| As one of the Protestant missionaries to China in the early 19 th century,Robert Morrison(1782-1834)has translated many Chinese literary classics into English and he also tried to translate Chinese poetry.Morrison translated a total of ten Chinese poems into English,including Du Mu’s “Jiu Ri Qi Shan Deng Gao” and Xu Hun’s “Cun She”,and published them in newspapers and periodicals,such as A Grammar of the Chinese Language,the Translations from the Original Chinese with Notes,the Chinese Repository,and the Indo-Chinese Gleaner.Morrison’s poetry translation is of great significance to both Sinology and the English translation of Chinese poetry,but at present,there are still few studies on Morrison’s English translation of Chinese poetry,especially the study from a comprehensive perspective.Imagery is an important part of Chinese poetry.As an organic integration of subjective emotion and objective image,imagery is an important tool for poets to express themselves.Imagery does not exist alone in a poem,and it is often combined to form the imagery system.The translation of poetic imagery can reflect a translator’s translation principles.This study takes Morrison’s English translations of the ten Chinese poems as the research material,with Susan Bassnett’s Cultural Translation Theory as the theoretical basis.It is explored how Morrison represents the imagery of Chinese poetry in his English translations,and the characteristics and methods of Morrison’s translation are also summarized through descriptive and qualitative studies.Through analysis,it is found that Morrison’s translation of poetic imagery mainly has the following three characteristics: transliteration based on Morrison’s pinyin system,less stress on the rhyme translation,and the assistance of paratext.In addition,this study also explores Morrison’s imagery translation from two aspects: single imagery and imagery system.It is found that Morrison mainly adopts transliteration and literal translation in his translating of poetic imagery.Foreignization is preferred when the imagery has special cultural connotation.Free translation and annotation are taken as the supplementary methods.However,sometimes there are deviations in Morrison’s understanding of certain cultural imagery,leading to the cultural loss in his translation.From the perspective of cultural translation,Morrison focuses on the introduction of the culture of source language and pays less attention to the form of poetry in the process of translating.Morrison’s translation principles have its unique influence in the specific cultural context.To conclude,the purpose of this study is to analyze Morrison’s translation of poetic imagery from the perspective of Cultural Translation Theory,so as to make readers have a more in-depth and comprehensive understanding of Morrison’s translation principles.It is also hoped to provide enlightenment for the translation of Chinese poetry in the new era. |
