A Study Of Burton Watson’s English Translation Of Lu You’s Poems

Burton Watson(1925-2017),a world-renowned sinologist and translator,has been committed to translating Chinese literary classics,including ancient poetry,Buddhist scriptures,pre-Qin proses and so on.He has won various translation awards and received widespread praise,making outstanding contributions to the transmission of traditional Chinese literature and culture.Since the 1950 s,Watson has been devoted to the English translation and dissemination of ancient Chinese poetry.The Old Man Who Does As He Pleases: Selections from the Poetry and Prose of Lu Yu(1973)and Late Poems of Lu You,The Old Man Who Does As He Pleases(2007)are two representatives of Watson,which strongly promoted the overseas dissemination of Lu You,a representative poet of the Song Dynasty.At present,the domestic academic research on Watson’s translation of Chinese poems mainly focuses on the analysis of his translation style and translation strategies.Compared with broad research on Watson’s renditions of Su Shi,Bai Juyi,Du Fu and Han Shan’s poems,the research on Watson’s translation of Lu You’s poems is somewhat ignored.This thesis will take Watson’s translation of Lu You’s poems as the research object and Manipulation Theory as the methodology to examine the manipulative factors,poetic variations and reception of his translation of Lu You’s poems.The thesis is divided into three chapters,which will systematically investigate Watson’s translation and compiling strategies from three aspects: the manipulation of Lu You’s image,the poetic variations and the value of the translated text.Chapter One studies the influence of the social and cultural context on Watson’s English translation practices of Lu You’s poetry.It finds that Watson’s selection preference,the arrangement of paratext and the translation of cultural imageries are aimed at weakening Lu You’s multifaceted images,especially his patriotic image,and reshaping Lu You as a poet who enjoys nature and leisure,which meets the needs of contemporary American’s “chinoiserie” fondness.Chapter Two analyzes that influenced by dominant poetics,Watson’s poetic orientation of translation,including the reconstruction of musicality,domesticated translation of antithesis and the reader-oriented adoption of colloquialism,accords to the internal need for the localization of American poetry.Chapter Three discusses the value of Watson’s translation as translated literature and points out that the innovative manipulated and variated translated text,after being introduced into the literary field of target language,have not only affected foreign readers’ understanding of Lu You’s image and Lu You’s poetics,but also attracted contemporary American poets to incorporate elements of Lu You’s poems into their poetry creation.The thesis finds that Watson’s domesticating translation strategy and cross-cultural interpretation of Lu You’s poems has fully taken the local American cultural and poetic context into accounts,which not only satisfies public readers’ expectations,but also facilitates the localization and creative absorb of the literary elements in Lu You’s poems by contemporary American poets,endowing the original work an “afterlife” and promoting the dissemination and acceptance of Lu You,a classical Chinese poet,in contemporary America.