A Study On The Translation Of Li Po’s Poems From The Perspective Of The Theory Of Golden Mean For Translation

The Tang poet, Li Po, whose poetry is characterized with unconstrained, bound and brilliant language and is regarded as the treasure of classical Chinese poems. However, there are some increasingly striking controversial questions in the process of translation, such as whether translating them into metrical form or free verse, “formal similarity” and “spiritual similarity”, which one is more important. Whether the images of names, historical events and ones with associative meanings can be translated or not. Whether the translator should avoid or give full play to his subjectivity to deal with the translation of the style such as rhetorical devices and person deixis. For the reason that the debated questions are continually viewed as oppositions, the translator cannot always attend to one thing without neglecting the other in translation.The theory of Golden-Mean advocates that “to avoid extremes to keep to the mean, being adaptable in tactics and balancing out”, making it possible for translators to seek for an equilibrium and explore a golden mean to achieve a perfect and harmonious translation. In the thesis, the author discusses the strategic and guiding importance of the Golden Mean to achieve the harmonious beauty of poetry translation. With respect to achieving the harmony between form and content, not restricted by the original poem and not imitating the form and rhyme of English poetry entirely, the translator should try his best to explore a golden mean between retaining the features of the original poem and borrowing the form of English poetry, taking adaptive employments in poetry metrical form or English poetry free verse to convey the spirit of the original poem to the largest extent. Then, to attain the harmony between image and artistic conception, the translator can employ flexible strategies to keep the unique features and flavors of the images such as names, historical events and ones with associative meanings by means of retaining the original images or borrowing the closest natural equivalent images or annotating the meaning or paraphrasing them appropriately. Finally, in order to achieve the harmony between style and spirit, the translator must grasp the certain “degree” and avoid extremes to give proper play to his subjectivity as well as take adaptive employments. For translating the rhetorical devices in Li Po’s poems, he must thoroughly comprehend metonymy, hyperbole, antithesis, rhetorical question, metaphor, simile and so on to adjust the translation strategies such as reserving, replacing and omitting. In terms of person deixis, the first, second, and third ones should be added or omitted depending on the actual situation to break the barriers of the cultural differences to achieve a harmonious translation.Through analyzing the strategies in translating Li Po’s poems, the conclusion is reached that the translators should adhere to the principle that “to avoid extremes to keep to the mean” and take certain adaptive employments according to the actual situation to avoid the polarization between “over-done” and “under-done” in the process of translation on the premise of sticking to the ethical norms that “the utmost sincerity and excellence” under the guidance of the theory of Golden Mean, so the “beauty in harmony” of the poetry translation can be achieved.