Changes In Other Land-Study On Changes Of English Translations Of Tao Yuanming’s Poetry And His Personal Image

T’ao Yuanming, whose poetry is simple and vivid and whose personality is pureand unyielding, has long been admired by Chinese scholars. Studies of T’ao havebeen in place for over a thousand years in China, during which T’ao emerges as ahermit, a politician, a poet and a philosopher. This paper, based on the four versions oftranslations done by Waley, Acker, Hightower and Davis, aims to present the changesof translations in the historical continuum, as well as the changes of T’ao Yuanming’spersonal image during the course. In fact, English translations of T’ao Yuanming, byundergoing the change from random selection to systematic introduction, fromarbitrary rewrite or reduction to more loyal reflection, from misinterpretation tocorrect interpretation, and from one-fold poem translation to the inclusion of culturalannotations or even personal commentaries, is itself a process of changes whichhappens in the historical continuum. Also along the process, the poet’s image getsgradually complete.Nevertheless, confined by factors such as ideology, language and culture, theT’ao Yuanming that foreign translators have restored is partial. T’ao’s very uniquenessof being a poet is gradually concealed and his character of sincerity and truth faces thechallenge of deconstruction. To restore a true T’ao Yuanming, in the end, needs tostart with T’ao’s own works. In contrast with foreign translators’ tendency of keepingto the surface of language, domestic translators focus more on the spirit rather thanthe letter. Their relatively freestyle way of translation compensates the defect of thosedone by the foreign translators. The paper believes that presenting a panoramic pictureof T’ao Yuanming needs the inter-restitution between the foreign and domestictranslators.