Image Translation In Classical Chinese Poetry

Classical Chinese poetry, the very essence of Chinese literature, is cherished as our unique heritage with its mysterious glamour. Images abound in Chinese poems and play an important role in poetic creation. The charm of poetry is attributable to the adoption of rich images. Based on the belief that image is the unit of classical Chinese poetry translation, this thesis sets out to make a tentative and systematic study of image transference in classical Chinese poetry. The author of this paper makes an attempt to systemize the image translation approach in poetry and to discover the intrinsic relations among the seemingly unrelated concepts: individual image, image-G (格式塔意象/Gestalt image) and ideorealm (意境). Image is a broad category including image-G and individual images. The relation between them is that of the whole and parts. Both of them can be realized mentally and linguistically, resulting mental and linguistic images. By comparing the components of image-G and ideorealm, the present study finds that both image-G and ideorealm are composed of individual images. The quality of the whole is not the simple addition of its parts. Besides, the aesthetic components of image-G are "contour" and "mood", which correspond to the key elements of ideorealm "scene" and "emotion". The similarities between image-G and ideorealm provide tangible access to the ideorealm translation. The author approaches classical poetry translation from both traditional poetics and modern psychological ways. The former addresses image in its micro sense (individual image) and the latter, also termed image-G (Gestalt image), highlights its macro sense. The distinction of individual images and image-G makes the proposal of image-G translation model possible. The image-G translation model is simplified as follows: "S-text image-G—mental image-G—T-text image-G". Aesthetic qualities of image-G, gestalt structure and individual images are the highlights in the process. Mental image-G is an indispensable intermediate stage in this model. It bridges the transition between source and target text, throwing light on the middle stage that has long been neglected by translation studies. Due to the existence of this cognitive process, translation is an inevitable creative task. In this regard, image-G model and hermeneutics overlap in accounting for the creative nature of translation. Unlike the prevailing translation studies that explain creativity from hermeneutic perspective, this study maintains that mental image-G is the root cause for creativity in translation. From image-G model two implications are derived: 1. Ideorealm is the ultimate goal to achieve in poetry translation, and a criterion against which translation of the individual images should be measured. 2. The creative nature of translation is determined by the existence of mental image-G in the image-G actualization process. The image-G translation model provides proof that translation is a creative activity. In light of this, different interpretations are acceptable as long as they are consistent with the ideorealm. The present paper is composed of five chapters. Chapter one is a brief introduction to the research background, major translation schools and the purposes of this study. Chapter two begins with a review of image theory development and goes on to discover different senses of image which pave the way for further study. In chapter three, classification is made on individual images with translation methods analyzed. In chapter four, image-G and ideorealm are elaborately compared. An image-G translation model is put forward, followed by its practical and theoretical implications on classical Chinese poetry translation. Chapter five is the conclusion. The author of this thesis believes the combination of traditional poetics and modern translation studies provides the most satisfactory approach to classical Chinese poetry translation. This paper offers a novel access to classical Chinese poetry translation in the hope of bringing about fresh...