A New Study On Arthur Waley’s Translation Of Tang Poetry Into English

As a pearl in the spire of classical Chinese literature art and an integral part of the world literary heritage, Tang Poetry was introduced to west by the French missionaries in China beginning in the16th century, while the Tang Poetry was translated into English started relatively late. Arthur Waley was one of the most famous British Sinologist in20th century and he devoted his life to studying and translating the Chinese and Japanese classical literature. The Tang Poetry translated by him, no matter in terms with quantity or quality, is an indelible chapter for the internationalization of the tang poetry. In this paper, Arthur Waley’s English translation of Tang Poetry is research objects and I have carried on the detailed investigation from the perspective of the essence of the Tang Poetry and the cultural transmission. Besides introduction and conclusion, the thesis is divided into three chapters:The first chapter, Arthur Waley contacts with Chinese literati. Arthur Waley communicates with Chinese literati frequently, this chapter, I will make the historical facts that Arthur Waley communicates with Xu Zhimo, Hu Shi and Xiao Qian as the basis, carding and eliminate basic situation of communication, finally, explore the influence of Chinese scholars on Arthur Waley’s Tang Poetry translation from the angle of cultural transmission.The second chapter, the Tang Poetry translation of Arthur Waley. Find out Tang Poetry translation from Arthur Waley translation, such as Chinese Poems, A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems, More Translations From The Chinese, The Poet Li Po and27Poems by Han shan. And on this basis, I will analyze Arthur Waley’s attitude and taste when he translated poems from the angle of the anthology that include content and genre.The third chapter, the methodology of Arthur Waley Tang Poetry translation. The essence of this chapter I will analyze Arthur Waley’s Tang Poetry translation skills and its shortcomings from the contents of Tang Poetry that include versification, images, classical allusions and special syntax four aspects. Waley used the skill of Stress to achieve the metrical conversion in the process of translating Tang Poem; He paid much attention to images in the process of translating, which was treated as "the soul of poetry"; He seldom chose the poetry with classical allusions; According to the literal translation, he dealt with the special syntax in the Tang Poem,which made the translation of poetry show the characteristics of the source language culture as a whole.