An Analysis Of Edward Schafer’s Translation Of Tang Poetry And Its Characteristics

As a sinologist,Edward Schafer had devoted his life to the study of Tang Dynasty in China.His research on China covers the history of communication between central government and border in China,material culture,and Taoist culture in Tang Dynasty.His research mainly relies on Chinese classical poetry,Fu and other texts.From the 1950 s to the 1980 s,he published 8 academic books,and more than 30 pieces of papers.These academic achievements include a large number of translated works of Tang poems by him.This thesis collects more than 200 Tang poems from the works above and manages to summarize the characteristics of his choice of poetry translation.From his preference on Tang poetry and vocabulary in the translated poems,the thesis tries to find his uniqueness on comprehending Chinese culture.The thesis also analyzes the reasons for Edward Schafer’s preference on translating Tang poems.Among those poems,Ch’ung Sung,The Song of God’s Child and Cantos on Pacing the Void are three characterized case.The thesis chooses those cases as examples to explain the Translator’s Subjectivity and characteristics of his translation.This thesis believes that his translation of Tang poetry relates closely to his comprehension of Chinese culture,such as Chinese mythology,Taoist culture,and the communication between ancient China and foreign civilizations.This thesis also finds that he was influenced by his own Western perspective when he attempted to understand Chinese culture,and he only focused on the mysterious part of Chinese culture,such as the transcendent in Taoist culture.All his comprehension perfectly matches the stereotype of Orientalism,such as the goddess complex in Chinese mythology.It is obvious that there is a western gaze in his poetry translation.The vocabulary Edward Schafer applied to explain unique Chinese cultural imagery in his translation is elegant and charming and worth studying.Through the English translation of Tang poetry,he introduced the romantic and splendid culture of Tang Dynasty in China to the United States.Though his research was limited by the invisible Orientalism then,this research opened a path to the Tang Dynasty for American researchers or even scholars all over the world,thus the value of it is undeniable.