A Study Of Translating Yi’an’s Ci-poems Into English

Yi’an’s Ci-poetry, as one of the most splendid cultural gems among classicalChinese literature, has long enjoyed enduring prestige due to its uniquely freshlanguage and ingenious art of expression. Though its introduction to the Englishworld began rather early in the1920s, systematic studies on its translation based onthorough ST studies remain rather inadequate in the academia. Given this, the authorreviewed a substantial number of researches by Chinese scholars on its style studiesand summarized its dominant three stylistic features as: Grace Out of Plainness andColloquialism, Unique Images Embodying Cultural Richness, and Particular PatheticBeauty, and bases discussions of the thesis closely upon exploring optimal strategiesin reproducing the distinguishing features characterizing the Yi’an style.Through meticulous descriptive studies of more than40translated texts of over18translators from both home and abroad, the author proposes a good many workablestrategies and techniques for better delivering the essence and spirit of the Yi’anpoetic style, including suggestions on word choice, rhetorical device application,translation method combination, compensatory measures for flavor loss, etc. Throughextensive comparative and contrastive analyses of a considerable number ofrenderings, more well-founded conclusions are derived regarding the evaluation andimprovement upon existing translations with representing the ST’s predominantproperties as the overriding principle.Generally, the thesis expects to present the novel perspective of approachingtranslation studies on Yi’an’s Ci-poetry from preliminary ST scrutinies, and on thebasis of which proceeds to comparison and evaluation of different renderings andexploration of translating principles and strategies. In this way, the author hopes toexpand the scope of and contribute to translation studies on Yi’an’s Ci-poetry andother literary texts at large.