The Reproduction Of The Five-Xiang Beauties Theory In Hawkes'Hong Poetry Rendering

Hong Lou Meng (HLM for short) is a poetic novel. It is poetry in HLM (Hong Poetry hereinafter) that avoids this novel falling into the stereotypes of other classical Chinese poetry; It is Hong Poetry that makes HLM elegant, precious and abundant. Therefore, it speaks for its own importance. However, through combing related datum and reviewing the HLM translation history, Hong Poetry tends to have been omitted in the first foreign versions, from which the difficulty in its translation can be seen; some mistranslations, caused by numerous circulating original texts in the folk and translating strategies that translators had applied, are pervasive between the lines, from which the urgency of correcting its tranlations can also be seen. Wang Hongyin (2001) calls on establishing the discipline of HLM translation studies, the discipline of Hong Poetry translation studies definitely standing in the breach.It is needless to say that Hong Poetry should be appraised in an appropriate way, neither by reasoning nor by abstracting. Its wordings and forms need to be given a wathchful eye on, for the Aesthetics of Reception theorists state that readers acquire aesthetic experience by impetuses that are exerted on readers' senses of seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling and associating. Poetry, as the holiest art of literature, always rolls these aesthetic and poly sensuality into one, easily satisfies readers' horizon of expectations and achieves the fusion of horizons. The Five-Xiang Beauties theory, which is put forth by Gu Zhengkun and that can be classified into a kind of theory on translation aesthetics, is composed of five aspects:Shi Xiang(视象),Yin Xiang (音象),Shi Xiang(事象),Yi Xiang (义象)and Wei Xiang(味象)which precisely correspond with senses of seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling and associating mentioned above. It is a sophisticated theory for appreciating poetry. It matches Hong Poetry of miscellaneous types and styles. It stands not merely as a method of admiration for Chinese poetry, classical or free verse, but also as a type of versification rules that Chinese poets should abide by when composing poems. This theory makes the appraisal system of rendered poetry all the more effective and scientific.Hawkes'rendered Hong poetry set as the object of study, the thesis will be carried out by means of selecting typical translations of Hong Poetry, and involve as many types and styles as possible. From the angle of the Aesthetics of Reception theory, these selected poems are elaborately dissected from every aspect of the Five-Xiang Beauties theory, closely following the rules of this theory in an attempt to summarize Hawkes' utilized skills and strategies. For Shi Xiang(视象)Beauty, Hawkes changes the original structure of the poem into a different one to reproduce its beauty, uses Yin Xiang (音象)Beauty to substitute the original Shi Xiang(视象)Beauty as a compensation; for Yin Xiang(音象)Beauty, Hawkes selects mono-syllable words to approximate the phonetic system of Chinese characters, employs Positive Sound and Negative Sound to transmit Chinese real aesthetic experience in poetry appreciation. For Shi Xiang (事象)Beauty, Hawkes does not translate allusions as allusions, on the contrary, he de-emphasizes allusions to make them outstanding, which can assure readers' smooth reading; as for Yi Xiang(义象)Beauty and Wei Xiang(味象)Beauty, he uses free translation to keep the spirit and artistic conception of the original poem to let the readers get the integrated aesthetic experience. It is hoped that the thesis can cast some looming light on Hong Poetry translation studies, awaiting bright light with great respect.