A Study On The Translation Of Wordsworth’s Poetry From The Perspective Of Reception Theory

Reception theory was established in the1960s, which provided a new perspectivefor poetry translation. This theory emphasizes the reader’s active and dynamic roles inthe process of translation, the dynamic process of translator’s reception to the originaltext, and TL reader’s reception to the translation. Translators have different horizons ofexpectation and different considerations for readers’ horizon of expectation, aestheticcapacity, etc. The translators need to adopt different translation strategies to fuse thehorizons. Translators in different social backgrounds have given different characters totheir translations. The translation of poetry also changes to cater readers’ tastes indifferent times.Different from the previous articles which offer a simple comparison betweendifferent translated versions of Wordsworth’s poetry, the author of this thesis provides acomprehensive and systematic research on the translation of Wordsworth’s poetry fromthe reception theory perspective. Based on the reception theory and the relationshipbetween reception theory and poetry translation, this thesis firstly analyzes the receptionsituation and translation characteristics in three stages through cases studies. Secondly,taking Wordsworth’s poems on nature, common people or things and poems onchildhood as examples, the author gives a further analysis of the influence of thereception in the process of translating Wordsworth’s poetry into Chinese. Finally, inorder to clarify the specific application of reception theory in poetry translation, theauthor uses a typical case. By analyzing three representative versions translated respectively by He Lin, Guo Moruo and Yang Deyu, the author discusses the specificapplications in the three versions.At last, the author draws a conclusion that poetry translation is influenced bytranslator’s horizon of expectation, social and cultural background, the indeterminaciesin the original poem and different considerations for target readers. Therefore, readerswill have different understandings to the poetry. The translator understands andtranslates the original by his horizon of expectation, while the translator should payenough attention to TL readers’ horizon of expectation and the active role of readers inthe process of poetry translation, which helps translator to translate satisfactory poetryworks and realizes the value of poetry translation.