A Probe Into Translation Theory And English Versions Of Some Tang Peoms

Tang Poetry is a precious gem of Chinese culture. It is the zenith of classical Chinese poetry. Translating Tang Poetry into English, in the era of cultural globalization, is crucial to the wide spreading of Chinese culture and to the interaction and communication of all the cultures in the whole world.Translation study up to now has developed from the level of linguistics to that of culture, it has taken "the cultural turn". Translators should make use of the methods of linguistics and go beyond them to the connotative and denotative meaning of the translated works and to the cultural environment to which the works belong, that is to say, translation should achieve the unity of language and culture.Actually, this has been done through the efforts of both Chinese and foreign translators and scholars for a century or so, among whom Herbert A. Giles, Arthur Waley, Ezra Pound, Xu Yuanzhong, Weng Xianliang and some others are prominent figures. Many collections of English versions of Chinese poems, including Tang poetry, have been published at home and abroad, such as Jade Mountain translated by Arthur Waley; Selections from the 300 Poems of the Tang Dynasty by Soame Jenyns; 150 Tang Poems, Selected Poems of Li Bai and 300 Tang Poems-A New Translation by Xu Yuanzhong; and An English Translation of Chinese Ancient Poems by Weng Xianliang, etc.This thesis introduces some translation theories, principles and methods of several well-known scholars and experts, domestic and abroad, namely, "Transplanting Seed" of Susan Bassnett; the three strategies mimetic form, anological form organic form or content-derivation and deviant or extraneous form of James Holmes; the three kinds of poems which are less translatable - melopoeia, phanopoeia and logopoeia of Ezra Pound; "the Expressive Method and Compositive Method" of Cheng Fangwu; "to keep the manner, rhyme schemes and number and order of words" of Wen Yiduo and the three principles of "preserving the original beauty in sense, in sound and in form" of Xu Yuanzhong. The author, based on them, draws the conclusion that in translating Tang poetry into English, the translator should, by rendering, reproducing and re-presenting the words and phrases, rhyme scheme, ideorealm and ideology, achieve the unity of language and culture. The High Tang pastoral poet Meng Haoran's The Spring Morning and its four English versions are studied us a case of point.