Historico-cultural Recontextualization In Translating Ancient Chinese Classics

Chuci,also known as Sao style and Chuci style,is a genre created by Qu Yuan and other poets in the Warring States period.In the Western Han dynasty,Liu Xiang collected the works of Qu Yuan,Song Yu and others in the anthology entitled “Chu ci”.This is the first anthology of romantic poems in the history of Chinese literature.The works of the Chu ci are characterized by strong feelings,vivid imagination,and Chu’s landscape,customs,and practices,which are exotic for foreign readers.In addition,these poems were created about two thousand years ago.Therefore,it is not easy to understand the canon.To translate and disseminate the Chu ci effectively and successfully,it is necessary and vital to conduct historico-cultural recontextualization,but no researcher has so far studied the reconstruction of historical and cultural contexts in the field of translation studies of the Chu ci.Taking Gopal Sukhu’s The Songs of Chu as the object of study and integrating quantitative research and qualitative research,the author of this thesis formulates a theoretical model for recontextualizing ancient classics in translation based on thick translation and paratextual theories,analyzes the types of historico-cultural recontextualization and recontextualizing strategies used in Sukhu’s translation,and explores the practicable translation mode of ancient classics with the goal to enlighten the translation of ancient Chinese classics.The research findings show that the original picturesque landscape,technology and craft,beliefs and customs,political environment and cosmological consciousness are adequately reconstructed in the target text(TT)via use of various paratexts,such as introductions,notes and the appendix,as well as some strategies employed in the translation proper such as literal translation,free translation and transliteration.Taken as a whole,the multi-dimensional and successful historico-cultural recontextualization of Sukhu’s The Song of Chu owes much to the translator’s flexible application of various paratextual strategies together with textual strategies and his continuing,systematic and dynamic studies on the Chu ci and Chu culture.It can be argued that the mode of combining research and translation which is characterized by thick translation is a feasible way for the translation of ancient Chinese classics.