A Study On The Translation Of Han Shan’s Poems From The Perspective Of Reception Aesthetics

Han Shan has a legendary life in the history of Chinese literature. He writes a large number of poems, but only three hundred poems have been left. His poems are fresh in language, distinctive in style and profound in thought, enjoying unfailing artistic charm and aesthetic value. However, Han Shan and his poems were seldom known by the public for a long time in China. When Han Shan and his poems were introduced to foreign countries, he got a brilliant fame and unexpected popularity. Under this circumstance, a lot of translators abroad devoted to translating his poems, among which Gary Snyder was the most outstanding one. His translation coming out in 1958 was regarded as a classic in American literary history, which made great contributions to the dissemination and reception of Han Shan’s poems overseas. Due to Snyder’s translation, Han Shan became the spiritual idol of the Beat Generation across time and space.Reception Aesthetics arose during the time of Culture Turn in 1960s and 1970s when translation studies began to shift from the language level to a macroscopic context of culture, society and history. This theory provides a brand-new theoretical perspective for translation practice and translation criticism of literary works since it puts emphasis on readers’role in the reading process. Readers use their creativity and imagination to participate in the concretization of a literary work and decide its historical role as well. Based on this theory, a detailed analysis of Snyder’s translation of Han Shan’s poems from readers’expectation, indeterminacy and readers’ role will be carried out, in the hope of providing the reasons for Snyder’s selection of the 24 poems and the popularity of his translation among the target readers.This thesis consists of four chapters. The first chapter briefly introduces the research background, research purpose and significance of the study. Chapter Two is the literature review. First, it deals with the theoretical basis of Reception Aesthetics, including the rise, development and main concepts as well as its enlightenment on translation. Then it gives a review on studies on Han Shan and his poems at home and abroad as well as the application of Reception Aesthetics on Chinese classical poetry translation. Chapter Three is the key part, which makes a detailed analysis of Snyder’s translation of Han Shan’s poems from the perspectives of readers’ expectation, indeterminacy and readers’ role by taking the theory of Reception Aesthetics as the basis. Chapter Four makes a conclusion of the study, in which limitations and suggestions are included. It is Snyder’s special attention to the target readers that makes his translation of Han Shan’s poems widely spread and well accepted in America.