A Study On Transformation Of Legge’s Poetics In The Translation Of Shijing

A great number of researches have been done on the basis of Lefevere’s rewriting theory up to now. For him, translation is a rewriting of an original text, which is influenced by ideology, poetics and patronage. His rewriting theory provides us with a new theoretical framework for translation studies. Thus translation studies are no longer confined to the sphere of language. Many scholars apply Lefevere’s rewriting theory to translation study. But among the three constraining factors of translation, ideology is frequently used in the study, while poetics and patronage are less dealt with. According to Lefevere, poetics refers to literary concept, in the translation process the translator is influenced by both the dominant poetics and his own individual poetics. Translation is a rewriting of an original text. All rewritings reflect a certain ideology and a poetics.James Legge was regarded as the most influential western sinologist in the19th century. His The Chinese Classics represents the highest achievement in the translation of Confucian classics. Shijing is one of Confucian classics which holds a high social position. With the deeper study of Sinology and attention of missionary translation, the study on Legge’s versions of Shijing is increasing. But most of the scholars demonstrate the correctness of their statements by analysing the translated version under a certain theory. This paper analyses the two different versions by using Lefevere’s poetics from a new perspective, and mainly makes a research on James Legge’s English versions of Shijing. By the application of induction, this paper analyses the form, language, content, style and ideology of the translated versions, and then summarizes the transformation of Legge’s poetics during his translation. Through the comparison between the two versions, the author comes to a conclusion:the two different versions not only reflect the transformation of Legge’s literary aesthetics but but also reflects Legge’s religion and politics tendency.