Conveyance Of Artistic Conception In The Ancient Chinese Poetry Translation

The ancient Chinese poetry is a kind of literary genre with high aesthetic value; it is also the essence and treasure of Chinese language with rich cultural connotation. And as the spirit of the poem, artistic conception is one of its main attractions. It fuses the subjective feelings of the poet and the objective setting of the poem, leaving boundless space for readers to explore. Just for its abstraction, artistic conception is one of the main difficulties in poetry translation, and it is getting a hot debating topic for translators.There are few systematic studies focusing on the ancient Chinese poetry translation theories from abroad. Yet owing to the broad spread of several Chinese pomes translated by some sinologists such as Soame Jenyns, H.A Giles and Arthur Waley etc, the beauty of artistic conception of the ancient Chinese poetry has been known to western readers. While domestic studies have got rich achievement, there are a large number of papers on poetry translation. In general, according to the translated forms, poetry translation can be classified into three schools:classical school represented by Xu Yuanchong and H.A Giles; free school represented by Arthur Waley and Yang Xianyi; and creative school represented by Ezra Pound and Weng Xianliang. Each school has its unique advantages and shortcomings in some aspects. They complement each other and satisfy different readers, leaving them enough space to appreciate the poetic beauty of the ancient Chinese poetry.The appreciation and criticism of the ancient Chinese poetry is inseparable from the artistic conception explanation, because poetry is the combination of vocabulary and syntax in surface form, but the deep meaning is in need of artistic conception to reflect. However, papers on artistic conception are less. Most research on artistic conception translation studies from the angle of poetics by subjectively analyzing different translation versions. Aims of such studies are to put forward various translation strategies and methods. But research like this is unavoidably beneath the objectiveness and fairness. As to the supplements and reference method to the angle of poetics, this paper attempts to use the transitivity in ideational function to explore the ancient Chinese poetry translation. It is known to all that the literal form of the poem is word and sentence, but the implication of the poem is the conveyance of the artistic conception. In order to faithfully transfer such implication, this paper has done a comprehensive and systematic study from a new angle. Specifically speaking, the paper appreciates the beauty of artistic conception by comparatively analyzing different versions on the basis of the transitivity system; it aims at bringing some new idea to Chinese poetry translation studies. Thus it can also demonstrate the feasibility and operability of studying Chinese poetry translation under the frame of functional linguistics.