On The English Translation Of Chinese Tang Poetry From The Perspective Of Lefevere’s Poetics

Although it has become the world’s second-largest economy,China still needs to accelerate the course of culture "going-global" in the 21st century.China is a nation of poetry.Tang poetry is the pinnacle of Chinese poetic development.Translating Tang poetry into English takes an indispensable role in spreading Chinese culture around the world.The history of translating Chinese Tang poetry into English is more than 200 years old.However,this practice always lacks theoretical guidance and there is no one translation method universally accepted.It is essential to find a suitable translation method for the English translation of Chinese Tang poetry in the 21st century.This paper has applied Lefevere’s poetics to the English translation of Chinese Tang poetry and provided some new suggestions for this translation practice in the 21st century.This paper mainly adopts three research methods:diachronic research,comparative research,and case study.First,this paper generalizes the phenomena and drawbacks of the English translation of Chinese Tang poetry at home and abroad by diachronic research.Then,this paper gives full explanations to these phenomena and drawbacks from poetics,which proves the applicability of Lefevere’s poetics in the English translation of Chinese Tang poetry.Next,this paper conducts a comparative study of Giles’s and Xu Yuanchong’s English translation of Chinese Tang poetry and discusses how their translation is constrained by the functional component and inventory component of poetics respectively.This comparative study further proves that poetics can be the guiding theory for the English translation of Chinese Tang poetry.Finally,under the guidance of poetics and based on the situation that American culture dominates the world culture system nowadays,this paper points out that the English translation of Chinese Tang poetry should cater to American readers.Today,American people are facing pressure from war,terrorism,unemployment,and environmental problems...They need to take comfort from lyric poetry.Thus,we should select more Tang poems about love,peace,nature et cetera.Because free verse is more popular than the rhymed verse in America,free verse is a more suitable genre for the English translation of Chinese Tang poetry in the 21st century.