A Study Of Shao Xunmei As A Poetry Translator

Shao Xunmei (1906-1968), originally named Shao Yunlong, used to be known far and wide in Shanghai as a poet, publisher and salon holder back in the1920s and1930s. However, he had since then fallen into oblivion and did not come back to public attention until he was rehabilitated posthumously in1985. Of his multiple identities, according to studies on him over the recent thirty years, his literary fame as a poetry translator has been the most unrecognized.With a qualitative and descriptive research method, we have periodized Shao Xunmei’s poetry career into three periods, namely, the poetry creation period (1923-1937), the poetry theorization period (1938-1939) and the poetry translation period (1955-1965); we have further divided the first period into two stages, i.e. the "green show-off”stage (1923-January1931) and the "working on’texture’" stage (February1931-1937). Following this particular periodization, we have made an overview and contextual-textual analyses of Shao Xunmei’s translated poems, accounting for the translator’s translation purposes and text selection strategies on the one hand and reconstituting the translation strategies resorted to on the other. Moreover, Shao Xunmei’s poetry translation views have been discussed, mainly with reference to assorted translation-related writings by the translator.It is found in this research that first, Shao Xunmei has produced44translated poems, most of which were first published on periodicals started by himself or his friends and anthologized in his Yi Duoduo Meigui (One Rose and Another) and Piyacilu Shihua Ji (Poems and Pictures of Beardsley). Second, Shao Xunmei’s translation purposes, text selection strategies and translation strategies vary from period to period (and from stage to stage), but they have all displayed an interplay with his poetry creation practice; and the evolution of his translation strategies over time has reflected an advance gradually made in his poetry skills. Third, in Shao Xunmei’s poetry translation views, penetrating penetrating ideas emerge from time to time, such as his dismission of the literal-free dichotomy and and creation a three-link chain (translation purpose-text selection strategy-translation strategy) of interdependence and coexistence on one hand; and his switch of attention from the prescriptive "how to translate" to the descriptive "why translate this way" as early as in1930s on the other.Through this research, it is hoped that due attention from the translation circle will be paid to Shao Xunmei’s poetry translation practice and poetry translation views, and a re-evaluation will be made of his position in modern Chinese literature.