Color Images In Tang-Song Poetry And Their Translation

Compared to a gem with brilliant facets, Tang-Song poetry remains unsurpassed in the history of both Chinese and world's civilization. As the old saying goes, "There is painting in a poem". Reading a poem, one seems to place himself in the midst of picturesque sight. By means of color images, the poets painted varicolored scroll paintings. All the colorsin the natural world------red, orange, yellow, green, black, blue and purplewere put in good use either to depict landscapes or to express the poets' sentiment. It is said that each color in Tang-Song poetry seems to be full of emotion and thus is of unique artistic charm. In line with translating aesthetics and linguistic theory, the thesis examines the color images in Tang-Song poetry from various angels and probes into the best way to translate them.The thesis is developed into five parts.To have a better understanding of Tang-Song poetry, in the first part, a brief introduction is given to the formation, development as well as characters of Tang-Song poetry. In the second and third part, a colorful world of Tang-Song poetry is explored on the basis of chromatics principle, including the classification of color images, the artistic beauty created by color images when depicting plants, attire and females.Meanwhile, a few remarks are made on the relationship between color images and noted poets.The thesis tells about the difficulty and feasibility in poetry translation in the fourth part. The author holds the view that for the sake of the cultural exchange between East and West, translating poetry is of necessity and possibility, though it is quite a hard job to do so. The fourth part mainly deals with the translation of color images. Mistranslation of color image is analyzed. With regard to the standard of poetry translation, some rules are required as follows: 1) the rendering of a poem must remain to be a poem. If the original is classical poetry, it is not good to translate it into free verse. 2) On the basis of faithfulness to the original, a translated verse should try to keep the image and artistic conception, thus reproducing the charm of the original poem. 3) Tang-Song poetry is of rhythm and rime, which should also be maintained in the translated; otherwise the beauty of sound will be lost. In terms of the best way to translate color image, the author approves the " three-aspected beauty" theory put forward by Xu Yuanchong. What's more, in accordance with the author, more stress should be put on semantic equivalence, appropriate diction and aesthetic principle so far as the translation of color images is concerned. The fifth part is the conclusion.