A Study Of Jiu Bian's English Version From The Perspective Of Philosophical Hermeneutics

The chief theme of Jiubian is to mourn for autumn which makes it the firstpoem with rich emotions in Chinese literary history, so it has a deep influence on themournful autumn mode of poets afterwards. In reality, the mourning for autumn isnot really being sad about autumn; in the historical times when the culture of Chucideclines, and feudalism is to replace slavery, the theme of mourning for autumnexpresses a new theme, that is, poor litterateurs are depressed and sad for the failureof their political dreams, which is agreed on by almost all litterateurs living in thelater feudal society. Moreover, Jiubian is recorded in Chinese literary history forgood because of its special value. On the one hand, it inherits Qu Yuan's Lisao, andon the other hand, it enlightens poems of later poets. However, the translation ofJiubian and studies on the translation are relatively lagged behind a lot.This thesis tries to analyze the three English versions of Jiubian mainly bycomparison from the perspective of philosophical hermeneutics. Since literarytranslation, especially poem translation is at essence an art of understanding,expression of senses, and a reproduced process of beauty by means of interpreting,hermeneutics theories which concern with the interpreting of meanings can beadopted to analyze the translators'understanding and interpreting of the source text.By the theories of historicity of understanding, pre-understanding and fusion ofhorizons of philosophical hermeneutics, this thesis makes an analysis of the threeEnglish versions of Jiubian which are respectively translated by Hawks, XuYuanchong and Zhuo Zhenying from the aspects of the historical backgrounds, basisof understanding and the range of horizons of the three translators. Firstly, ananalysis of the translation of title and historical allusions is made from theperspective of historicity of understanding. From the analysis we know that created in some historical circumstances, the source text is always limited in certainhistorical background and culture tradition. And translators are in certain language,social and cultural backgrounds so they have their own historicity which cannot bechosen by themselves and their mind and sense are marked by historicalbackgrounds before they do any interpretations, which will affect their understandingand translating of the source text. Secondly, the thesis analyzes the translation ofimages and reiterative locutions by means of the theory of pre-understanding. It isknown from the analysis that any understanding has its necessary prerequisite and atranslator's understanding of the source text depends on his pre-understanding in alarge way. And finally, the thesis analyzes the representation of the form and style bythe theory of fusion of horizons. Through the analysis we know that the differencebetween the interpreter's horizon and the horizon of the source text which resultsfrom temporal distance and changes of historical situations cannot be eliminated byanyone; what the interpreter should do is to make the two horizons fused together sothat both the interpreter and the source text surpass their original horizons to reach anew horizon.This thesis analyzed the three English versions of Jiubian from the perspectiveof philosophical hermeneutics so that more and more people may know and careabout the researches on Song Yu and the translation of his works. Moreover, thisthesis might provide a new aspect for poetry translation and makes somecontribution to the study of the English translation of Song Yu's works.