A Comparative Study Of The English Translations Of Mao Zedong's Poems

Mao Zedong's Poems, a model of the combination of revolutionary realism with revolutionary romanticism, carries forward the glorious tradition of Chinese poetry and possesses the nature and significance of proletarian revolution. As a harmonious integration of politics, military affairs, history, philosophy and art, Mao Zedong's Poems is an important component of Mao Zedong Thought, and a miniature of modern Chinese culture. To translate Mao Zedong's Poems into English is to introduce to western countries its poetic art, Mao Zedong Thought, and modern Chinese culture. However, different translators at different historical times have different understandings of the political nature and artistic features, so they demonstrate differences in dealing with form and content, politics and art, literal translation and liberal translation, and faithfulness and elegance. By conducting a comprehensive and systematic study of two English versions occurring at different times, this thesis attempts to prove that both political nature and artistic features of Mao's poems can be simultaneously retained in the target text and that the translatability of poetry will be inevitably influenced by power mechanism.This thesis consists of five chapters besides introduction and conclusion.The introduction briefs the writing motive and the basic structure of this thesis;Chapter One is an introduction to Mao Zedong's Poems-its major characteristics and its status in modern Chinese literature-and its English translations at home and abroad;Chapter Two presents the theories to be used for analyzing the target textsin this thesis: Andre Lefevere's Manipulation Theory and Xu Yuanzhong's Three-Beauty Theory on poetry translation;Chapter Three gives an analysis of the official version by the Foreign Languages Press. By applying Manipulation Theory to studying the official version, this chapter probes the influences the dominant ideology and poetics have exercised upon the process and strategies of translation. In translation, the official group follows the principle of "faithfulness and expressiveness" to rewrite the original, thus gives top priority to sense even at the expense of the metrical beauty and formal beauty. It concludes that improper political interventions will hinder the representation of artistic beauty;Chapter Four focuses on the version by Prof. Xu Yuanzhong. By applying Manipulation Theory to studying Xu's version, this chapter explores the impacts the dominant ideology and poetics have exerted on the process and strategies of translation. In translation, Prof. Xu endeavors to rewrite the original in the light of "Three-Beauty Theory", maximally and successfully achieving the unity of sense, sound and form. Finally it concludes that poetry is translatable and beautiful source texts can generate beautiful target texts;Chapter Five first makes a comparative study of the two versions from the perspective of cultural translation and then reevaluates them from the manipulative factors. It demonstrates that the political content as the social culture and the metrical form as the artistic culture could be reproduced simultaneously; translatability is a relative term that could be improved with the elapse of time and the change of dominant ideologies. Nevertheless, improper interventions from certain dominant ideology will weaken the translatability of poetry;The conclusion sums up the whole thesis.