful or not is dependent on the different tastes of the reader, since different translations are beautiful in their own ways and flavors.However, during the study,the author finds that, to transmit the"artistic ideorealm", it is necessary to translate the rhyme and understand the specific cultural factors of the original poem. Without rhyme, the poem will not be a Chinese classical one; without the understanding the cultural factors, the translation will lose the flavor of the original poem. With neither the rhyme nor the flavor, the"artistic ideorealm"will be lost in the translation. The loss of the"artistic ideorealm"will surely lead to the result that the translation will be nothing but a pile of meaningless words.Finally, the importance and the distinction of Nineteen Ancient Poems are intended to be emphasized. Qing Qing He Pan Cao is the second of the nineteen old poems. The status of Nineteen Ancient Poems in the history of Chinese poetry is so unchallenged that it is even considered to be on a par with the other two sublime Chinese classics Shijing (12th-7th c. BC) and Chuci (3rd c. BC-2nd c. AD). It has profound influence upon the coming poems. Thus its translation will surely open a window for the Westerners to know more about China.During the preparation of the paper, the author finds that domestic studies in relation to the translation of Qing Qing He Pan Cao and Nineteen Ancient Poems are hard to be found. And there is a shortage of systematic translations of the nineteen ancient poems both in China and abroad. Thus, the 12 English versions of the poem Qing Qing He Pan Cao are expected to be useful for further studies. It is believed that more scholars will be interested in Nineteen Ancient Poems and more extensive studies will be involved in.