On The Influence Of Hu Shi’s Poem Translation On His Poem Creation In Light Of Polysystem Theory

The May Fourth Movement period witnessed the third high tide of translation in China, during which poetry translation was very popular. From the perspective of history, poetry translation seemed to be connected with the transition of the Chinese literature and the establishment of new Baihua poems.As the leader of poetry translation in the May Fourth Movement period, Hu Shi is also the first one that began to translate poems in Baihua (vernacular Chinese). He claimed to abolish the classical Chinese, and encourage the use of Baihua since he considered Baihua as the only tool of creating new literature. Hu Shi explored writing Baihua poems, and he also managed to translate poems in Baihua at the same time. Although he started writing poems in Baihua earlier than his translation, Hu Shi completed the experiment on Baihua poems firstly in the process of translation, establishing the new Baihua poems, thus breaking away from the classical Chinese poems both in form and content, which not only provides new models for his poem creation, but also makes contribution to the development of modern poetry. Therefore, it is worthwhile to study the influence of Hu Shi’s poem translation on his poem creation.The studies of Hu Shi’s poem translation are done mainly from three aspects:Firstly, Hu Shi is taken as a case study of being a translator, and the studies are focused on his translation purpose, the subjectivity of the translator, the choice of the original texts, etc. Secondly, Hu Shi’s poetry translation is discussed from different perspectives, such as rewriting perspective, perspective of translation ethics, etc. Lastly, the relation of Hu Shi’s poem translation and his poem creation is also discussed, although the studies on this area are by no means rich. Besides, it lacks in-depth analysis. In view of this, the present thesis attempts to explore the influence of Hu Shi’s poem translation on his poem creation from the perspective of polysystem theory. It firstly analyzes the position of translated literature in the Chinese literary polysystem during the May Fourth Movement period, and then studies Hu Shi’s poem translation, including the motivation of translation, the translation thoughts, etc. Furthermore, in terms of the features of Hu Shi’s poem translation and his life experiences, the thesis divides Hu Shi’s poem translation into four stages and makes an analysis of each of them, exploring how his choice of translation strategy in each stage was influenced by the position of translated literature.Through the diachronic and synchronic comparison of Hu Shi’s translated poems and written poems, it is found that during the May Fourth Movement period, Hu Shi’s poem translation was influenced by his poem creation, promoting the experiment of Hu Shi’s Baihua poems and resulting in the emergence of new Baihua poems. These influences are manifested in the following aspects:with respect to form, Hu Shi’s written Baihua poems are separated by stanzas, and the poetic lines are of different lengths; with respect to language, Hu Shi used Baihua as the language of his poem creation, which is easy to understand; with respect to rhythm, Hu Shi discarded the rhythms of classical poems and employed natural rhythm; with respect to poetic themes, Hu Shi initiated the writing of philosophical poems, and wrote love poems in a frank and candid way; lastly, through poem translation, Hu Shi introduced the writing technique of foreign literature into his own poem creation, and composed a great many poems.