On Xu Yuanzhong’s Classical Poetry C-E Translation

Traditional translation theories view translation as an activity of the secondary status and hold that the main task for the translator is to render a faithful reproduction of the original. Any creativity on the part of the translator would be regarded as betrayal to the original and should be avoided.With the development of the translation practices and theories, the emphasis of the current study on translation has been shifted to the extralinguistic study. By this term, the translation study is set in a broader socio-cultural context which is known as the "cultural turn". As one of the representatives of the Translation Studies, Andre Lefevere put forward Manipulation Theory which is an important approach to translation studies. Its core concept is that "Translation is a rewriting of an original text". By defining the factor—deology, poetics and patronage and by describing their roles in the process of Manipulation, Lefevere managed to construct his theoretical system of translation study and to guide the whole process of translation as well as translation related activity.This theory provides a new angle to explore how a translation is created under the influence of factors in the ideological realm, which is conductive to our objective judgment about different versions of the same work, to further examine the relationship between the national culture and the exotic culture. Meanwhile, this theory also provides us a new perspective to make reasonable explanation for "unfaithful" translation at a new level.Poetry is a precious gem of Chinese culture. In the era of cultural globalization, translating poetry into other language is essential for the wide spreading of Chinese culture and for the interaction and communication of all the cultures in the whole world. However, to translate literature, especially poetry, is rather a Herculean task in terms of both the language and mentality. Many theorists even hold the view that "poems are untranslatable.’ However, many outstanding translators’practices of translating poetry have proved that poetry can be translated vividly from one languge into another language.Poetry differs from other types of literature."Poetry is what gets lost in translation"(Bassnett Susan and Andre Lefevere,2001, p.57-58). It spells that some kind of "loss" in poetry translation is inevitable. Therefore, the translator has to employ his or her creative talent to make up for the "loss" and produce a relatively complete translation which may both reproduce the content and at the same time retain the artistic flavor of the original poem. The translator’s creativity, from the practical perspective, is also proved to be possible and necessary.This thesis is an attempt to study Xu Yuanzhong’s poetry translation from the perspective of Andre Lefevere’s Manipulation Theory. Being a colossus of translation, Professor Xu Yuanzhong enjoys a very high reputation for his translation of classical Chinese poetry. He has made irreplaceable contribution to both the formation of literary translation theories of Chinese school and the rise in status of the Chinese translation in the world. Based on his own translation practice, Xu has put forward a set of Chinese literary translation theories, which lay great emphasis on the translator’s creativity in translation. The essence of his theory can be summarized into "art of beautification and creation of the best as in rivalry". However, his translation theories are not without challenges and debates from other translation theorists and practitioners.Given such a circumstance, this thesis is to place Xu’s poetry translation in a certain cultural background and through the analysis of his choice of the source text, the poetry form, the language as well as the translation strategies, aims at making objective and reasonable explanations for the translator’s translation theory and practice.The author of this thesis has chosen some of his translated versions for studying and tries to analyze how he manipulated the poetry translation from the perspective of ideology and poetics, that is to say, to take his practice of translating classical Chinese poetry as examples to examine this theory’s explanatory power.The author has reached the following conclusions:(1) Although Xu’s translation theory is often criticized by some scholars for his unfaithfulness, his theory on poetry translation has reached a significantly higher level compared with traditional Chinese translation theories,(2) In terms of translation practice, Xu’s translation of poetry is well accepted by target readers. His unfaithful translation should not be too harshly condemned but should be revaluated by taking the social backgrounds into consideration.