An Aesthetic Analysis Of Wen Yiduo's Translation Of English Poems

Wen Yiduo was the advocate of Chinese New Metrical Poems and translating poetry with vernacular Chinese in the early 20th century. As an excellent translator, he has made achievements both in theory and practice.This thesis functions as an introduction and a description of Wen Yiduo's translation theory and practice. His translation theory is summarized as follows in the thesis:(1) on selecting the original works; (2) on the steps of translating; (3) on a translator's attitude towards translation; (4) on a translator's power; (5) on the translation strategy; (6) a translator of a poem should be a poet; (7) on the language in poetry. As to his translation practice, the aesthetic features presented in his translation are emphasized in this thesis. The aesthetic features showed in his Chinese version of English poems can be described as: beauty in music, beauty in form, beauty in painting and the poetic language. It is also hoped that this study will enable us to have a crystal picture of the fact that a poet and concurrently a translator's translation will be influenced by his writing style.This paper consists of five chapters, beginning with an introduction of the significance, the purpose and the approach of the study. Then, a brief account of Wen Yiduo's life is presented in the second chapter. An introduction to Wen Yiduo's translation achievement is the main content of the third chapter. The fourth chapter is the core of this thesis. Firstly the introduction of his ideas guiding artistic creation is made in this chapter; and secondly the aesthetic tendency showed in his translation is presented through the comparison of different translator's different versions of onepoem. Finally, the fifth chapter gives the conclusion: being a pioneer to introduce the English poems into China, Wen Yiduo has made remarkable achievements both in translation theory and practice, and his translation theories and translations of English poetry deserve a place in the Chinese history of verse translation.